SELL HOLIDAY TRAVEL
EXPERIENCES ONLINE?
Good Emotions Mean Good Conversion
If you work in the online travel industry, how do your customers
feel when they book with you?
Booking a holiday getaway can be an emotional customer
experience, and to get the best conversion rate you need to make
sure your site and booking process always evoke the right emotions.
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Contents
Emotions That Reduce Conversion
FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN
How to avoid it
CONFUSION
How to avoid it
Emotions that Trigger Higher Conversion Rates
FEAR OF MISSING OUT
How to create it
SMUGNESS
How to create it
EXCITEMENT
How to create it
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Emotions That Reduce
Conversion
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Sell Holiday Travel Experiences Online? Good Emotions Mean Good Conversion
FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN
The holiday season can be stressful,
especially when arranging travel that can
further stretch personal budgets. So it’s
natural that customers can feel some
trepidation when committing a large sum of
money. As a marketer, think about what you
need to put in place to reassure customers.
H O W T O AV O I D I T
Include every detail of what is included in the deal. A
company that sold packaged vacations wanted to save
space on its mobile product listings. It tested removing
a breakdown of what the holiday included to do this. Its
bookings dropped by more than 30%!
Make cancellation policies clear, and offer insurance in
case a customer needs to cancel. One travel company
saw increased conversion when it included a more
detailed table of insurance options. The change lifted
conversion even among customers who didn’t actually
take up the insurance.
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Sell Holiday Travel Experiences Online? Good Emotions Mean Good Conversion
CONFUSION
Make sure it is clear what the user needs
to input at each stage in the search and
booking process.
H O W T O AV O I D I T
Improve search forms
For one travel company, simply adding a one-word label
to a field in a search form resulted in a seven-figure
increase in annual revenue.
Before the change, the label was a placeholder inside
the field, meaning that prospective vacationers who
tabbed to the field didn’t see it. This left them without any
signpost to identify the field. The result was confusion
and abandonment of the search.
Destination
Destination
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Sell Holiday Travel Experiences Online? Good Emotions Mean Good Conversion
Balance Up-Front Details with a Prominent CTA
One purchase journey for a packaged vacation had a large ‘basket’ above each step
detailing the options chosen so far.
This pushed the call to action below the fold, which meant the visitor had to scroll down
to see it. So, the company tested removing or collapsing the basket.
For the first few steps, conversion to the next step increased but ultimately, conversions
stayed the same. Why? The confusion caused by not having the selected holiday details
easily accessible balanced out any gains from making the CTA more obvious.
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Emotions that Trigger
Higher Conversion Rates
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Sell Holiday Travel Experiences Online? Good Emotions Mean Good Conversion
FEAR OF MISSING OUT
Earlier, we discussed the bad kind of fear,
but this kind of fear can help you make
a quick sale and guide users towards
impulse purchases.
A holiday can be a long purchase cycle, but recently, many
travel retailers have started to use the tactics of scarcity
and urgency to give potential customers a reason to make
the purchase now.
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Sell Holiday Travel Experiences Online? Good Emotions Mean Good Conversion
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H O W T O C R E AT E I T
Add up-to-date information that shows
that a deal is popular – so users fear that it
will sell out.
The hotel listing shown here displays both
the number of people looking at the hotel
“right now,” and the number of bookings
today. The second listing even explicitly
states that they expect to sell out soon.
Example from booking.com
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Sell Holiday Travel Experiences Online? Good Emotions Mean Good Conversion
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$346
An airline found that showing the precise number of seats
left on a flight significantly lifted conversion.
Only 4 seat(s) left at this price
$404
Only 4 seat(s) left at this price
Visitors felt pressured to make the purchase before the
seats were sold, and so didn’t have as much opportunity
to change their minds or research competitive options.
Use countdown clocks where a deal or offer is limited,
such as this one, to the right.
Deals end in
06 : 19 : 18
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Sell Holiday Travel Experiences Online? Good Emotions Mean Good Conversion
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SMUGNESS
Managing to secure a holiday that
seems exclusive and sought after gives
your customers a sense of smugness
or one-upmanship.
This might annoy their friends but is something that as a
travel marketer you want to encourage!
To build on this, call out savings to the customer and make
sure they are crystal clear, so they can pat themselves on
the back for being so financially prudent.
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Sell Holiday Travel Experiences Online? Good Emotions Mean Good Conversion
H O W TO
C R E AT E I T
Scarcity messaging as
described earlier can
help to create this effect.
If the deal does in fact
sell out, follow up with
a notification email
to create this winning
feeling and encourage
repeat business.
Placing the savings
within the actual CTA.
For example, “Choose
this deal and save $500”
increased views on deals
and package bookings for
one vendor.
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Sell Holiday Travel Experiences Online? Good Emotions Mean Good Conversion
EXCITEMENT
Prospective vacationers are more likely
to part with hard earned cash if they feel
excited about a deal or destination.
In addition, excited customers will often post to social
media about the trip they just booked, giving you free
word of mouth referrals.
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Sell Holiday Travel Experiences Online? Good Emotions Mean Good Conversion
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H O W TO
C R E AT E I T
Content such as imagery,
video or travel guides
can show off the best
features of your holidays.
Don’t however highlight
this at the expense of
a clear and prominent
search feature. We’ve
seen ugly but clear search
pages perform better
than design-led, content
heavy pages where the
search is hidden.
Social proof, like a high
volume of positive
reviews, also helps to
hype your visitors up and
turn them into customers.
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Sell Holiday Travel Experiences Online? Good Emotions Mean Good Conversion
G E T T H E M O S T O U T O F YO U R O N L I N E
EXPERIENCES AND INCREASE REVENUE.
We can help you optimize and personalize your digital campaigns for
better conversions and improved business results.
Here’s where to find us:
>>
optimost.com
>>
@OpenTextCEM
>> [email protected]
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