Strange Conversions Dilemma.

Is this only me or do other hotel reservation affiliates face it too?

[theposter]

Hi all,

My hotel reservation sites have amazing ranks on search engines of consequence. Needless to say, each gets an adequate amount of traffic.

However,
for a lot many sites, I see the conversion ratios to be pathetic. I sell the same hotel rooms as the biggies like expedia, HRN et al and yet why is it that my sites fail to convert well enough.

The first impression would be that my sites do not hold on to the potential customer. ie i do not have adequate eyeball stickiness.

However that is not true.

My tracking programs show a LOT MANY transfers onto the ecommerce booking engines. Yet, I see very very little conversion ratios. In fact 1% conversions into transactions seems to be the norm for my sites.

Consider this, ppl like HRN can afford to spend upto $3.00 CPC for the same hotels as I sell. ie, they are so confident of their hotels selling ?. Do they have such amazing conversions to justify the money spent ?.

Yet, when I rank in the top 5 for most hotel searches I see amazing traffic - most of it transfers onto the booking engines and yet very few transactions.

Is this the industry norm or am I doing something wrong. All advice would be useful. Please bear in mind that my GUI's are good because I do transfer a lot of ppl onto the booking engines. But no sales :(

tks,
theposter.

[rcjordan]

If it's a general "guide" site, I'd say 1% is close to the norm.

>afford to spend upto $3.00 CPC for the same hotels as I sell. ie, they are so confident of their hotels selling ?. Do they have such amazing conversions to justify the money spent ?.

No, my guess is that they don't have a clue as to their ROI and their marketing department is convincing everyone that it's necessary "for the short term" so that they can build brand and capture marketshare.

[theposter]

thanks dude, what would you mean by a guide site ?. I have tried to target niche markets too, but that is a project still in its infancy. what do you mean by guide type sites ?. the ones that list hotel info + basic cty guide kinda stuff ?. the types that turn up for searches like new york hotels etc ?.

[DrCool]

I would also agree with the 1% being pretty good. In some cases I would be ecstatic getting 1%. I agree that the people paying $3 per visit have no idea what they doing. On the other hand I do know of some people spending $1-1.50 on Overture for hotel related keywords that are making a lot of money though. They are very targeted keywords though and he does have some of the best rates I have seen due to some exclusive deals with a few hotels. I wouldn't spend that much though. There is enough traffic out there without having to pay.

[rcjordan]

>what do you mean by guide type sites ?. the ones that list hotel info + basic cty guide kinda stuff ?. the types that turn up for searches like new york hotels etc ?.

Yes, there must be a million of them out there, most of them dependent upon booking services for income. Low US travel conversions stem in part from the fact that guide sites compete at a relatively generic, yet competitive level --the town name and, sometimes, the state or state code. That's fine, that's what they're searching on. However, in addition to the hotel, there are so many other things that they are hoping to find; dining, entertainment, events, things to do, even local news. So, there are a lot of travel-related reasons they come to check out a site and yet aren't really ready to book.

Another important factor to consider re conversions; which SE is providing the traffic? The differences can be staggering. I've personally had one general guide site convert at over 5% on one SE/directory (sadly, now defunct) and do less than .5% on google. It isn't the keywords, either, both of them referred on city and state.

[jk3210]

>>...and do less than .5% on google. It isn't the keywords, either...<<

RC -

I've noticed the same thing myself.

What do you think it is? Any idea?

[mayor]

>>and do less than .5% on google
>>What do you think it is? Any idea?

My theories, because I've seen this too ...

Google searchers come from all walks of life and the four corners of the globe ... some have credit cards and some don't ... some come from the US, others come from Siberia ... some are comfortable purchasing online, others have never taken the "chance". Google searches also like the "pure" non-commercial search attributes that Google touts. This crowd tends to think any commercial page is spam.

AOL and MSN searchers have a credit card, or they probably wouldn't have an account ... they're heavily from the ranks of big spenders, US citizens ... being upscale surfers with credit cards, they've probably grown accustomed to making online purchases and are comfortable doing so. These searchers are looking for something to purchase and are happy to find a commercial page leading them to their destination.

Now that Google has captured AOL I expect to see the conversion ratios of Google traffic improve, but from the ranks of AOL searches. I think pure Google traffic will continue to impress the marketing folks but not the accounting folks.

[rcjordan]

That's as good an explanation as any, mayor. Since Google (with the notable exception of google.yahoo) did not market itself to the masses but depended upon a quasi-viral distribution from the tech-savvy down to JohnQ, I think it's fair to say that their demographic may still be skewed away from the "average, credit card-toting, middleclass US citizen." In fact, their own media kit seems to confirm that:

• Male (52%), female (48%)
  
• High education (61% have at least a BA/BS)
  
• High income (average income is $75,000)
  
• Online experience of 3+ years (79%)
  
• Online everday (55%)
  
• Online shopping in the last 6 months (91.9%)
  
• Online purchase in the last 6 months (78.3%)

source: [google.com...]

[chopsticks]

I run a similar type of site and use HRN extensively. I believe that a 1% conversion rate is industry standard, or perhaps a bit above the norm.

Keep in mind that hotel bookings are NOT spur of the moment type of things.

As a matter of fact the travel industry itself is the LARGEST segment of eCommerce in terms of B to C (business to consumer). Over 10 x's the size of books (and we know that Amazon.com has branched out past books).

Anyways, if you REALLY want to you can do things like implement a personalization/membership scheme on your website that has people login to your site before they would be re-directed to HRN. Then you'd have the capability of contacting those individuals (via the email address they used when the 'registered' with you, or to have webpage that would re-direct them to a 'questions about HRN' type of page next time they visited you and logged in).

HRN & TravelNOW (HRN bought/acquired TravelNOW) together process over 50% of ALL online hotel booking reservations. They didn't get that big by screwing over their affiliates.

I've had monthly checks for over $900 regularly from HRN for over a year! But the Sept. 11th put a huge damper on the travel industry as a whole. I personally stopped all web development and promotion for my hotel related sites about 2 months after Sept. 11. It just isn't worth it in the current marketplace. (I'm currentkly making far more money by not swimming against the tide).