[Read down for updates]
Live blogging some bits and bobs this morning.
Just finished a speech at the Internet Advertising Bureau's Engage for Travel conference, titled "Challenge for Advertisers with Travel 2.0".
Plenty of nods in the audience when talking about ad budgets and engaging so-called Web 2.0 sites such as blogs and social networks. One of the people I spoke to when writing the speech said there is a real sense that experimental advertising is being reigned in, favouring the measurable - i.e. search and affiliate advertising - marketing campaigns.
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Lewis Lenssen of Netizen Digital: measure the effectiveness of offline brand campaigns with a strong pay-per-click advertising push.
Price and product are still king. If the product is poor you'll get found out still.
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Russell Gould, Thomas Cook:
The TCG ecommerce four-point plan - 1) customer acquisition 2) customer retention and growth 3) customer conversion 4) measurement and optimisation. Simple?
Engagement hugely important: maintaining contact constantly (and usefully) with the customer, primarily through email marketing.
Gould is "stunned" by the impact of video on conversion rates on thomascook.com. User who looks at video converts at 30% higher than those who don't.
40% of people that clicked on the recently Thomas Cook interactive magazine then went to the website, via the Book Now buttons.
Gould invites delegates to try the new Beta thomascook.com.
User reviews coming. Not Tripadvisor. Will use negative and positive reviews, will moderate against profanity, etc.
Best bit of the speech: personalised video demonstration.
Videos created live, simply by pulling together clips from the preferences put forward by the user. Very impressive.
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Kevin May, editor, Travolution
