Compete with OTAs
Take back marketshare from Online Travel Agencies
In today’s customer acquisition landscape, airlines are navigating complex digital terrain in which online travel agencies (OTAs) and metasearch engines (MSEs) seize the majority of organic search traffic and, therefore, new customers. At EveryMundo, we’re working to help airlines rise to this challenge by providing scalable Fare Marketing solutions aimed at increasing customer acquisition & direct channel sales.
As airlines prepare their strategies for the Restart and Recovery phase after COVID-19, they will need to focus efforts on competing for customers against aggressive offers from other airlines, and especially OTAs. Airlines must execute best-in-class Fare Marketing strategies if they intend to compete with OTAs and MSEs for business and customer loyalty.
On this page we provide examples of what OTAs and MSEs are doing to drive page traffic and convert customers, using Fare Marketing both on-page and off-page. We also show how airlines can easily launch Fare Marketing strategies to compete with OTAs.
On-Page Fare Marketing
Any visitor to an OTA website will easily find dozens of flight prices from a variety of airlines, often sorted from cheapest to most expensive. This marketing strategy encourages travelers to select a flight based predominantly on price.
OTA pages typically have fares in list modules, but can also display available fares in histograms, maps, or other types of graphs aimed at helping the traveler decipher the best fare.
Fares are the main message across these pages. OTAs do not invest in inspiration or personalization when they are trying to convert a page visitor. The primary goal is to get the traveler to complete their purchase on the OTA’s website and not go to one of their competitors or an airline to make their booking.
Given that OTAs are so competitive, the fact that they all choose Fare Marketing above all other types of messages to promote shows that communicating in fares is the best way to drive conversions online.
Examples of OTAs using Fare Marketing on their websites:
Orbitz
Priceline
Travelocity
Expedia
How can airlines compete?
airTRFX
Using only a route list, airTRFX automatically generates pages for every route, origin,and destination in an airline’s network, in all languages, currencies, they cover. airTRFX dramatially enhances webpresence and integrates seamlessly with an airline’s existing website.
These airTRFX pages include real-time flight information, engaging content, flight search modules, and campaign automation capabilities. Users that land on these pages are able to see the best available real-time fares for flights they are looking for.
airModules
airModules are conversion-oriented flight search tools with real-time fares that can be deployed on any web page. They come in various forms, shapes, and sizes, and have different functionalities that are leveraged to meet various goals. Some popular designs include: Histograms, Calendars, Lists, Mosaics, Maps, Carousels, Grids, and more.
The airModules library offers solutions for users in different stages of the conversion funnel and for traffic generated through all digital channels – search engines, social networks, display ads, email and affiliates.
Off-Page Fare Marketing
OTAs use Fare Marketing in their Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to attract travelers to visit their website pages by displaying the lowest fares. OTAs need to compete with each other for the attention of travelers and choose to have their fares as their main marketing message.
When a traveler uses Google to search for a flight, most of the search results are from OTAs, not airlines. In these paid and organic results, OTAs frequently indlude their lowest available price as well as ad extensions that offer additional information.
Conduct a Google search for “flights to Orlando” and you will find results similar to those pictured. Looking at these results, users are likely inclined to select the page with the lowest fare offered, or open multiple pages to find out which OTA is offering the lowest price.
How can airlines compete?
airSEM
airSEM is our portfolio of airline Search Engine Marketing technology that enables airlines to launch, scale, promote and optimize digital marketing campaigns. With these tools, airlines are able to launch unlimited search engine marketing campaigns with optimized bidding, promotions, and include real-time fares in relevant market currency for every route in more than 30 languages.
FareWire
Airlines can take their off-page Fare Marketing a step further with FareWire. FareWire is a fully-hosted collection of APIs that allow airline marketers to easily deploy dynamic fare and flight information into their digital marketing channels. This gives airlines the ability to market their fares across the web, and ensures that the prices shown are the most up-to-date.
