# The 2027 Travel Marketing Playbook Part 2: Performance Marketing & Data Attribution

An episode of [Travel Trends with Dan Christian](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1689330635), 21 Oct 2026, 1 h 35 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2172036/episodes/19998477-the-2027-travel-marketing-playbook-part-2-performance-marketing-data-attribution.mp3

Send us Fan Mail Measuring marketing performance in travel has never been straightforward, and it's only getting more complicated. With evolving privacy regulations, changing attribution models, and travelers researching trips across multiple platforms over weeks or even months, how can marketers really know what's driving bookings and where to invest their budgets? In the second episode of our three-part Marketing Series, sponsored by Propellic, Dan sits down with John Matson, Chief Revenue Officer at Propellic, and Nicole Robinson, CMO at andBeyond, to explore what effective performance marketing looks like in today's travel industry. From understanding key metrics like ROAS, CPA, and conversion rates to tackling the challenges of attribution for high-value, long-consideration trips, the conversation looks at why traditional measurement models don't always tell the full story. John and Nicole share their perspectives on first-party data, CRM integration, and incrementality testing, including how marketers can better distinguish between campaigns that generate new demand and those that simply capture existing interest. The discussion also turns to marketing budgets for 2027. If you had an additional $100,000 to spend, where would you invest it? Paid search, social media, retargeting, content, or something entirely different? And as AI-powered search and agentic booking continue to evolve, how should travel brands rethink the way they attract, engage, and convert travelers? For travel marketers looking to make smarter investment decisions, better understand what's working, and build a strategy that delivers measurable results, this episode offers practical insights from both sides of the industry. 👉 Listen to The 2027 Travel Marketing Playbook Part 2: Performance Marketing & Data Attribution 🔥 Special Thanks to our Season 8 Title Sponsors for their Support: Quark Expeditions, Intrepid, Kaptio, Propellic, Repayd, and Holafly. The #1 B2B Travel Podcast Globally. Over 100 Episodes. Listeners in 125 countries. New Episodes Every Weds. https://www.traveltrendspodcast.com/

## Chapters

- 0:00 Series Setup And Sponsor Context
- 4:40 Meet The Guests And Their Roles
- 11:05 What Performance Marketing Means In Travel
- 16:05 Attribution Basics And Why Last Click Fails
- 20:35 Small Budgets Across Many Markets
- 26:25 Forecasting Goals With Benchmarks And MMM
- 31:35 Channel Mix Search Social Display Influencers
- 38:35 Accepting Imperfect Attribution Without Guessing
- 41:49 Sponsor Break
- 43:40 Multi Touch Models CRM And First Party Data
- 48:40 Creating Demand Versus Capturing Demand
- 57:45 KPIs Lead Quality And Closing The Loop
- 1:04:10 Lifetime Value And Repeat Booking Economics
- 1:08:14 Sponsor Break
- 1:10:20 The 2027 Budget Allocation Game
- 1:19:25 Dashboards Marketers Wish They Had
- 1:25:05 2027 Priorities AI Changes And Wrap Up

## Transcript

[0:05] SPEAKER_01: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Travel Trends Podcast here in season eight.
[0:09] SPEAKER_01: As always, this is your host, Dan Christian, and this is episode two in our three-part series on marketing, the very first theme of season eight.
[0:17] SPEAKER_01: And as you heard me mention last week, the reason we wanted to bring this series to you now, as we are in October, going into November, December, and 2027, is this is when every travel company is making big decisions about their marketing strategy, the investment, and preparing for hopefully a terrific Q1 booking activity.
[0:36] SPEAKER_01: And Propelic has kindly sponsored this series.
[0:39] SPEAKER_01: And as most of our listeners know, Propelic has been with us since season three.
[0:43] SPEAKER_01: They've been a great partner and a great sponsor and enabled us to have a lot of these phenomenal conversations.
[0:48] SPEAKER_01: But if you're new to Propellic, they are a full-service travel, marketing, and advertising agency built for how people discover travel today.
[0:55] SPEAKER_01: Propelic helps tour operators, hospitality brands, and destinations around the world grow through SEO, paid media, analytics, and AI-driven visibility across search and generative AI platforms.
[1:06] SPEAKER_01: They were just named to the Inc.
[1:08] SPEAKER_01: 500 list of fastest growing companies for the second year in the row.
[1:12] SPEAKER_01: And next week, we're going to have Brendan Bliss, my friend and the CEO of Propelic, joining us to talk about AI visibility.
[1:19] SPEAKER_01: But today, as I mentioned last week, we're going to follow the money and we're going to talk about performance marketing and data attribution.
[1:27] SPEAKER_01: You know, we started with PR and the human advantage, why trust, voice, and community matter more than ever when AI can produce endless content.
[1:36] SPEAKER_01: But this week, as we focus on performance marketing, which is where my background has been in this industry and the two experts I'm going to bring into the conversation today, everyone wants to know how effective their money is.
[1:47] SPEAKER_01: And that's why we wanted to also factor in attribution, because that's the question that everyone is asking is what is actually working, what's converting, especially as cookies are disappearing, privacy rules keep tightening, and booking journeys stretch across months, devices, and channels.
[2:04] SPEAKER_01: And AI, AI, AI keeps changing how consumers are experiencing brands and booking today.
[2:12] SPEAKER_01: So if you're setting your budget for 2027 right now, this is the conversation you want to be a part of.
[2:17] SPEAKER_01: So you can understand from both John and our latest guest, Nicole, both who are coming to the Travel Trends podcast for the very first time, will tell you where your dollars should go.
[2:28] SPEAKER_01: And just as one final reminder, we're running this series, this three-part series, right before our summit, October 28th and 29th.
[2:36] SPEAKER_01: Brennan Bliss from Propelic will be delivering an amazing keynote on day two on marketing.
[2:40] SPEAKER_01: But I just want to make sure you have a chance now to register to be a part of that series and a part of our summit.
[2:46] SPEAKER_01: And if you're listening to after the end of October, great news.
[2:50] SPEAKER_01: It's all available on our YouTube channel, so you can dive right in and actually find all of the amazing sessions.
[2:55] SPEAKER_01: But on that note, let me bring in two fantastic guests.
[2:58] SPEAKER_01: First of all, John Matson, the chief revenue officer at Propelic.
[3:01] SPEAKER_01: He spent more than more than 15 years in sales and marketing and revenue leadership over the last decade.
[3:06] SPEAKER_01: He's been focused on travel.
[3:07] SPEAKER_01: He co-founded the travel startup Community Voyager, which was based in New York.
[3:12] SPEAKER_01: He co-founded Location Engine, an AI and location data company that was later acquired.
[3:17] SPEAKER_01: He served as president and CEO of AKU.
[3:20] SPEAKER_01: And today his job is turning travel brands' marketing spend into results that you can actually measure.
[3:25] SPEAKER_01: So who better to have on this conversation than John himself?
[3:28] SPEAKER_01: John, welcome to the Travel Trends Podcast.
[3:31] SPEAKER_04: Thanks for having me, Dan.
[3:32] SPEAKER_04: I'm really excited to have this conversation and just kind of geek out with you two.
[3:36] SPEAKER_01: Sounds great.
[3:37] SPEAKER_01: And our next guest, I see John all the time.
[3:39] SPEAKER_01: I'm always looking forward to catching up with John, but it's his first time on the Travel Trends podcast.
[3:44] SPEAKER_01: And I'm delighted to have him here.
[3:46] SPEAKER_01: But we also have Nicole Robinson.
[3:48] SPEAKER_01: She's the chief marketing officer at And Beyond.
[3:51] SPEAKER_01: She's all the way in South Africa in Johannesburg.
[3:55] SPEAKER_01: But and Beyond is one of the world's leading luxury experiential travel companies, known for their safari lodges and conservation-led journeys across Africa and beyond, hence the name.
[4:06] SPEAKER_01: And really few categories test attribution like luxury travel, high-value bookings, long consideration windows, and journeys that often run through advisors and travel agents.
[4:15] SPEAKER_01: Nicole, thanks for joining us as well on this special podcast.
[4:20] SPEAKER_00: It's so great to be here.
[4:22] SPEAKER_00: I love um having conversations like these because I end up learning a lot myself.
[4:26] SPEAKER_00: So when you when you end up chatting, you end up learning.
[4:30] SPEAKER_00: So thank you, Dan.
[4:31] SPEAKER_00: Thanks, John.
[4:33] SPEAKER_01: You're most welcome.
[4:34] SPEAKER_01: And you live in not only one of the most beautiful parts of the world in South Africa.
[4:38] SPEAKER_01: I've had the uh pleasure to travel there.
[4:39] SPEAKER_01: I've got many great friends and colleagues that live in South Africa or from South Africa, and one in particular named Carlean Parsons, who I worked with for many years at the Travel Corporation.
[4:49] SPEAKER_01: And the reason I mentioned her name and that team is because they ran the performance marketing across all of our brands.
[4:56] SPEAKER_01: And we had the most amazing talent in South Africa, totally switched on, very engaged, and they were managing the paid media across multiple regions, including the US and the UK.
[5:07] SPEAKER_01: And so you have a special talent in South Africa to be able to manage performance marketing and tourism.
[5:13] SPEAKER_01: So I just thought I'd put that out there as our conversation starts.
[5:16] SPEAKER_01: But Nicole, let's make sure all of our listeners know more about And Beyond.
[5:20] SPEAKER_01: It's so it's and Beyond.com if people are multitasking and want to check out your company website.
[5:25] SPEAKER_01: But tell everyone a little bit more about the company that you work with and your role as CMO.
[5:30] SPEAKER_00: Sure.
[5:31] SPEAKER_00: So the company is actually in its 35th year of um, we're celebrating our 35th anniversary.
[5:38] SPEAKER_00: Um, and we're, like you mentioned, a luxury adventure um company that operates in the world's rare and irreplaceable places.
[5:47] SPEAKER_00: So you won't find us in many cities, but across Asia, Africa, and South America, um we design itineraries, but also have um a portfolio of our own lodges, camps, and yachts.
[6:00] SPEAKER_00: So we have 27 lodges and camps and two yachts, uh one in the Galapagos and one about to launch on the Amazon um in December.
[6:10] SPEAKER_00: And so I have had the privilege of working for this organization for the past 26 years.
[6:16] SPEAKER_00: So it is um, I feel like I'm part of the part of the furniture.
[6:20] SPEAKER_00: And actually my career started um with and beyond as an accountant.
[6:25] SPEAKER_00: So I have a really interesting um perspective on performance marketing because it's probably the data side that and the reporting side and the numbers that I find particularly interesting.
[6:38] SPEAKER_00: Um, but also yeah, just just how they you know how how it's part of a picture, perhaps not the whole picture, um, some of the time.
[6:46] SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so I guess a little that's a little bit about us.
[6:49] SPEAKER_00: Um I do I I do have a lot of job envy from a lot of my friends because I've got to see some of the world's most um incredible, incredible places, the ones that that are on most people's bucket list.
[7:01] SPEAKER_00: So it is it it is quite a special uh travel company to work for.
[7:06] SPEAKER_01: It is.
[7:07] SPEAKER_01: I've known about Ambian for a number of years and you know, the incredible lodges, I think about 29 lodges.
[7:12] SPEAKER_01: And if anyone's now on the website, I'm sure they're having that awe-inspiring moment.
[7:16] SPEAKER_01: And to think these are the type of experiences you get to market.
[7:19] SPEAKER_01: It's always the thing that I find that when people cross over into travel, and I do find interesting your background being uh data accounting and then you know being a CMO marketing.
[7:28] SPEAKER_01: So you have to obviously combine left brain, right brain with being analytical, but also uh extremely creative.
[7:33] SPEAKER_01: But the idea that you get to market these incredible destinations and also market a product and experience that you truly believe in and have passion for.
[7:41] SPEAKER_01: Um, whenever people come into the travel space that have worked in other industries, best example, we hired a performance marketer as old printer inc, and he was so excited to be in the travel industry.
[7:50] SPEAKER_01: I'm like, if you can sell printer ink online, you can sell travel.
[7:55] SPEAKER_00: So you're much easier.
[7:57] SPEAKER_00: I always say it's better than selling selling Kellogg's cornflakes.
[8:01] SPEAKER_00: Um I think it makes it much, much easier um to tell these stories.
[8:07] SPEAKER_01: For sure.
[8:07] SPEAKER_01: And John, just to give everyone a bit more about your background, obviously I gave everyone an overview there of uh your of your uh of your background, but I would love to talk a little bit about your role at Propelic as the chief revenue officer because your role is new, the company's been scaling very rapidly, you've got a lot of experience in this industry.
[8:24] SPEAKER_01: But tell everyone a bit more about your role and what you do there at Propelic.
[8:28] SPEAKER_04: Um I kind of just hang out.
[8:30] SPEAKER_04: No, I'm just kidding.
[8:31] SPEAKER_04: I uh I oversee.
[8:33] SPEAKER_04: Play guitar.
[8:34] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, play guitar.
[8:35] SPEAKER_01: You know, for that for those people watching on YouTube, this is a reason to watch the video because when John joins, all I think is like it's like Bob Dylan.
[8:43] SPEAKER_01: He's gonna start to play a song.
[8:46] SPEAKER_04: Which one?
[8:47] SPEAKER_04: Which one should I play?
[8:48] SPEAKER_04: Uh no, I I I do oversee um marketing and sales for uh for the agency for Pelic.
[8:53] SPEAKER_04: Um uh but it was by way of um uh actually acquisition.
[8:58] SPEAKER_04: So I had been consulting in in uh revenue operations and uh strategy and advisory for travel brands prior to that.
[9:05] SPEAKER_04: Um and um me and my team have formed the kind of RevOps and advisory services uh for Propelic that are that are we haven't actually this is the first time it's probably gonna be published that that has occurred.
[9:18] SPEAKER_04: So that's pretty cool.
[9:19] SPEAKER_04: We should probably announce that here.
[9:21] SPEAKER_04: But um but yes, so deep we went quite deep into um revenue operations and was focusing specifically on travel.
[9:27] SPEAKER_04: Um so I have a uh a keen interest and uh uh you know a bit of a bit of knowledge in terms of what goes into these long consideration windows and and uh and how to track success and you know get down to the brass tacks, uh I guess you could say.
[9:43] unknown: Yeah.
[9:44] SPEAKER_01: Well, one of the reasons I wanted to have John join this was specifically on the data and attribution side, since that is clearly what your clients are looking for, but it also is your background and expertise of understanding CRM platforms, understanding uh sales pipelines, and making sure that deals closed and so sales, marketing, customer service, having those functions under your remit uh is important for our listeners to understand, as you are very much responsible for better understanding data and attribution.
[10:12] SPEAKER_01: But let's start with performance marketing, because one of the things, Nicole, as we were preparing for this session, is that you know, I wanted to have three focus areas, as uh John, Brennan, and the team and my team know that we when we were looking at marketing and where we could be most helpful for our listeners.
[10:29] SPEAKER_01: Brand is obviously incredibly important and performance marketing.
[10:32] SPEAKER_01: And I would love for you to give a bit of an overview of performance marketing from your perspective so that our listeners know what we're talking about when we say performance marketing, because sometimes we say paid media.
[10:43] SPEAKER_01: Um, just explain how you understand performance marketing, and if you wouldn't mind explaining um how that works at and beyond, because certainly some companies do their own in-house performance marketing, some use agencies.
[10:55] SPEAKER_01: It's all really depending if you have access to the talent or if you need a partner to be able to do that.
[10:59] SPEAKER_01: Both can be incredibly successful.
[11:01] SPEAKER_01: Um, but just yeah, give us an overview of performance marketing and how it fits in uh to your marketing structure at AM Beyond.
[11:08] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I mean, I think well, firstly, um I've been in the CMO role for just going on 11 years now.
[11:16] SPEAKER_00: Um, and and I can remember when I when I started, um pretty much we did no performance marketing at the time, and we're heavily dependent on organic uh traffic as a result of the fact that we have um beds that people um search for and and want to book, but we we do not have online booking.
[11:38] SPEAKER_00: So this is just something to say straight up that our beds are not available to be booked online, which is quite unusual in this day and age, but it isn't unusual in the destinations that we operate in, although more and more are becoming available online.
[11:52] SPEAKER_00: Um and so so we we have um an interesting mix of um like what we invest in, and traditionally we invested very heavily in editorial, uh getting other people to write for us.
[12:08] SPEAKER_00: Um we did not know what was coming in the AI world, um uh, which um I think is just lucky that we have got a mass of people, a mass of external sources uh talking about us, which is which has been hugely helpful from an AI visibility perspective.
[12:27] SPEAKER_00: But in the last few years, as the brand strengthened, we initially saw um a need to uh start investing I and I wouldn't even call the performance marketing because it was more defensive than it was performance.
[12:41] SPEAKER_00: It was defending brand um in terms of people searching for our keywords and being able to make sure that that traffic came to our site and that we didn't lose all of it.
[12:51] SPEAKER_00: Because we are a multi-channel organization.
[12:53] SPEAKER_00: We have a strong B2B and um and then we have a B2C channel.
[12:59] SPEAKER_00: And we've always believed that in order for us to be sustainable as a business, you need both.
[13:03] SPEAKER_00: Both of them are important because the ultimately the traveler wants to book the way they want to book, and you should make yourself available in whichever channel that they want to choose.
[13:13] SPEAKER_00: And so we wanted to just make sure that the investment that we made in some of our PR landed up coming through.
[13:22] SPEAKER_00: And it's only like in the last couple of years and specifically with Propelic that we've actually started looking at more than just defensive brand campaigns and probably more uh performance type marketing, which in my uh in our understanding would would be paid spend, be it on Google, on Meta, um, or some above the line on you know digital display, on Wall Street Journal or New York Times or Condonest or FAR, we'd probably call that performance marketing as well.
[13:55] SPEAKER_00: So sorry, long way to say a short answer.
[13:59] SPEAKER_01: No, that was a great explanation and important to set the stage for our discussion.
[14:02] SPEAKER_01: And there's just one thing I'll add to that, and I'm gonna bring you in, John, to talk about data and attribution.
[14:07] SPEAKER_01: And that is this is that we had the conversation about brand and PR, and then today we're talking about performance marketing.
[14:11] SPEAKER_01: And the reason I wanted to set the stage with that uh framing is that when you look at the success of various travel brands, I'll to give two uh large-scale examples on the OTA side.
[14:22] SPEAKER_01: You look at a company like Booking.com, and their success was very much tied to performance marketing.
[14:27] SPEAKER_01: They were a small, scrappy startup.
[14:29] SPEAKER_01: I mean, Priceline bought them as one of the best uh acquisitions in history.
[14:33] SPEAKER_01: You know, they rebranded their company around booking, and the uh growth all came from them really knowing performance, SEO, SEM.
[14:41] SPEAKER_01: When they entered the US market, though, they didn't have a strong brand.
[14:45] SPEAKER_01: And uh on the flip side, you have a brand uh like Expedia that did great brand marketing and was all doing above the line as we often refer to it, um, out of home.
[14:55] SPEAKER_01: Um they do billboard, they do TV advertising, all things that booking didn't do because those are very expensive.
[15:01] SPEAKER_01: Um, but Expedia knew how to build a business using traditional media and to build a great brand that when you think about I want to book travel, you think about Expedia.
[15:10] SPEAKER_01: And I'm still amazed at the number of people, my brother included, that he books everything on Expedia.
[15:15] SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you know, there are other options, right?
[15:16] SPEAKER_01: You know you can book a car rental direct, right?
[15:18] SPEAKER_01: It's like I just booked it on Expedia because you've built such a strong brand.
[15:23] SPEAKER_01: And when we think about, uh, and this is something I want to get into in our conversation, but when we think about how best to balance your marketing budget, many of those brands, you know, they were 70% performance or 80% performance in some cases.
[15:36] SPEAKER_01: And what you've seen with both of those businesses is they've both had to get better at what they're we're weaker at.
[15:42] SPEAKER_01: Booking had to find a way to get better at brand, and they do commercials now, and they like and their spend is more like 50-50.
[15:49] SPEAKER_01: And the same with XPedy, they had to get better at performance marketing.
[15:52] SPEAKER_01: And so, um, so that's what I just wanted to set the stage because this is some of the things I want to dive into that I think would be valuable for our listeners to better understand where performance marketing fits, how best to uh invest in performance marketing, and then also make sure the results are there.
[16:07] SPEAKER_01: So on that one, that's where John data and attribution, given that's the other half of this conversation, how would you define the data attribution side of performance marketing?
[16:17] SPEAKER_04: Oh, uh well, there's there's the very technical terms associated with attribution, right?
[16:21] SPEAKER_04: Attribution uh matrix.
[16:23] SPEAKER_04: And but I think the simpler, like kind of like business logic approach is just the source of truth, right?
[16:29] SPEAKER_04: Like where are you, where is uh your customer coming from?
[16:33] SPEAKER_04: And um and how much of that touch point that you had with that customer contributed to their inevitable purchase of your product.
[16:42] SPEAKER_04: Um and so that's there's a lot of different ways that those are measured and a lot of different platforms that allow you to measure them in some good and some bad ways, depending on your type of business.
[16:53] SPEAKER_04: Um uh, but it's really about picking the right attribution model for your for your company and your and what you're trying to uh what you're selling.
[17:03] SPEAKER_04: Um in the case of in the case of ANBON, for example, or a multi-day tour operator, the consideration window is very, very long.
[17:10] SPEAKER_04: And so most of the out-of-the-box things that you'd get from ad platforms are on last click.
[17:16] SPEAKER_04: Someone really need to be moving you in a in a long consideration window, you're you're not even going to be able to attribute um uh effectively the the ad spend because it's outside the 90 days that Google would even pass that information back to you.
[17:32] SPEAKER_04: Um so everything looks like brand, everything looks like retargeting, and that's all just what it it feels like.
[17:38] SPEAKER_04: Oh wow, we should just keep investing in brand.
[17:41] SPEAKER_04: But in reality, your brand search might have hit it, might have hit its max, right?
[17:44] SPEAKER_04: Um and a lot of different ways to test that.
[17:47] SPEAKER_04: And I could geek out about that a little bit, but um uh inevitably it's about can you can you attribute performance further up in the funnel that um that has contributed to that journey and along the along the longer consideration window?
[18:03] SPEAKER_04: And and that's that's the really the hardest part of this is when it comes down to brand, I think is what you're getting at, Dan.
[18:09] SPEAKER_04: Um yeah, go for it.
[18:12] SPEAKER_01: And there's one thing I'll add to that, and then I'm gonna come back to you, Nicole, to talk more about your overall marketing strategy as it relates to performance marketing.
[18:19] SPEAKER_01: But just one thing I'll underscore there for anyone that is very familiar with Google Analytics, which should be just about everyone listening to this, there's a reason that's free, and that is because attribution is that Google AdWords, you know, has been it's enriched that business and helped Google fund so many other projects that uh have been unprofitable for many years.
[18:38] SPEAKER_01: Uh because they make so much money from AdWords and from that paid media, which is also changing, and we'll finish by talking about that as well.
[18:46] SPEAKER_01: The uh the key there, obviously, is goals and setting up uh tracking to know that you uh paid performance marketing is all very trackable and measurable, which is why we all have gotten so addicted to it, because we know that it works and um and uh but also having better visibility of the entire funnel and the user journey.
[19:05] SPEAKER_01: And Nicole mentioned something there that's really important around B2B and B2C, because that's an additional wrinkle in all of this, because we found that half of our uh money spent on paid performance marketing would actually convert with our partners.
[19:17] SPEAKER_01: So half of the leads that would come in would ultimately book through a trade partner.
[19:20] SPEAKER_01: And so if you're trying to figure out how much you should be investing in B2C, it's not a totally a clear picture because now you need to add in commissions plus the marketing spend.
[19:28] SPEAKER_01: So it's it's really interesting when you look at the flow back and forth of those.
[19:31] SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I wanted you obviously here for a few reasons, John, but to speak about the attribution as an important part as it relates to and beyond and some of your other clients.
[19:39] SPEAKER_01: Um, but let's come back to performance marketing and how you approach Nicole.
[19:44] SPEAKER_01: And obviously, I know you work with Propelic.
[19:47] SPEAKER_01: So uh, but clearly you do your, you know, you have your in-house marketing team, and then you work with Propelic as an agency to do uh performance marketing.
[19:56] SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about your performance marketing strategy.
[19:59] SPEAKER_01: And I'm not asking you to give away secrets to your competitors, so that's not that that's not why we're here.
[20:03] SPEAKER_01: Although some of them may tune in to think that's what they're gonna get.
[20:06] SPEAKER_01: Um, because this space is so competitive.
[20:09] SPEAKER_01: We would often have, like when I was at the travel corporation, some of our brands, we would see um EF.
[20:14] SPEAKER_01: EF would be conquesting our keywords and like, you know, very aggressively trying to get into our space.
[20:19] SPEAKER_01: And we know that's what happens in the travel industry, right?
[20:22] SPEAKER_01: If someone's familiar with one brand, other brands will try and uh intercept that traffic.
[20:27] SPEAKER_01: Um, but it would be great if you could give us a bit of an overview of how you approach performance marketing, the channels you're active on, and how you approach that within your, you know, your overall marketing strategy.
[20:38] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think we're quite an interesting um case because I always say we're a multi-channel, um, multi-market, multi-product business.
[20:50] SPEAKER_00: So you then take a small budget, because we don't have big um big performance marketing budgets.
[20:58] SPEAKER_00: And then the the key is really always around the strategy as to what's the best way to spend that small amount.
[21:06] SPEAKER_00: When you've got we've you know, we've got five or six main source markets.
[21:11] SPEAKER_00: The US is a huge market for us, um, but we don't want to be uh have all of our eggs in one basket.
[21:17] SPEAKER_00: So we w you know we need to look at some of those other markets as well, but the opportunity on the US is really, really big.
[21:23] SPEAKER_00: So it's this constant, and I think it's a you know a strategy that um and that's been one of the things that we've worked a lot with with Propelic to help us try to find what the strategy is as to where to put the money, which campaigns, how to structure the campaigns, um, to be able to achieve the the commercial outcomes.
[21:45] SPEAKER_00: Specifically, we are uh like you mentioned at the beginning, we are in a business very, very rooted in Africa, but we've got a positioning and awareness problem of the fact that we are in Asia and South America as well.
[21:57] SPEAKER_00: And so, how do we use performance marketing to Address that that positioning issue for us as a brand, or like how we understood, and then we've got a whole lot of new product coming in South America that we need to fill.
[22:08] SPEAKER_00: And um, but we've still got the same sort of budgets.
[22:11] SPEAKER_00: So, how do we use that money?
[22:13] SPEAKER_00: And so, like from a strategic perspective, we we pull on um propeller quite a lot in terms of taking them very small parts and finding the discipline to make strategic choices and just not cut it up a million ways to tick all the boxes of like these markets, this product, this destinations, these keywords, etc.
[22:35] SPEAKER_00: etc.
[22:36] SPEAKER_00: Um, and then also to be able to leave some room in the budget to play and learn.
[22:45] SPEAKER_00: Because specifically in um the world of today, um yeah, I I can tell you I'm learning more every day now than I than I did like when I even started in this role.
[22:58] SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was brand new to marketing.
[23:00] SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's a whole new world out there, and so the ability to experiment um is a is a big one.
[23:08] SPEAKER_00: Um, I wish we had more time, actually.
[23:10] SPEAKER_00: I wish I had more time in my day to to to focus on that because I think it's quite fascinating as to what you think is going to happen, and then you test it and what really happens on on the other side.
[23:20] SPEAKER_00: And then I think for for us, our strategy on performance marketing is to, you know, the holy grail of perhaps closing the loop and being able to take it all the way from source to cell, given that we're not uh e-commerce site.
[23:36] SPEAKER_00: So it's not easy for us to do that.
[23:38] SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's that's like a big part of our performance marketing strategy.
[23:43] SPEAKER_00: We do calculate ROAS the best way we can, um, but we've got a we've got a ways to go there to be able to to to get that um more accurate and more um you know uh frequent.
[23:58] SPEAKER_00: It takes us a long time.
[23:59] SPEAKER_00: That you know, the sort our sales cycle is long, you've mentioned it.
[24:03] SPEAKER_00: So amount of consideration time, then the lead comes in and then there's an there's a sales week, you know, a conversion cycle of about three to four weeks.
[24:13] SPEAKER_00: So it's quite, you know, it's quite interesting.
[24:15] SPEAKER_00: And then also to be able to feed that back into Google, into the algorithms to get more of what works and less of what doesn't.
[24:21] SPEAKER_00: Um is also a challenge in in linking the dots that way that that help it learn.
[24:28] SPEAKER_00: So yeah, there's a couple of things in there.
[24:30] SPEAKER_00: Um it's always my most interesting conversation every two weeks with uh Propelic to see how things are going.
[24:40] SPEAKER_01: And that's why with today's conversation, having Propelic and having and beyond, and then myself given my background in this space, what I'm uh really uh interested to uncover together is all the things that I'm sure John, you hear it when a new client comes in, Nicole, when you're speaking to other colleagues and they're asking you what performance you're seeing and how you approach it.
[25:01] SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to demystify some of that on our uh discussion today.
[25:06] SPEAKER_01: So what I'm gonna ask you, John, is like when a new client like Ambion comes to you, and obviously you have a number of multi-day tour operators that are part of uh Propelic's uh client portfolio.
[25:17] SPEAKER_01: When you've got someone that comes to you, and I'll use, I'll use um uh arbitrary round numbers that you know they want to get another million dollars in sales and each booking's worth$10,000, and they've got, let's say,$100,000 to spend, like just again, three just round numbers.
[25:32] SPEAKER_01: It's like we've got$100,000, we want to get$10, you know, a million dollars in new business, and yeah, each trip uh is about$10,000.
[25:38] SPEAKER_01: You obviously in the team have to work out what success uh uh looks like and then how best to achieve against that.
[25:45] SPEAKER_01: And Nicole, you mentioned uh ROAS, which just for our listeners to bring them all along, there's return on ad spend, and then there's everyone I think is familiar with ROI, like return on investment.
[25:55] SPEAKER_01: Um, but the one term that I also want to make sure everyone's clear on is cost per acquisition.
[25:59] SPEAKER_01: And so understanding what it how much it costs to acquire a customer and to be able to do that profitably, and how you actually work out what is your actual CPA based on your total marketing investment and what it's actually costing you, because this is where marketers run into challenges, especially when they're trying to report back on their numbers to say, I need more marketing budget, is that you need to be able to produce those leads profitably.
[26:24] SPEAKER_01: And so, uh, so John, walk us through what that's what that looks like when you're onboarding a partner.
[26:29] SPEAKER_01: Uh, and for many listeners, it would actually benefit from having a much better understanding around how you approach performance marketing in the first place based on how you are going to track that performance.
[26:41] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[26:42] SPEAKER_04: Um, great question.
[26:43] SPEAKER_04: And I love how those round numbers is so easy.
[26:45] SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
[26:46] SPEAKER_04: They're usually not that cake.
[26:47] SPEAKER_04: Um, no, it's it, you know, it's um, well, first is like, is that is that the right goal?
[26:52] SPEAKER_04: Like, what is that, what has that historically been for uh for the company?
[26:57] SPEAKER_04: Um it because a lot of the time it's kind of like a million bucks sounds pretty good right now.
[27:02] SPEAKER_04: And the reality is, is like, okay, well, is there enough demand in your market that you would that that's that's reasonable?
[27:09] SPEAKER_04: Also, other benchmarks from other comparable companies that um that can help us determine uh what a spend model would look like.
[27:18] SPEAKER_04: Um all of those things are theoretical, but there's some really exciting things that we have in the hopper um that are helping us get uh even more fine-tuned about um about this.
[27:28] SPEAKER_04: And and actually there's open source solutions for it too, but um media mixed modeling, MMMs are kind of back in back into reality.
[27:36] SPEAKER_04: I um I should maybe define that too, Dan, right?
[27:40] SPEAKER_04: Like the the um the idea that this is I think even 15 years ago or so or more, um uh the the larger brands like a Coca-Cola would say, okay, our historical spend would allow us to um start to project and forecast what future performance could look like.
[27:59] SPEAKER_04: And if we had enough historical spend, we could say, as Nicole, you were saying, we're launching a new product, how much market, how much do we need to spend to penetrate in that market?
[28:08] SPEAKER_04: Um uh and you know, they'd run a machine learning model, and then but those were really kind of like these only huge massive data sets and spend models.
[28:18] SPEAKER_04: Now with AI, um MMMs are becoming more accessible.
[28:22] SPEAKER_04: Um, and so it's like Google Meridian and and other models that are showing up that are open open source.
[28:28] SPEAKER_04: And so um we've been building one on um uh that would allow anyone who has a certain spend threshold, maybe 3 million a year or something is about is about right, probably.
[28:40] SPEAKER_04: Um, they would then be able to have their own specialized models and start to forecast against those scenarios.
[28:46] SPEAKER_04: Um so it's like that's like the most sophisticated version, right?
[28:49] SPEAKER_04: Which is to say your historical will dictate some of your forecast.
[28:53] SPEAKER_04: Um, but what we also are providing into that that is unique to it is is things that would uh impact travel, things like major uh you know, weather events or any weather, really, depending on the nature of the business, um, uh travel demand data, um, the you know, occupancy rates, uh, booking volumes, um, uh foot traffic.
[29:13] SPEAKER_04: Like there's a variety of external data factors that play a role, and we're using that to um increase the efficiencies of the models.
[29:22] SPEAKER_04: Um but if I'm just saying, hey, back a napkin, and that's what we're trying to figure out, and that's how I gotta figure this out like now, John.
[29:29] SPEAKER_04: The reality is is um you can you can like get a good sense of um of typical volume of like of typical um benchmarks, and you should you should just do a quick model against um, you know, is it is it realistic to say, you know, that was I think 100 bookings.
[29:49] SPEAKER_04: So how many inquiries would you need, right?
[29:51] SPEAKER_04: Uh how many inquiries would you need to get to those bookings?
[29:53] SPEAKER_04: What's the cost of those inquiries?
[29:56] SPEAKER_04: And what is your inquiry to booking ratio?
[29:58] SPEAKER_04: If you end up on a on a really um uh uh conservative uh if it's looking conservative, then you're probably in a good place to say, yeah, we can move, we can move the needle there.
[30:09] SPEAKER_04: But we would always probably check that against demand.
[30:12] SPEAKER_04: Um it's very it's very, very case by case with everybody who comes on, of course, because the unit economics of every travel company are pretty unique.
[30:22] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just wanted to make sure we clarified up front that the success metrics and the criteria that you would need to establish so that when a client starts doing performance marketing, that they actually do understand what a um and I when I use those numbers, you know, the$100,000 spend to a million dollars in revenue, I was intentional in saying like you know, 10 to 1 ROI is the holy grail.
[30:45] SPEAKER_01: So that would be the ideal scenario.
[30:51] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[30:51] SPEAKER_04: Is that brand moving?
[30:55] SPEAKER_01: And that's a that's a a factor of the margins that are available in the travel industry, as Nicole knows.
[30:59] SPEAKER_01: And it's like, you know, that uh especially when brands that are familiar with working with trade partners and they know that those commissions can be anywhere between 12 to 18 percent, you ideally want to work within that amount to be able to get a direct booking.
[31:12] SPEAKER_01: And so um to come back to you, uh Nicole, on the performance marketing, uh in terms of the channels that you're active on, so you did a great job of giving an overview of performance marketing.
[31:22] SPEAKER_01: What I wanted to drill down to for a moment is uh Google, Meta, uh the channels that and I'll I'll share a couple of details, but I really obviously want to hand it over to you just to talk a little bit more about performance marketing and specifically uh what you're seeing that's working that would be of interest to all of our listeners.
[31:40] SPEAKER_01: And I guess what I uh would share by way of context is that you know most people are familiar with the Google AdWords model because you know, paying for keywords was a great way to intercept people that have very defined intent.
[31:51] SPEAKER_01: And that was the beautiful thing about uh Google search is that clearly someone's looking for an African safari or they're looking for a specific lodge and the sophistication of uh SEM, you know, not only in human knowledge of being able to uh manage the platforms, but now um with Google Performance Max and how and all the AI tools that you can leverage to be able to better automate what keywords you should be targeting, what the copy should be, what the landing page and through to conversion.
[32:19] SPEAKER_01: That's only one component.
[32:21] SPEAKER_01: Then we obviously have the whole idea of display, so creative that you are going to run across Google's platform, which then leads us into the concept of remarketing that I'm sure most people are familiar with.
[32:31] SPEAKER_01: The idea of prospecting and then remarketing to people who've been to your website.
[32:35] SPEAKER_01: That's all you know part of the Google suite of tools that you can really leverage.
[32:39] SPEAKER_01: And then there's meta.
[32:40] SPEAKER_01: There's kind of two big platforms that most people are familiar with, most marketers are familiar with.
[32:45] SPEAKER_01: And some people are really strong at search and other people are really strong at social.
[32:48] SPEAKER_01: And as they've tried to play the social game, which is not necessarily as intent focused, but is very much dreaming uh inspiration where people are getting these ideas.
[32:57] SPEAKER_01: So it's a little harder to attract to tie the attribution as clearly, but it's it's almost always playing and assist.
[33:04] SPEAKER_01: You know, people are posting pictures of their trips, getting, and then other travelers are seeing them.
[33:08] SPEAKER_01: So we know social is highly effective.
[33:10] SPEAKER_01: Um so I've mentioned obviously two of the main platforms.
[33:14] SPEAKER_01: But as you well know, Nicole, there's affiliate marketing, there's uh and uh and there's a number of other platforms out there that some companies will utilize if they're doing a lot more display advertising.
[33:23] SPEAKER_01: If you wouldn't mind, just kind of um summarize what are the performance channels that uh you utilize and what and what are the most effective for you?
[33:32] SPEAKER_01: And again, I'm not expecting you to go into a level of detail that would be uh uh risk your competitors becoming switched on to some of your activity.
[33:41] SPEAKER_01: But I still think it would be as much as you can share that would be interesting to the travel companies listening to this that can learn from a company like Ann Beyond and their partnership with Propelic to better understand how they could be improving their performance marketing.
[33:54] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think we're we've we've stuck predominantly to to Google AdWords.
[34:02] SPEAKER_00: Um since coming um joining with Propelic, we have ventured into paid social.
[34:07] SPEAKER_00: Our organic social was quite strong.
[34:09] SPEAKER_00: We've got quite a lot of organic social happening, and so we have been looking at um at paid social specifically for um very specific campaigns that um we're wanting very, very clear objectives, more brand awareness uh related.
[34:26] SPEAKER_00: Like so, like you're saying, they're much harder to you you can't attribute them back to a lead as as easy as say um our our brand, our brand-paid keyword campaigns, which are right at the bottom of the funnel.
[34:42] SPEAKER_00: They're people looking for us, my name.
[34:44] SPEAKER_00: Our larger names are not easy to pronounce.
[34:46] SPEAKER_00: N-X-A-B-E-G-A, Naberka.
[34:50] SPEAKER_00: There's not many people um that can pronounce that.
[34:53] SPEAKER_00: So if somebody is typing it into Google, like then we want that traffic because that's um we worked hard to get that brand recognition for that.
[35:03] SPEAKER_00: So we have we have, you know, we like I said earlier, we've stuck quite a lot with brand.
[35:09] SPEAKER_00: We ventured a little bit further out with speculative on um destination type keywords and then and then paid social.
[35:18] SPEAKER_00: We have we have played um in the realm of the display network, but on on very, very specific um sites.
[35:27] SPEAKER_00: So we've been uh pretty targeted as to to where those ads are displayed, and then um you know influences it's not necessarily performance marketing as we defined earlier, but we've definitely seen quite a lot of success with the right influences, and sometimes those aren't necessarily travel influences.
[35:51] SPEAKER_00: Um they they could be lifestyle influences that have a large generic following that and we found this out by mistake, not because we were intentional or targeted them, but because they actually stayed with us as guests and posted, and then we saw the impact that that had um on on general traffic over the time that they were there, um and then uh inquiries from that market after that, and so it's it's very difficult to attribute directly, but um, and and again they have to be incredibly carefully validated in the right ones.
[36:28] SPEAKER_00: But I would think it's an interesting channel as to whether you call it performance or not is a different discussion, but um it sort of competes for the same um investment in time and and budget.
[36:43] SPEAKER_01: Just one follow-up question as related to this, Nicole, then I'm um keen to bring you back in, John, to talk about the overall attribution side of uh you know kind of the full marketing uh approach of any of the travel businesses you work with.
[36:56] SPEAKER_01: But one of the things I was um uh interested to explore with Nicole is that you know as we talk about performance marketing, one of the things that I've certainly seen is the companies that gradually start shifting more of their marketing dollars towards performance.
[37:08] SPEAKER_01: And I've seen this in many instances where they weren't doing any performance marketing, and next thing you know, it was it was you know 30% of their spend, it was 50% of their spend, and then it became 70% of their spend because you're you can and so brands that uh have um strong awareness, it really lends themselves to doing great performance marketing.
[37:26] SPEAKER_01: But if that if it occurs at eventually at the expense of doing brand marketing, eventually that thins out, and all of a sudden, if you're all doing performance, not investing in brand.
[37:35] SPEAKER_01: And I saw this a great example from my experience is Uniworld.
[37:38] SPEAKER_01: I mean, that the uh Uniworld River Cruises.
[37:41] SPEAKER_01: Um, we got great performance results because there was a great brand and there was great brand awareness, and there was, and and so the ROAS and the ROI on the spend was incredible.
[37:52] SPEAKER_01: Like we would see an outsize benefit of the performance marketing by virtue of the fact that most people love the brand, had a strong affinity for the brand, would click through and purchase.
[38:03] SPEAKER_01: And so, my question for you on this is that as you are looking at performance data and having your calls with Propelic every couple of weeks to go through how performance is working, what does that tell you about what you're investing in?
[38:13] SPEAKER_01: Brand, storytelling, inspiration that actually helps validate some of the overall marketing activity.
[38:20] SPEAKER_01: And I ask you that because and beyond has a great brand presence, like a strong brand.
[38:26] SPEAKER_01: I, you know, and so the does time and effort put into that as well.
[38:29] SPEAKER_01: So the learnings you get from performance marketing should also feed back to your overall marketing strategy.
[38:34] SPEAKER_01: And I'd I'd I'd love to hear a little bit more about that from you.
[38:37] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think it is quite interesting.
[38:39] SPEAKER_00: Coming into this um with a finance background, I initially struggled because I wanted everything to tie up.
[38:47] SPEAKER_00: I wanted Google Analytics to match what I saw coming through as actual actual leads.
[38:53] SPEAKER_00: And I went down rabbit holes on on attribution.
[38:57] SPEAKER_00: Um and I think where I landed up um is that it's um this is marketing is is part art and part science.
[39:05] SPEAKER_00: And you can't lean too heavily on either one.
[39:09] SPEAKER_00: You know, both both have a place.
[39:10] SPEAKER_00: So that you know, the science and the the metrics and the data they're amazing, but by themselves they're not everything.
[39:17] SPEAKER_00: And so the way I started looking at some of the metrics around, you know, um, you know, uh performance marketing, even cost per acquisition or return on ad spend, is that it is a metric and you should use it directionally.
[39:34] SPEAKER_00: Is it getting better or worse?
[39:35] SPEAKER_00: But it's not complete.
[39:37] SPEAKER_00: It's never gonna tell you a complete story about what's going on.
[39:40] SPEAKER_00: Because specifically in our uh customer journey, there might be so many different points that bring you that, you know, and so when you when you try be too exact, you lose the you lose m most of the picture.
[39:55] SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it's being comfortable in it's being comfortable with that, it's being comfortable in understanding that your attribution is not complete, but it's the best that you can get um at the time, whichever you choose.
[40:07] SPEAKER_00: Last click, I can't even remember all of them at at the time because I wanted them to be the same.
[40:12] SPEAKER_00: So then I was like, well, last click will do it because then last click will give me what I'm seeing on on this side, even though some of the average ones are are are truer, but then they're never the same.
[40:23] SPEAKER_00: And then I was just eventually I was like it is what it is.
[40:27] SPEAKER_00: We choose something, we keep it consistent so that you can compare it over time, and and then it's directional.
[40:34] SPEAKER_00: Is it getting better or is it getting worse?
[40:37] SPEAKER_00: And then that tells you something more than being obsessed with it being exactly complete or um I could because it can't be it just can't be good.
[40:47] SPEAKER_00: So that's sort of my perspective on it.
[40:51] SPEAKER_04: It's it's directional, right?
[40:53] SPEAKER_04: And it's like that's half the battle in these attribution conversations and leadership conversations, where it's like we all just have to agree that this is our source of truth.
[41:01] SPEAKER_04: And that's like I always reference it as a source of truth because it's like if we can't, if we're gonna start debating which numbers we're making decisions on, the important thing is that we're making directional decisions and actions rather than analysis paralysis.
[41:16] SPEAKER_04: Um and it's like you get the best version of what you can to make that decision.
[41:19] SPEAKER_04: I think that's that's just that's absolutely awesome.
[41:22] SPEAKER_00: And you can't change your mind every five seconds because you need a north star.
[41:28] SPEAKER_00: It's like sailing, you know, at night with no stars.
[41:32] SPEAKER_00: You don't know where you're going because you've lost your you've lost your reference.
[41:36] SPEAKER_00: Um so that concept is a little bit more than a lot of things.
[41:38] SPEAKER_04: It's very bright tonight, Nicole.
[41:39] SPEAKER_04: I think I'm gonna look over there and I think that might be north now.
[41:42] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[41:44] SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
[41:45] SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
[41:46] SPEAKER_03: We'll be right back.
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[43:37] SPEAKER_01: And now back to the show.
[43:39] SPEAKER_01: Nicole was mentioning last touch, and I think that's what most people are familiar with or last click attribution, which is what G A Google Analytics was so renowned for, but also uh criticized for because you know you've got the single touch mo approach, which is like first touch or last touch.
[43:54] SPEAKER_01: Because obviously you want to know what was the first point of connection to this to the brand or to the website.
[43:58] SPEAKER_01: Was there um The first click, last click, and then you've got multi-touch, which is, I think most of us are trying to get a much better understanding of is the entire customer journey.
[44:08] SPEAKER_01: And then what we're obviously seeing, as John mentioned, this is these data driven, data-driven algorithmic models that give us a much better understanding of the entire customer journey.
[44:16] SPEAKER_01: So we actually know, you know, whether it's there's eight or 40 touch points before they ultimately make a booking or, you know, call contact us by phone and trying to make sure that we actually follow that journey of like, oh, wait a second.
[44:30] SPEAKER_01: They were part of a search campaign initially, and then they signed up for our newsletter.
[44:33] SPEAKER_01: And then we've been nurturing them for the last three months.
[44:35] SPEAKER_01: And then they finally decided one day just to call in and book.
[44:38] SPEAKER_01: But that didn't come out of nowhere.
[44:40] SPEAKER_01: That came from all the effort and time and branding.
[44:43] SPEAKER_01: And so uh, John, walk us through a little bit more from what uh Nicole shared.
[44:48] SPEAKER_01: When you are looking at clients like Anbeyne and trying to help them get a better understanding of attribution, how do you approach that at Propelic?
[44:57] SPEAKER_01: What are the things you are um looking for, recommending to them to make sure that they have a much better idea?
[45:04] SPEAKER_01: Because when you mentioned about the one of the things we had done was this like assigning credit 30% to first touch, 30% to the middle, and then and Yeah, exactly.
[45:14] SPEAKER_01: And that weighted approach is is complex to for uh to understand and to make sure that works.
[45:18] SPEAKER_01: So Nicole, I've seen that you kind of get lost in those details of like, is this even?
[45:22] SPEAKER_01: Like we do did these numbers actually really add up?
[45:25] SPEAKER_01: So, John, walk us through the different options and what you'd be recommending for our listeners to pay attention to.
[45:31] SPEAKER_01: Sure.
[45:31] SPEAKER_04: Um well, I just imagined you with like the Zach Galhenakis uh meme with like the Einstein math of your attribution matrix.
[45:38] SPEAKER_04: I love it.
[45:39] SPEAKER_01: I am I am but I am between two ferns right now, just so you know Zach Galvanak.
[45:46] SPEAKER_04: Um, absolutely.
[45:47] SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, so last like last like you mentioned, last click is um it can be very appropriate, actually, depending on the type of business.
[45:54] SPEAKER_04: I wouldn't say it's the best one for a multi-day tour operator.
[45:57] SPEAKER_04: It's the opposite of the best one for a multi-day tour operator.
[46:00] SPEAKER_04: Um for a day tour operator, for something that's like within that seven-day window that you can get some kind of view from your ad platforms, and like then that's great.
[46:09] SPEAKER_04: You know, you're selling something probably in the last 36 hours, and like it's it's that you can have that e-commerce kind of approach.
[46:16] SPEAKER_04: So it really it does depend on the travel business.
[46:18] SPEAKER_04: But in the context of uh multi-day tour operators, the the one thing I would do is just data store like as much as possible.
[46:25] SPEAKER_04: Um, and you can do that, you know, with the data warehouse and um just track engagements.
[46:32] SPEAKER_04: And then you can kind of like revisit later the like, am I adding complexity for tracking attribution down the road?
[46:40] SPEAKER_04: So it's like really about what stage you're at as a business, what level of sophistication is required to help performance.
[46:47] SPEAKER_04: But the more signals that you gain and the more engagement that you track, the better that you'll be able to make a decision down the road to say, oh, I want to pass that signal back into the ad.
[46:57] SPEAKER_04: Or I wanna I wanna measure that as an appropriate touch point in our attribution model.
[47:02] SPEAKER_04: Um, and so that's like the number, that's like kind of the first thing.
[47:06] SPEAKER_04: It's like have if you don't have a like CRM that's a real source of truth, I do recommend that.
[47:12] SPEAKER_04: Um, but at least gather something in a data warehouse so that you can make meaningful.
[47:17] SPEAKER_04: This is not just about like performance and efficiencies.
[47:19] SPEAKER_04: It's also about for making like really meaningful marketing, like um customer experiences.
[47:24] SPEAKER_04: You know, like um, oh, these they did these things, we should send them something.
[47:28] SPEAKER_04: You know, like uh like like these surprise and delight moments you didn't know you could create because they're at this point in your journey, you know, this stage.
[47:36] SPEAKER_04: And I mean, the sorry, the the simpler view of that would be like you already know your your major like like you described it, Nicole, like these big stages, these guys, like the consideration, the decision, and you know, the Ada, the original like kind of like um uh marketing view, right?
[47:54] SPEAKER_04: But um, if you uh you if you at least tag those, then you can start to like bucket the level of conversion and start to mark that up.
[48:03] SPEAKER_04: And so you can kind of get at least a window of what that touch point was.
[48:06] SPEAKER_04: And that's kind of like the next level above or the next step above like at least tracking or storing um the engagement points.
[48:14] SPEAKER_01: That's great, John.
[48:15] SPEAKER_01: And and just to go a bit further with that, because you mentioned about high value trips like a multi-day uh uh purchase, and you're absolutely right that that is vastly different than a day tour uh product purchase.
[48:26] SPEAKER_01: And when people are doing those uh high value consider purchases that are uh long lead, one of the things I'd be keen to get your take on is um how you distinguish between marketing that's creating demand versus um capturing someone that's actually ready to book.
[48:42] SPEAKER_01: Because it was sometimes a bit of a criticism of the way that we approached our performance marketing internally, is that we were very focused on making sure that uh we intercepted uh interest.
[48:51] SPEAKER_01: And that was very much our performance media team's approach, is that the marketing teams were responsible for creating demand, and then we were responsible for intercepting that and converting it.
[49:03] SPEAKER_01: And so the team had what they thought was a very clear mandate in that regard.
[49:07] SPEAKER_01: But that also leads to the uh the danger I was mentioning to you, which is putting money into channels that are easy to measure than the ones that are totally influencing the customer journey.
[49:15] SPEAKER_01: And obviously, I've learned from that experience, and and so I wanted to get your take on this with how do you help your clients?
[49:24] SPEAKER_01: Because uh one last thing that I think will be interesting for anyone that's just coming to understand Propelic and why we're having this conversation together is that when I was at the Travel Corporation, we hired Brennan to actually help out with SEO with one of our brands, Grand European.
[49:36] SPEAKER_01: I knew Brennan from back then, he was a really impressive SEO guy, he really helped that business.
[49:40] SPEAKER_01: And I've kept in touch with him since.
[49:41] SPEAKER_01: And when he created Propelic, he then decided to go all in on marketing.
[49:44] SPEAKER_01: He was, you know, far ahead of the curve on SEO, but he realized, and as the team has grown, that rather than just being SEO, that he was going to get into paid media, he's gonna do content marketing and AI visibility and become a full service marketing agency, which all makes sense because you need to capture more visibility of the entire uh uh user journey to be able to make those recommendations as opposed to being a one-trick horse with just doing SEO.
[50:10] SPEAKER_01: So that's the context for our listeners.
[50:11] SPEAKER_01: So that's where John, I'd be interested to get your take on how you put these recommendations forward to your clients to make sure that they are educated to be able to know how much they need to spend, how long it's gonna take, and all the different ways they should be marketing and and then also tracking.
[50:26] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[50:27] SPEAKER_04: Um so the you know, to the to the original point, creating demand versus capturing it, right?
[50:33] SPEAKER_04: Um creating demand is always harder, right, to prove, at least than capturing it, right?
[50:38] SPEAKER_04: Um But um I I think what we've been able to see, you can do holdout tests is one one way you can you can kind of check uh check the effectiveness of prospecting.
[50:48] SPEAKER_04: It's similar to like what you just described with um Uniworld, right?
[50:52] SPEAKER_04: If you turned off brand, eventually you start to see a dip in ROAS.
[50:56] SPEAKER_04: Um and so very similarly, if you're segmenting your campaigns and you have a good, and this is just in the context of performance marketing, right?
[51:04] SPEAKER_04: But um, if you have prospect, you have prospecting running, and if you turn off that spigot, eventually your retargeting's gonna dry up or diminish in performance.
[51:13] SPEAKER_04: And so um, yeah, and depending on what your strategy is, but um, that is just a direct indication of the the benefit of brand and the benefit of um so you could you could create a corollary of of what your performance campaigns look like against the rest of your marketing mix.
[51:31] SPEAKER_04: Um and you know, I I think it this is very much to the point of actually what you were describing, Nicole, about like it it can't be perfect, you know, it's like it's gotta be an understanding of uh of um our best way to track prospecting uh performance, right?
[51:52] SPEAKER_04: And and understand that ROAS is lower there, but our ROAS is higher here, and that's why we do blended ROAS uh and doing that on a you know uh uh per per channel basis and other like why you use slice and dice is to try to just get a good picture.
[52:08] SPEAKER_04: Um but yeah, I think I think that's um I think that answers your question.
[52:14] SPEAKER_04: I think I don't know.
[52:16] SPEAKER_00: Can I jump in?
[52:16] SPEAKER_00: It was it was interesting.
[52:17] SPEAKER_00: I learned something last year.
[52:19] SPEAKER_00: We we did we did a campaign that was probably more around um creating demand than necessarily capturing it.
[52:27] SPEAKER_00: And uh we were trying to measure the success of it.
[52:31] SPEAKER_00: It was the first time we tried to do something like that.
[52:33] SPEAKER_00: And it was interesting, we were, you know, we were quite disappointed by the traffic that we got from it.
[52:41] SPEAKER_00: Um we didn't generate that many leads, but it wasn't generating, you know, uh demand more than capturing it, so so leads wasn't the main thing, but we we did expect some traffic, some engagement.
[52:55] SPEAKER_00: Um and and so we were a little bit disappointed.
[52:58] SPEAKER_00: And then we looked into our leads and actually what people were asking.
[53:06] SPEAKER_00: And because it was the f the only thing we ran, we were able to isolate the variable that this campaign was around this specific thing, and the increase in that specific thing being asked for through our leads was like 200%, but we couldn't attribute it back directly.
[53:27] SPEAKER_00: Um, and so so that was a learning in and of itself, specifically with these campaigns.
[53:33] SPEAKER_00: And I mean, in this one, it it was useful that it was so specific.
[53:37] SPEAKER_00: It wasn't generic, like we could say this is something that we did this year that we didn't do the year before.
[53:43] SPEAKER_00: It was on this very specific topic or this very specific thing, and we could see it coming back through what people were asking um in in in the leaves that came through.
[53:53] SPEAKER_00: And so the like you know, that's too much of a coincidence uh for it not to be.
[53:59] SPEAKER_00: But I I guess that's that's this is why you have to say, you know, you you do something in one channel like performance marketing, it comes back in others.
[54:08] SPEAKER_00: You can't you can't um say it's bec it's it's directly because of that.
[54:14] SPEAKER_00: There's no, you know, th those dots don't join automatically.
[54:18] SPEAKER_00: But the bigger picture showed that there that there was um a correlation uh between what we did and and then what we got.
[54:26] SPEAKER_04: I love that example.
[54:28] SPEAKER_04: Um I'm also like I am I I'm a I'm a fan of where it's going in terms of like revenue-based attribution models and like you know, being able to do that spend and um but but like to eventually get to a closer source of truth.
[54:41] SPEAKER_04: But I think what you just described is one of the best ways to be able to spot check.
[54:45] SPEAKER_04: Um another good example would be okay, we've got 50 bookings on brand.
[54:50] SPEAKER_04: All right, well, let's turn off two, well, you have two similar markets, right?
[54:54] SPEAKER_04: And you're like turn turn off one of them or turn down one of them and see how much total bookings ends up dropping to see what our contribution from brand were they gonna book anyway.
[55:05] SPEAKER_04: You know, were they gonna book with us anyway as opposed to, and it's like, oh, well, this one went down by 10, you know, or or down by 40 or something, you know, and you get to see, oh, wait, like incrementality in this is maybe 10 bookings.
[55:18] SPEAKER_04: So our brand is actually our brand search is actually performing on the 10 bookings and building that incrementality as opposed to the 50 that we were saying it should be attributed to.
[55:27] SPEAKER_04: Um so to your point, Nicole, it's it's so important to test and like explore and um and it and to um challenge the hypotheses that you have, you know, and then that's that's why it's so important to keep working at it.
[55:41] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like when you mentioned the beginning about the test spend, and I'll just add one quick anecdote for our listeners here too, because one of the things I was interested to ask you, Nicole, was you know, if you have had to defend a channel or campaign because you believed it was working, even though attribution didn't tell you that, and and then eventually you figure it out.
[55:58] SPEAKER_01: And the example that we went through is we were looking at Travel Zoo as a channel, and Travel Zoo, as many listeners may know, it's obviously a very big platform in the US, but it's typically associated with offering a deeper discount on product, which a lot of uh suppliers are not able to do, especially if you have a trade uh travel advisor partners.
[56:15] SPEAKER_01: You can't offer a deep discount on specific uh ships or itineraries or uh multi-day tours.
[56:22] SPEAKER_01: Uh, but one of the things that we discovered is that when we started doing CPC advertising just to have some of our regular on-sale products featured on their website, um that we would we saw based on attribution that typically uh Travel Zoo was like their first click or it was it was part of their journey that actually got them to book with us.
[56:42] SPEAKER_01: And so even though some of the brands were said we don't want to advertise with Travel Zoo, we're like, well, we're not doing deals in their top 20.
[56:48] SPEAKER_01: We're actually just putting our for regular last minute or sale inventory on their website because they're they have demand, they have people that have passports, have an interest in foreign travel, that have the money to be able to spend.
[56:59] SPEAKER_01: It's the right signal, and we're getting something in front of them that they're now discovering our brand, our business, our website, and their booking.
[57:06] SPEAKER_01: And so ultimately it was proven that the through our wider view of attribution, that it was incredibly effective.
[57:11] SPEAKER_01: And we kept spending more on that.
[57:13] SPEAKER_01: And these are the things that that then change.
[57:15] SPEAKER_01: And so as it relates to being on the other side of you know, Propelic being your partner, you obviously need to manage your team, the brand, decide on the right partner to work with.
[57:26] SPEAKER_01: But clearly you need to be able to look at the dashboard and make decisions confidently that you're putting in money in the right place.
[57:32] SPEAKER_01: Um, and so given that you are on the other end of that dashboard, what do you see as the metrics that you're paying most attention to uh to know when something's working and uh and also to adjust where needed?
[57:45] SPEAKER_01: What are you what are your KPIs that you focus on?
[57:48] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think at the moment, um I guess we're we're designing the dashboard around our specific strategic um imperatives because um return on ad spend is always there and the cost per acquisition is really important.
[58:04] SPEAKER_00: Um at the moment we're looking at our percentage going into different markets um and making sure that uh um and what that cost per acquisition is um for us.
[58:17] SPEAKER_00: Because we we've just made made a change in some of our campaigns, and so we're watching that quite carefully to see by um by ring defencing budget to two specific destinations and two specific markets, what that does to our cost per acquisition.
[58:33] SPEAKER_00: So ours are very much tied towards our our strategy at the moment.
[58:37] SPEAKER_00: I mean, ultimately, I would like the holy grail.
[58:41] SPEAKER_00: I think every every marketer would like to know.
[58:43] SPEAKER_00: Is that like a bigger one of what sort of specifically for brand, what what brand awareness are we actually really um achieving through through more than just paid?
[58:57] SPEAKER_00: Like how how how did how does paid contribute to uh the fuller marketing picture that that that exists um at the end of the day?
[59:06] SPEAKER_00: But but for paid specifically, we are we are focusing very specifically on the on the strategies that we've set out for ourselves this year.
[59:13] SPEAKER_00: And so they they are they are pretty specific in in terms of that, with some changes to our campaign structures that we recently made.
[59:22] SPEAKER_00: Um But yeah, we we are that that ROES is looking good, John.
[59:27] SPEAKER_00: I can tell you.
[59:29] SPEAKER_00: There's lots of smiles every two weeks, so that's always good.
[59:32] SPEAKER_00: Nice to see it go up.
[59:37] SPEAKER_01: And to share some of those KPIs from my perspective, the you know, there were four that we were always looking at.
[59:41] SPEAKER_01: And Nicole, please weigh in on this as well as what's what's relevant or what's uh what's different.
[59:47] SPEAKER_01: Um but the four KPIs we'd typically look at is uh request a brochure, because many travel businesses still have brochures, um a newsletter sign-up, um, the concept of requesting a quote, which is basically a strong lead signal, at least, that someone's looking to engage with you and get more information, or an online booking.
[1:00:03] SPEAKER_01: But as you know, in travel and these types of products, that is truly the holy grail, but ultimately that's not where you're seeing most of your KPIs.
[1:00:10] SPEAKER_01: It's and so it really is about nurturing and working those leads as hard as possible when you get them.
[1:00:16] SPEAKER_01: And so that's one thing I also wanted to ask you because when you look at uh lead nurturing and making sure that you're getting high quality leads, because all not all leads are created the same.
[1:00:26] SPEAKER_01: So, right?
[1:00:26] SPEAKER_01: That's you get leads and you run a social campaign and you get a lot of leads and they don't convert, and you're like, wait, wait a second, that was a false positive.
[1:00:32] SPEAKER_01: We got a thousand leads and they didn't convert, but you maybe got a hundred leads from Google and you know, 15% of them or 20% of them converted.
[1:00:40] SPEAKER_01: And you're like, yes, that's the number.
[1:00:42] SPEAKER_01: So um are those the KPIs that you're also typically looking at?
[1:00:46] SPEAKER_01: And is there anything else you would say in terms of lead quality?
[1:00:49] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so for us, when when we calculate where it is, we pretty much do the model that you gave John earlier on in terms of you know the targeted revenue, um, the the budget that we have, and then what our average file value is for each one of those bookings, and what's the conversion rate, and how many leads do we need to generate to get one booking for that file value to work it down.
[1:01:14] SPEAKER_00: And so ROAS is basically the reverse of that model, and and in that reporting is every single one of those metrics.
[1:01:21] SPEAKER_00: So the average file value is a definite um uh quality score.
[1:01:28] SPEAKER_00: You know, if we're getting ones that are very, very low, that tells us something in terms of the quotes that have been done.
[1:01:34] SPEAKER_00: If we get our response rate on quotes in that we get an inquiry in uh and it never we we reply to it, nothing ever comes back, um, is is another one.
[1:01:46] SPEAKER_00: Um, and then that ultimately goes into the conversion percentage at the end.
[1:01:50] SPEAKER_00: Interestingly enough, we measure those, we we we distinguish between macro and micro uh events on the um tracking on the site.
[1:01:59] SPEAKER_00: So we look at the the hard revenue generating ones or the ones that we focus on.
[1:02:05] SPEAKER_00: Um those the the micro ones, which are the subscription and the the the brochure downloads or request for brochure, um we we haven't gone into that space yet, but it's a real open opportunity um to nurture some of that engagement that you've seen on our on site from it.
[1:02:24] SPEAKER_00: We do find that because our performance marketing is so much more targeted to the correct audience, um, that the conversion rate on the leads we get from this channel are much higher than our organic ones because you cannot control who decides to send you a lead um organically.
[1:02:44] SPEAKER_00: And so um, yeah, the the best way to increase the quality actually of our leads is to increase our performance budget.
[1:02:53] SPEAKER_01: Thank you for explaining that.
[1:02:54] SPEAKER_01: I've got one last one on uh attribution, and I'm gonna um move on to the overall performance marketing playbook and ask you guys a couple of uh rapid fire questions on that topic that I think will be interesting for all of our listeners.
[1:03:07] SPEAKER_01: But one last thing on this, and I'm I'm doing everything to avoid talking about AI because that's gonna be next week's conversation, and we could you know easily start going down that path.
[1:03:16] SPEAKER_01: But uh but one of the things I uh wanted to ask you, John, what Nicole just described is spot on in terms of ROAS and so looking at the booking value and understanding profitability and how much you can uh justify to bring that lead in.
[1:03:30] SPEAKER_01: And I'll just share a couple a generic math example for our listeners too, with some of the multi-day tour brands I've worked with is that if the average booking value is$2,500, it's obviously not that for an African safari, but if an average booking value is$2,500 and the average booking size is two people, you've got a$5,000 booking.
[1:03:46] SPEAKER_01: If the commission rate could be as high as, you know, uh, well, 15%, let's say, you've got$750 to work with that would be a commission.
[1:03:54] SPEAKER_01: So if you can get that booking for 10%, so if you can get that for$500, all things considered, I would take that business all day long and I would have brands in the group that would say, you know, we'll continue to scale the budget as long as you can give us$500 booking value because we'll continue to take it.
[1:04:11] SPEAKER_01: That is a profitable acquisition for us.
[1:04:13] SPEAKER_01: But one of the things that we started looking at that was incredibly important to also have a bigger picture, because you can't always get to$500 cost per acquisition.
[1:04:22] SPEAKER_01: You can't always get the 10 to 0.
[1:04:24] SPEAKER_01: But one of the things that we realized that we were missing was lifetime customer value and understanding repeat.
[1:04:30] SPEAKER_01: And so this cast a far wider picture is like that booking is not worth$500.
[1:04:36] SPEAKER_01: We actually have more like$1,500 because that the likelihood is they're going to book two or two to three trips, and they might book other products within the family of brands.
[1:04:46] SPEAKER_01: So once we started peeling back the layers and started looking at lifetime cluster value based on repeat business, all of a sudden we got far more bullish on what we could actually spend.
[1:04:56] SPEAKER_01: And so, John, tell us a little bit about how you guys approach that and and having conversations with clients like and beyond to look at a bigger picture.
[1:05:07] SPEAKER_04: I I think we've said holy grail like three times on this podcast because it's another one.
[1:05:12] SPEAKER_04: Like, seriously for travel companies, right?
[1:05:14] SPEAKER_04: You know, like perfect attribution, LTV calculations.
[1:05:17] SPEAKER_04: I think everybody is um uh is becoming very much prominent that e even in the day tour operator space and and other like spaces, that they're starting to look at like, wait, maybe we should we should move into LTV like, you know, as a as a way to indicate, you know, or or to expand our market penetration.
[1:05:39] SPEAKER_04: Um because uh, you know, historically, I think everyone gets started with I based on my margin, I just need to make a certain row as your great example like that you brought up.
[1:05:50] SPEAKER_04: Like I've seen to make 20 cents more than I spent.
[1:05:53] SPEAKER_04: You know what I mean?
[1:05:53] SPEAKER_04: Like every every dollar I spent, I need to try to make a dollar twenty or two or two dollars, two dollars, depends on their economics.
[1:06:00] SPEAKER_04: But um anyway, my my uh my point there is uh um I think LTV calculation is becoming um a much bigger part of the equation for um uh for a lot of different travel brands.
[1:06:13] SPEAKER_04: But in the multi-day tour space specifically, there's a lot of um uh like customer trust, I think that is built in that product base.
[1:06:23] SPEAKER_04: Um, because once they've experienced your brand, they're on site, they've like actual you're you are on site, you own or manage the actual experience there, um, the opportunity for repeat business is very high.
[1:06:34] SPEAKER_04: So um uh yes, it's something we we recommend um building towards.
[1:06:40] SPEAKER_04: It's not always where we say to start, depending on the nature of where they are in their journey as a business.
[1:06:45] SPEAKER_04: You know, if they're doing, you know, uh 20 million annually, they like they probably have more market penetration on an existing approach than trying to expand on LTV calculation.
[1:06:57] SPEAKER_04: You know, it it that's a super broad stroke, obviously, generalization.
[1:07:01] SPEAKER_04: But you get my point, um, which is I think it's like you you add by virtue of that.
[1:07:06] SPEAKER_04: Um because you could get ahead of your skis, of course, if done incorrectly.
[1:07:11] SPEAKER_04: Um so but I think it's I think it's very uh very much a valuable exercise because it also really helps you prioritize the customer's experience.
[1:07:20] SPEAKER_04: So, in terms of that success, the success of their experience, you're gonna want, you're gonna start to prioritize repeat because you can start to drive up LTV.
[1:07:28] SPEAKER_04: And that gets people off the the um the addiction that is search, right?
[1:07:34] SPEAKER_04: The in the same way.
[1:07:35] SPEAKER_04: They they can start to think, all right, well, the the in the in uh in-market experience can drive repeat if we do X, Y, Z.
[1:07:43] SPEAKER_04: So operation starts to play like a bigger role in how marketing's um outcomes look.
[1:07:50] SPEAKER_04: Um and this again becomes kind of tricky for from a perspective of like brand, but that does build brand, inevitably.
[1:07:57] SPEAKER_04: Um yeah, I think I think it's a it's a wonder, wonderful thing to be doing.
[1:08:02] SPEAKER_04: Um, a lot easier in SaaS, say, than probably in travel, but um, but uh you know, all all the more while to do it.
[1:08:10] SPEAKER_03: We'll be right back.
[1:08:13] SPEAKER_03: When was the last time you looked at payments as a driver of profit rather than simply a cost?
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[1:09:02] SPEAKER_02: Travel has changed.
[1:09:04] SPEAKER_02: But many multi-day tour operators are still stuck with spreadsheets and disconnected systems.
[1:09:10] SPEAKER_02: Today's travelers expect more.
[1:09:12] SPEAKER_02: More choice, more flexibility, more unforgettable moments.
[1:09:16] SPEAKER_02: Without the friction.
[1:09:18] SPEAKER_02: That's where Captio comes in.
[1:09:20] SPEAKER_02: Built on Salesforce, Captio is a modern platform designed specifically for multi-day tour operators.
[1:09:26] SPEAKER_02: From tailor-made trips to group tours, from rail to river to cruise, we bring your itineraries, bookings, payments, and operations together in one seamless system.
[1:09:36] SPEAKER_02: With automation, real-time inventory, and supplier integrations, we make complex travel simple.
[1:09:43] SPEAKER_02: So you can focus on what you do best.
[1:09:45] SPEAKER_02: Serve travelers, not spreadsheets.
[1:09:49] SPEAKER_03: Propelic is the leading full-service travel marketing and advertising agency built for how people discover travel today.
[1:09:55] SPEAKER_03: They help travel brands grow through AI visibility and SEO, paid media and strategic consulting and analytics.
[1:10:01] SPEAKER_03: Recently named to the Inc.
[1:10:02] SPEAKER_03: 5000 list of fastest growing companies for the second consecutive year, Propelic works with leading tour operators, hospitality brands, and destinations worldwide to find their next customer in the evolving digital world.
[1:10:15] SPEAKER_01: And now, back to the show.
[1:10:17] SPEAKER_01: Now let's move into the uh you guys ready to play a bit of a game?
[1:10:21] SPEAKER_01: Because I want to I want you guys to think about your performance marketing playbook for 2027, since that's what everyone has been working on over the last couple of months.
[1:10:30] SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure uh owners, uh executives have been asking you, what should I spend to achieve this result?
[1:10:37] SPEAKER_01: And so the game I want to play, and I want to get each of your uh take on this, is that and so for you, Nicole, we're gonna start with you on this one first.
[1:10:45] SPEAKER_01: If you were to be given an additional$100,000, and again, just to pick around number, it could be a million dollars for that matter, but um, for the purpose of just trying to understand where you'd allocate it, if you were gonna give it$100,000 in addition for next year's spend, would you put it into paid search, paid social, retargeting, content, experimentation?
[1:11:04] SPEAKER_01: Where does the money go?
[1:11:06] SPEAKER_01: And what make how do you make your mind up around the allocation?
[1:11:11] SPEAKER_00: Oh, such a difficult question.
[1:11:15] SPEAKER_00: Um I bring out the crystal ball, I think.
[1:11:18] SPEAKER_05: Yeah, just bring out the crystal ball.
[1:11:20] SPEAKER_00: Definitely, yeah, I guess the way I start, it won't become as it won't be a surprise to say I definitely allocate a fair amount of it to some learning and experimentation.
[1:11:30] SPEAKER_00: Um quite a fair amount perhaps to to resource to understand um and investigate uh um our AI visibility uh in the space and and how performance marketing um uh affects that.
[1:11:48] SPEAKER_00: Um given you know given how I mean I did it myself.
[1:11:53] SPEAKER_00: I'm in the travel, I'm in the travel industry.
[1:11:56] SPEAKER_00: I was traveling to a destination I didn't know, and not one of ours.
[1:11:59] SPEAKER_00: Um and I used I used Chat GPT as my travel advisor, but then I I I I had a travel advisor who knew the destination that I was trying to well, so I did a comparison um to see where ChatGPT did well and where it was awful.
[1:12:16] SPEAKER_00: This was a well-traveled um destination, not necessarily like going to Botswana, which might be um a little bit harder to try and get the AI to work out like right now, just because of the the lack of online logistics and availability.
[1:12:31] SPEAKER_00: It's it's much harder for a destination like that.
[1:12:33] SPEAKER_00: But I would definitely allocate to learning.
[1:12:35] SPEAKER_00: And then um, yeah, content and social are really interesting right now in terms of how they play as as an alternative uh space, uh, both for AI but and for the human uh in the mix in terms of uh a place where where people, you know, a a lot of the markets is getting inspiration and learning.
[1:12:58] SPEAKER_00: A lot of trips are are happening based on what people are suggesting.
[1:13:02] SPEAKER_00: Um they did uh what they've seen other people do.
[1:13:07] SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, um yeah, I'd probably go half half.
[1:13:13] SPEAKER_01: Okay, and that's why I want to push you to give some actual numbers.
[1:13:15] SPEAKER_01: So when$100,000 you mentioned experimentation, is that 10%, 20%?
[1:13:22] SPEAKER_00: No, I would say 50.
[1:13:24] SPEAKER_01: 50% goes to experimentation, all right?
[1:13:27] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then yeah, I'd take it as a I take it as a as a give it to learn because there's a lot to learn.
[1:13:32] SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, it would be interesting as to how you how you play, uh, what what tools are out there, are they the right tools?
[1:13:41] SPEAKER_00: Do they tell you the right things?
[1:13:43] SPEAKER_00: Um you know, there's there's a lot of new right now.
[1:13:47] SPEAKER_00: Um and so even if it's even even as uh investment in my team to learn.
[1:13:54] SPEAKER_00: So that's capacity, because I think that's also a um an investment in terms of getting the most out of out of this.
[1:14:02] SPEAKER_01: Other 50%, and then I'm coming to you on this, John.
[1:14:04] SPEAKER_01: So the other 50%, how much goes to paid search, paid social, or remarketing or retargeting?
[1:14:10] SPEAKER_00: Um I'd probably say um paid social and retargeting, half each.
[1:14:18] SPEAKER_00: So 25, 25.
[1:14:20] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[1:14:21] SPEAKER_01: All right.
[1:14:21] SPEAKER_01: So no additional paid search.
[1:14:22] SPEAKER_01: It would be additional paid social retargeting and experimentation.
[1:14:27] SPEAKER_01: All right, thank you for that, Nicole.
[1:14:28] SPEAKER_01: John, you have to cross over the other side to answer this question.
[1:14:31] SPEAKER_01: This is not you and your agency seat.
[1:14:33] SPEAKER_01: Yes.
[1:14:33] SPEAKER_01: This is you getting hired as by one of your suppliers saying, John, given everything you know about all the clients you've worked with, you now have$100,000.
[1:14:43] SPEAKER_01: How do you spend it 2027?
[1:14:46] SPEAKER_04: Okay.
[1:14:46] SPEAKER_04: Um, I had the fortune of of having time to think about this now.
[1:14:51] SPEAKER_04: Uh, but the um I think uh I would go 40% in experimentation.
[1:15:00] SPEAKER_04: And what I would use that for probably is uh is mark, not not necessarily like um uh source market expansion and holdout testing.
[1:15:08] SPEAKER_04: And it needs to be enough that you could actually get like statistically relevant, you could run enough tests.
[1:15:13] SPEAKER_04: So I think 40 or 50%, I think it'd be very similar with Nicole.
[1:15:16] SPEAKER_04: But um the uh I would also do some um, I would see if we can get very good at um uh ads in AI.
[1:15:26] SPEAKER_04: Um I would uh it's very early in those in the in the game there, but um actually just this week, Chat GPT ads now allow you to load up customer lists via live ramp.
[1:15:38] SPEAKER_04: They just started now um uh display during image generation.
[1:15:42] SPEAKER_04: It's a lot of like inspiration you could imagine uh going on as people are are drumming up images.
[1:15:49] SPEAKER_04: Um and so I I would see just like in your example of booking.com were like the best search marketers, you know, for hotels ever, like you'd say, like, oh well, can I get a strategic advantage for now in this new channel?
[1:16:02] SPEAKER_04: So I would, I would probably, I'd probably do, I'd probably do like actually now I say at like 50, 60% in experimentation.
[1:16:08] SPEAKER_04: It'd be those two different types of experiments.
[1:16:11] SPEAKER_04: Can we do holdout tests to understand our our uh our penetration better?
[1:16:16] SPEAKER_04: And then can we uh can we get good at this at these new channels?
[1:16:20] SPEAKER_04: And then the rest I would do is probably uh content.
[1:16:24] SPEAKER_04: I would do content like 20%.
[1:16:27] SPEAKER_04: I think I would do paid, I don't know that I would do that much paid social prospecting, but that's brand.
[1:16:32] SPEAKER_04: So I would probably do a little bit of that.
[1:16:34] SPEAKER_04: I would do like 20%, 20% there.
[1:16:37] SPEAKER_04: So 20% content, 20% paid social.
[1:16:40] SPEAKER_04: How much do I have left?
[1:16:41] SPEAKER_04: About 10% I would do on non-brand search.
[1:16:44] SPEAKER_04: So I could expand that as well.
[1:16:46] SPEAKER_04: I don't think I would touch retargeting because this is like the point of this is that I would learn and I would expand my budget for the next go-around.
[1:16:54] SPEAKER_04: So I would um I wouldn't look to try to earn earn the bucks back necessarily exclusively on this.
[1:17:00] SPEAKER_04: I would just have a better plan the next time.
[1:17:02] SPEAKER_04: And the reason for content and social is because I would test more influencers.
[1:17:07] SPEAKER_04: It's really cool to hear that react that reaction, Nicolas.
[1:17:09] SPEAKER_04: Actually, um similarly, I've heard a lot about lifestyle influencers being uh driving more uh than than travel influencers.
[1:17:17] SPEAKER_04: So it's quite a quite a nugget that you shared there that is like a little like Easter egg for listeners.
[1:17:23] SPEAKER_04: Um and um and yeah, I think um uh the the the uh benefits of content and partnership content, especially, um uh in it would be to drive AI visibility as well.
[1:17:36] SPEAKER_04: Um so I would I would gear my content strategy and investment into AI visibility 100%.
[1:17:43] SPEAKER_04: Um so I think I said 5020 2010.
[1:17:47] SPEAKER_01: That's great.
[1:17:47] SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being specific.
[1:17:49] SPEAKER_01: I appreciate both of you answering that question and being pushed to those numbers.
[1:17:52] SPEAKER_01: I'll just share one thing and then I'm gonna move to the last couple lightning round questions, and then uh your biggest takeaway for 2027.
[1:18:00] SPEAKER_01: The one thing I would just uh share in addition, and we'll talk more about AI next week, but as it relates to PR and making sure that you're getting media pickup, which is key for indexing in uh any of the large language models.
[1:18:11] SPEAKER_01: But the one thing I would also share, and this is by way of trying to be helpful for all of our listeners that are you know listening to this in October, going into Q4 of 2026 and preparing for Q1 2027, is that when you look at your uh remarketing activity, we would typically focus 70% on prospecting still, and then getting into switching in Q1 and going into Q2, eventually getting to 70% um remarketing.
[1:18:40] SPEAKER_01: So 70% prospecting with our display and 70% remarketing to and getting spending more of the dollars on a narrower pool of people that are clearly have been to the website, you're in the consideration set, um, that are much higher intent.
[1:18:54] SPEAKER_01: But right now it's trying to build up those audience pools and trying to get as much awareness as possible and and trying to grab prospects.
[1:19:00] SPEAKER_01: Uh so there's there's lots here on the playbook.
[1:19:03] SPEAKER_01: I mean, Propeller does a great job of uh on their website and with their podcast and with their newsletter of sharing some of the updates and the reports that they've been working on.
[1:19:11] SPEAKER_01: Uh, but last couple of rapid fire questions for you both.
[1:19:14] SPEAKER_01: So, Nicole, given that we've talked about KPIs and data, and um, if you could uh wave a magic wand and have one question answered in your marketing dashboard that you that don't currently, what would be the the metric?
[1:19:29] SPEAKER_01: I know it's interesting given your background in finance and accounting.
[1:19:32] SPEAKER_01: What would be the metric you would love to be able to see that isn't currently available to you?
[1:19:39] SPEAKER_00: Um I would love, I'd love, love, love to be able to see um my my real true roes, because I've got data issues at the moment with all of the all of the leads that we come in and being able to um some of them I can't attribute at all, but so I don't I don't have a true true number, so I guess I'm still at heart trying to get that um completeness uh of what I know should be able to be complete.
[1:20:09] SPEAKER_00: Um so that would be one, but yeah, I I I guess if I if I could understand um what that that customer like what even five different cases of like the different journeys and touch points that that the different channels that um these these leads are coming through as to like what's the most um common journey of social paid search, organic, etc.
[1:20:44] SPEAKER_00: That would get us to this lead, like five different variations as to what's the most usual.
[1:20:51] SPEAKER_00: Um that would be really really helpful to understand how they're all playing together and makes I don't think it's possible.
[1:20:58] SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know how that would be possible.
[1:21:00] SPEAKER_00: But if I could wave my one, you said I had a one That's awesome.
[1:21:06] SPEAKER_05: Sounds like John's working on that.
[1:21:08] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'd love to see the the impact of all of the efforts together.
[1:21:13] SPEAKER_00: Like something that could show me uh the results of brand creation and demand capture, like in in one place as to what that as to how that played.
[1:21:25] SPEAKER_00: Like and I I you know some of that happens in the air, so it's difficult to know.
[1:21:31] SPEAKER_01: For sure need more than a matchup.
[1:21:32] SPEAKER_01: Thanks for sharing that, Cole.
[1:21:33] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's where you're sitting in that seat, and that's why I wanted to ask you that direct question, uh, because I'm sure many of our listeners completely identify with where you find yourself and and how far we've come, but how much we still have to do.
[1:21:45] SPEAKER_01: And um, because most of our most of our experience with data and analytics has come from having a data analyst and having someone that had that responsibility, and now AI can do so much more for us, and and being able to have access to accurate data, prompting in the right way, and being able to synthesize that information.
[1:22:05] SPEAKER_01: It's so it's an exciting time to get closer to attribution.
[1:22:09] SPEAKER_01: And on that note, John, the one question is could it's a little flip of that.
[1:22:13] SPEAKER_01: Um, but what's one number you'd tell every travel CMO to look at tomorrow morning?
[1:22:19] SPEAKER_01: So if they're listening to this, you know, it's late night right now for Nicole in uh in Johannesburg in South Africa, and I appreciate her joining so late for this call.
[1:22:27] SPEAKER_01: But you know, the next morning, someone's coming in.
[1:22:30] SPEAKER_01: What is the one metric?
[1:22:31] SPEAKER_01: And I I I I've got a view on this too, but I'm keen to get your take.
[1:22:34] SPEAKER_01: What is the what's one number you'd tell every travel CMO to be looking at tomorrow morning to better understand their business?
[1:22:41] SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's so hard.
[1:22:42] SPEAKER_04: It really depends.
[1:22:43] SPEAKER_04: Um, but I would say, I mean, on the on the basis of what we've been talking about, I think it's pretty interesting to compare your ad platform uh like bookings versus your your CRM booking or like your you know your actual reservation system bookings and like get a real glimpse of like that's that's how big of a gap you have to have.
[1:23:04] SPEAKER_04: And then like it I think it should draw attention to source of truth.
[1:23:09] SPEAKER_04: The other reason I think I I I get so excited and I feel so strongly about first party data is because one, it just makes a better customer experience, but two, it um it is going to it is a full-on requirement now.
[1:23:22] SPEAKER_04: It's no longer like a it's no longer like a uh we'll figure that out in 15 years, which is when cookie apocalypse felt like it was showing up, right?
[1:23:29] SPEAKER_04: But like I feel like um now it's just because AI is is changing the way that our visibility into the journey inevitably, and and with agentic booking, it becomes even more of a part of this equation, right?
[1:23:44] SPEAKER_04: And like there's there's so much more that's gonna be showing up there.
[1:23:48] SPEAKER_04: Having your arms around your customer data and more importantly, the first party and zero party data, I think is really important.
[1:23:55] SPEAKER_04: So like looking at that gap will help you, I think, say like, I do need to prioritize this, or uh, this is a good source of truth, and I should use it more, if that makes sense.
[1:24:03] SPEAKER_04: Um yeah, that's one answer.
[1:24:07] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[1:24:09] SPEAKER_01: Well, and the one I would add to that is conversions, like really truly understanding conversion.
[1:24:15] SPEAKER_01: Damn, much better.
[1:24:17] SPEAKER_01: Well, website conversion, contacts that are conversions.
[1:24:21] SPEAKER_01: What contribute what contributes to those what's within your control to be able to optimize against that?
[1:24:26] SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, having a much clearer understanding of conversion, I think that's often the missing piece because we're looking at total site traffic and the number of bookings or number of leads you have, really understanding conversion.
[1:24:38] SPEAKER_01: But I don't I just think that's we're still far away from a lot of travel brands truly understanding what their conversion metrics are.
[1:24:44] SPEAKER_01: And that's what e-commerce businesses are so good at is truly understanding how well they convert.
[1:24:49] SPEAKER_01: So um well, on that note, I've really enjoyed this conversation in episode two of our three-part series.
[1:24:55] SPEAKER_01: I've got one final question for each of you to leave our listeners with, and that is looking towards 2027, which is only months away, and some people are going to be already listening to this in 2027.
[1:25:06] SPEAKER_01: What's the biggest thing that travel marketers should be focused on when it comes to measuring performance, allocating budget, but on the topic of performance marketing, data attribution, Nicole, what's the one thing you would tell other travel marketers they should be paying attention to?
[1:25:22] SPEAKER_00: Sure.
[1:25:23] SPEAKER_00: And specifically performance marketing.
[1:25:26] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, either performance or data.
[1:25:28] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
[1:25:29] SPEAKER_00: Within the Yeah, I think I think for me it it's trying to work out what performance marketing looks like in the world of AI.
[1:25:38] SPEAKER_00: When what's what the revenue models are gonna be for AI.
[1:25:43] SPEAKER_00: Um how how how yeah, how search, how paid search is going to um evolve, I guess, from what we've known it at the moment.
[1:25:55] SPEAKER_00: I think well for me, that's I guess the the the biggest question that I have.
[1:26:00] SPEAKER_01: That's a great segue to next week's episode and our summit for two days of exploring exactly that.
[1:26:05] SPEAKER_01: And you're absolutely right, because that is the question we're all asking ourselves and each other.
[1:26:08] SPEAKER_01: Thank you for that, Nicole.
[1:26:09] SPEAKER_01: And then John, what would you travel marketers out there that are listening to this, when it comes to measuring performance or allocating budget, what would you tell travel marketers to pay attention to for 2027?
[1:26:21] SPEAKER_04: I would be prepared to free up an experimentation budget, much like me and Nicole were just talking about, um, in the context of not just AI ad platforms, but also an understanding around what agentic booking will do for your business.
[1:26:39] SPEAKER_04: With Muse and Instinct having been released, you know, three weeks ago, it's it's just in insane what's going on in terms of how much volume and like we're already seeing statistically relevant you know swings in terms of like people doing things in that platform.
[1:26:55] SPEAKER_04: And it's not the same in multi-day, I would say, but I it is uh inevitably going to change the change the game uh quite a bit.
[1:27:04] SPEAKER_04: So I've for example, these are not travel examples, but I know that Instincts, like half of their, I think, billion dollars already since they launched is travel.
[1:27:13] SPEAKER_04: And um uh, but I I've been on Instinct for I think a week and a half, two weeks, and uh I've booked a U-Haul, a spa trip, and uh and a haircut without uh interacting with any reservation system.
[1:27:27] SPEAKER_04: And that is uh that's crazy.
[1:27:30] SPEAKER_04: That's pretty crazy.
[1:27:31] SPEAKER_04: Like that's like a meaningful transaction volume already, and like stuff that I wouldn't like I didn't have time for, you know.
[1:27:39] SPEAKER_04: So uh so I think as marketers, I would it's not something you can just like you know, know what's in that crystal ball, but I I think you need to be prepared for um change again, and that we're just gonna have a another weird 2027 probably.
[1:27:55] SPEAKER_04: Uh, but that that is on the horizon.
[1:27:58] SPEAKER_01: We also heard there about the life.
[1:28:00] SPEAKER_01: For John and what you're into and what you're up to.
[1:28:03] SPEAKER_01: And I've just, I have to say, I'm just, I'm glad you got a haircut before this.
[1:28:06] SPEAKER_01: I was like, no, my haircuts this weekend.
[1:28:09] unknown: Yeah.
[1:28:11] SPEAKER_04: The spa was an experiment.
[1:28:13] SPEAKER_04: We were on the way to the digital travel summit, and I was on the flight, and I was like, I'm gonna test instinct and see if it can book uh a spa reservation.
[1:28:21] SPEAKER_04: And it did.
[1:28:22] SPEAKER_04: And it was like, and then I felt really guilty, so I booked one for my wife when I got back.
[1:28:27] SPEAKER_04: Uh, and I let instinct handle that too.
[1:28:30] SPEAKER_04: Um so, but then yes, the the U-Haul was quite a quite a thing that is like unbelievable.
[1:28:36] SPEAKER_04: Um sorry.
[1:28:39] SPEAKER_04: I can't we're not gonna go deep on some weird story.
[1:28:42] SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you sharing that.
[1:28:43] SPEAKER_01: And you are we actually included the numbers of Instinct in our October travel trends report.
[1:28:47] SPEAKER_01: We started producing these monthly trends reports, as many of our listeners know.
[1:28:50] SPEAKER_01: And one of the things we dove into was that you know, in the age of Instinct and Muse, you know, the OTAs have seen their stocks fall more than 20%, and people are starting to price in.
[1:28:58] SPEAKER_01: What happens?
[1:28:59] SPEAKER_01: Is this when the dam breaks and people are actually going to use HNTIC tools to book?
[1:29:03] SPEAKER_01: So I think one of the things you guys have both highlighted that's been very important in this conversation is the need to remain flexible, experiment, try new things, because we are going through a period of rapid change.
[1:29:14] SPEAKER_01: Everything that we knew about the customer journey is changing at the moment.
[1:29:18] SPEAKER_01: And we'll get into that in more detail next week.
[1:29:20] SPEAKER_01: But I just wanted to thank you both for joining me for this conversation about performance marketing and data attribution.
[1:29:26] SPEAKER_01: It still is the core of where most travel companies spend their marketing dollars, which is why we had to get into some of the level of detail that we did, because that's all hopefully what will have provided the most insight and benefit from our discussion.
[1:29:39] SPEAKER_01: So, first of all, Nicole, thank you for joining.
[1:29:42] SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing all the valuable insights from Anbeyond.
[1:29:45] SPEAKER_01: As we close out, is there anything you want to leave our listeners with to make sure if they want to reach out to Anbeyond, partner with you or uh or the team?
[1:29:54] SPEAKER_01: What would be the best ways for our listeners to reach out to you or the team at Ambeyond?
[1:29:59] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, you can reach me on LinkedIn, but um yeah, that on ambiion.com, there's a general inquiry form on there that you can send send through an inquiry um that will come through to us.
[1:30:10] SPEAKER_00: Uh it's probably the best way uh to reach out.
[1:30:14] SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, and if you want to spend time in some of the world's irreplaceable places, um we would be who you come to.
[1:30:22] unknown: Definitely.
[1:30:23] SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you again for joining us, Nicole, especially late.
[1:30:25] SPEAKER_01: Get some rest and definitely keep in touch.
[1:30:27] SPEAKER_01: Thanks again for being with us.
[1:30:28] SPEAKER_01: Great.
[1:30:28] SPEAKER_01: And John, thanks for joining your very first Travel Trends podcast and obviously sharing as much as you did.
[1:30:33] SPEAKER_01: And I know uh we'll see each other again uh very shortly at all the different conferences that are coming up.
[1:30:38] SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm gonna mention Propelic in my outro, but before I do, as far as people following up with you, John, looking to connect with you and the team, what would be the best ways for our listeners to do that?
[1:30:49] SPEAKER_04: Um Yeah, definitely uh check out our website for um some of the research that we've been putting out.
[1:30:55] SPEAKER_04: We literally just launched one about AI visibility in 2026 and the state of AI visibility.
[1:31:00] SPEAKER_04: Oh, thanks, Nicole.
[1:31:01] SPEAKER_05: I'm it was good.
[1:31:04] SPEAKER_04: I'm excited to say we have another one already underway um because now I'm using instinct in the genetic booking.
[1:31:12] SPEAKER_04: So we we have another another report in the hopper.
[1:31:14] SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna preview that here.
[1:31:16] SPEAKER_04: Uh so yeah, stay like actually the best thing you can do is sign up for our newsletter, our navlog every other week, and you get first access to these types of things.
[1:31:24] SPEAKER_04: And if you want to uh get in touch with me, um, you know, LinkedIn is a great way as well.
[1:31:28] SPEAKER_04: I'm I'm pretty active there.
[1:31:30] SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
[1:31:30] SPEAKER_01: And John's based in New York, if you're wondering, just for time zones.
[1:31:33] SPEAKER_01: But John, thank you for joining us.
[1:31:35] SPEAKER_01: I'll see you again really soon.
[1:31:36] SPEAKER_01: Thanks again for our partnership and all of our collaborations, and wishing you and the team continued success.
[1:31:41] SPEAKER_01: And thanks again for being part of this.
[1:31:43] SPEAKER_04: Thanks, Dan.
[1:31:44] SPEAKER_04: Thanks, Nicole.
[1:31:45] SPEAKER_04: This is awesome.
[1:31:46] SPEAKER_01: Thanks again to you both, and thanks again to all of our listeners.
[1:31:48] SPEAKER_01: If there was one takeaway for me today as I've been having this conversation, it's that perfect attribution may not exist, but the brands that are winning are the ones that are brave enough to measure what matters, test relentlessly.
[1:32:00] SPEAKER_01: Obviously, that was a big focus of our conversation.
[1:32:02] SPEAKER_01: Uh, but ultimately connect every travel dollar back to real bookings.
[1:32:07] SPEAKER_01: That was one of the things I wanted to make sure we got across in the conversation today.
[1:32:11] SPEAKER_01: And I think we did.
[1:32:12] SPEAKER_01: If you have questions, obviously you can by all means reach out to John or to Nicole.
[1:32:16] SPEAKER_01: Uh, just hit or send me an email, Dan at traveltrendspodcast.com, and I'll gladly connect you to either of them or try to put you on the right path to answer the questions that you want to know about.
[1:32:26] SPEAKER_01: And if that leads to other guests on our podcast, other topics you want us to cover, then obviously that's uh a great outcome of this conversation as well to continue to get you the information that you're gonna really benefit from.
[1:32:38] SPEAKER_01: And uh on that note, next week we wrap up the series with the topic that we've been talking about, and everyone's talking about AI visibility.
[1:32:45] SPEAKER_01: When a traveler asks, Chat GPT, Gemini are perplexedly where to go and who to book with, does your brand show up?
[1:32:51] SPEAKER_01: Everyone's asking this question.
[1:32:53] SPEAKER_01: And next week we'll be joined not only by Brennan Bliss, the CEO founder of Propelic, but also John Liotier from Travel AI and Brianna as well.
[1:33:02] SPEAKER_01: And they have some really valuable insights to be able to share about the customer journey and how it's changing.
[1:33:07] SPEAKER_01: Even John and Brianna have been presenting to Booking.com and helping their executives better understand how they're sending them all this business because they're able to optimize for the customer journey in the age of AI.
[1:33:19] SPEAKER_01: So don't miss that final episode in this series.
[1:33:22] SPEAKER_01: And also remember that Brennan's gonna kick off our day two of our conference with a fantastic keynote.
[1:33:28] SPEAKER_01: It's been one of the most highly anticipated and well received in the last two years.
[1:33:32] SPEAKER_01: So make sure you're registered to join us October 28th and 29th.
[1:33:36] SPEAKER_01: You can just go to traveltrendspodcast.com to sign up.
[1:33:39] SPEAKER_01: And a huge thank you once again to our friends at Propelic for sponsoring this series.
[1:33:42] SPEAKER_01: If you're a travel marketer, which most of you should be listening to this, then head to Propelic's travel marketing hub.
[1:33:48] SPEAKER_01: You'll find their navlog newsletter that John referenced.
[1:33:52] SPEAKER_01: It's a fantastic resource.
[1:33:54] SPEAKER_01: They provide a lot of excellent content, interviews, and they also have their own travel marketing podcast, their blog, they do a lot of original research.
[1:34:02] SPEAKER_01: And uh that state of visibility report came up in our very first session uh by Laurel over at TripAdvisor.
[1:34:09] SPEAKER_01: So I know everyone's gonna be gravitating to that report.
[1:34:11] SPEAKER_01: And it's actually perfect homework before next week's episode.
[1:34:15] SPEAKER_01: So make sure you check that out.
[1:34:16] SPEAKER_01: And don't forget we do post clips and highlights on our social channels.
[1:34:19] SPEAKER_01: So if you want to see John and Nicole and their beautiful smiling faces, you can check out YouTube or any of the clips that we post on Instagram, LinkedIn, or even TikTok at Travel Trends Podcast.
[1:34:30] SPEAKER_01: Thanks again for joining us.
[1:34:31] SPEAKER_01: And until next week, safe travels.

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