Data Transparency and Why a Black Box Solution May Be Doing You More Harm Than Good
Many travel marketers rely on data without knowing exactly what it is made up of or where it comes from for their marketing campaigns. But this data can result in wasted ad spend and underperforming campaigns. To ensure you get the most ‘bang for your buck’ in every marketing activity, verifiable, transparent data sources are critical.
Black box data is opaque travel information without any suggestion as to where it has come from or its attributes. Vendors selling this data set are unable to confirm its source or vintage – they’re simply asking you to take their word the data set is what your brand needs.
Opaque data may include information about a traveller visiting an airline’s site to check their frequent flyer points, but who has no immediate plans to travel. Or the data touch point may be as simple as an individual ‘liking’ a hotel’s photo on a social media platform. Without travel intent attributes there’s no real detail to this data set, which is merely a pool of people who have interacted with travel related content.
By contrast, Audience360’s approach is targeted and based solely on deterministic data, which is factual and transparent. Our data partners include webjet.com.au, webjet.co.nz and Click Frenzy, where top Australian travel brands such as Qantas, Jetstar, Virgin Australia, Rex and Flypelican offer their products. Our clients are able to access real data about how travellers are using these sites to search for and book travel, including information about the traveller’s origin, destination and dates of travel for flights, accommodation, car hire and ancillary travel purchases.
Our data allows advertisers to build up and understand their target traveller to achieve their goals. The result is more targeted spend and better sales conversions. Because ultimately, the more insight and oversight you have about your data, the better you are able to match it to your campaign objectives.