Mark Sniderman
Manager, Marketing Communications – North America & Caribbean
Air Canada
Case Study: Air Canada’s webSaver –Turning Innovation into New Revenues
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Air Canada webSaver® - building on innovation
Meeting the challenge
Leveraging email to increase revenue
Results
Key lessons
Welcome!
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Air Canada is Canada’s largest airline
Network spans over 170 destinations on 5 continents
31 million customers annually
Founding member of Star Alliance™ network
15th largest airline in the world
Introducing Air Canada
Comfort
o makes your flight more pleasant
Technology
o makes your life easier
People and equipment
o gives you peace of mind with the highest standards
Network and alliances
o making the whole world easily accessible
Refinement
o pamper and gratify the most demanding travelers44
Air Canada invests in…
…extending the brand experience
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10+ years – steady growth,
Dynamic newsletter
Weekly distribution and ad hoc
Personalized offers
Since 2006 from 450,000 to approx. 4,000,000 subscribers
Canada (English and French) and US
Supported by a highly comprehensive online subscription centre
Air Canada webSaver® email Program
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Grow 2010 online revenue
Increase engagement (grow clickthrough rate)
Maximize retention (keep unsubscribe rate below 1%)
Create cross channel synergy to promote online sales
Decrease resources and time needed to create emails
Leverage customer profiles to drive targeted content
Enhance the “flying experience” and reinforce the brand
Goals
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• ObjectivesUse our experience and innovation
Increase effectiveness of the email program
Grow online revenues in 2010
Reduce unsubscribe rate – a measure of customer retention
Increase clickthrough rate – a measure of engagement
Continue to personalize:Target product offerings for each subscriber
Provide each subscriber with the control to define key elements of their user experience.
Reduce time to create emails
Air Canada webSaver® email Program
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Collecting complete and consistent subscriber data
Allocating resources efficiently for production and deployment
Producing a completely dynamic newsletter specifically targeting each subscriber individually
Creating a modular email template for easy addition / removal of content
Provide information in a quick and easy to find manner
Challenges
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Expand/refine our ongoing 1-to-1 dialogue with subscribers
Provide each subscriber with the means to define their own user experience
Learn and adapt to subscriber’s evolving preferences
Target product offers based on subscriber profile
Build scalable solutions to evolve with subscriber’s needs
Our approach
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Our approach
PLAN EXECUTE ANALYZE & OPTIMIZE
• Use data to dynamically target
each segment
• Test during the process of
developing content/design
• Establish a schedule of on-going
email testing and refinement:
o Subject line
o Design
o Placement of
graphics/copy
o Content
o Copy
• Gather results to streamline processes and marketing outcomes
• Measure results against goals
o ROI
o Conversion
o Response rate
• Redefine strategy
• Use online/offline historic data to identify meaningful
segments
• Common Data includes:
o Purchases behaviour
o Click behaviour
o Loyalty (e.g. length of customer, referring friends,
switching from competitors)
o Profile Data (e.g. demographics To help identify
‘big purchasers’
• Establish meaningful business metrics (e.g.)
o First-time purchasers
o Dollars spent, number of purchases
o Growth of membership
• Link business metrics to email metrics
o Open rates, click rates, number of clicks per email,
unique opens, time on website
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Collect and integrate subscribers’ historic clickthrough and conversion patterns
Designed email template to accommodate millions of highly customized content requirements
Integrated profile and response data with highly intuitive email template
Automated the assembly of content
Email template focused on empowering subscriber to define their experience
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Our approach
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Developed highly intuitive “customer choice tools” embedded in the newsletter
Provided the means for subscribers to continuously refine the type of information they receive - quick links to “Edit my preferences” linked directly to online subscription centre
Anchors allow quick and easy navigation to various sections in the email
Fares/offers are based on user’s home airport
Scalable template allows for future increased program complexity
Database that continually collects, analyzes and re-configures emails based on subscribers’ preferences
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Our Approach
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We reached our goal by using an Online Creation Toolset to help speed up creation process, which allowed us to make us of:
A fully-dynamic template for modular personalized contentFewer resources Increased volume of emailIncreased variation of email messagesEasy-to-Use Back-End Administration ToolsNo HTML coding required…marketers can assemble and deployDesigned in modules for easy administrationOptimized coding so that the time between deployment and delivery is dramatically decreased
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Result: a dynamic email
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Introduction paragraph summarizes top offers and deals for the week
“My Preferred Destinations” section can contain up to five user choices
Only offers matching users’ preferences will be displayed in this section
Similar Destination offers are selected and displayed to subscribers as a value add
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Result: a dynamic email
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Additional features and revenue opportunities:
Aeroplan offers
Air Canada Vacation Packages
My Hotels
My Car Rentals
Travel tips and new product launches (Wi-Fi, In-Flight Entertainment)
Subscription centre
Customer feedback section
Building on innovation to increase revenues
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Geo-targeted banner advertising
Increase personalization of offers
Cross-selling opportunities
Introduction of mobile version
Launch of webSaver Fare Alert
Social media, third-party ads and aircanada.com
Building on innovation to increase revenues
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Extending the reach
webSaver email is now also supported by a designated Air Canada webSaverTwitter page
Twitter followers receive first hand insight into all our specials and deals
Air Canada has used Twitter to engage with our customers and prospects at an individual level
We have also used Twitter to listen to our customer base
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Extending the reach
Launched webSaver fare alert, April 2010
Subscribers can set up to 5 destinations and price thresholds – Air Canada alerts them when prices are under set price
Monthly view of prices from lowest to highest
Quick links allow subscribers to:o Book a flight for a preselected date
o Update their destinations
o View prices for up to 2 months in advance
Extending the reach
Extending the reach
Extending the reach
Extending the reach
webSaver fare alert results:
o Qualified, engaged audience
o Unique opens increased 21%
o Clickthroughs increased 23%
o Added revenues
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Overall Results
Objective: Grow online revenues
Results:
Dramatically increase the number of visitors to aircanada.com
Increased Revenues by 20% over 2 years
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Objective: Increase customer retention
Target: Reduce unsubscribe rate to 0.5% o Result: Reduced unsubscribe rate to 0.4% in 2010
o Result: Increased clickthrough rate overall
Overall Results
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Objective: Increase new process/technology efficiencies
Target: Reduce time to create emails
Result #1: Reduced time to create emails by 50%
Result #2: Streamlined responsibilities for creating email without additional hires
Overall Results
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Key Lessons
Database/email marketing is the present and future of building an ongoing relationship with your target audience
Consumers are becoming more and more sophisticated; as a result it is important to have a firm understanding of their preferences and communicate only what is relevant
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Key Lessons
Increase activity and engagement by giving control to subscribers/users
Every interaction – or piece of interaction – can yield insights into a target audience
Value is defined by relevance:
o Every communication must be relevant
o Relevance is different for each subscriber/user
Database Management
Complete Customer Profile Information
Easy-to-Use Admin Tools for Execution
Listening to your customers
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Achieving success…
• Lisa Kupovetsky
o Transcontinental Interactive (formerly Thindata 1:1)
• Maggie Simonetti
o Air Canada
• Bobby DupontKarim HammamMario Rendon
o Air Canada Web Team
Special thank you…