Based on the Q1 U.S. Travel Association Consumer Quarterly Tracker conducted by Ipsos, 52% of American adults are eagerly planning to embark on leisure travel within the next six months. With the pandemic limiting travel opportunities for so long, people are more willing than ever to prioritize travel and make up for lost time. With the summer vacation season upon us, it’s crucial to identify consumers who are eager to travel and implement a targeted travel advertising strategy. To help you stand out in the competitive marketplace, we’ll share five audiences you should consider when building out your summer travel advertising activation plan.
Five travel advertising audience categories
With so many travel audiences out there, it can be overwhelming to figure out which ones to target. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the top five audience categories you should focus on:
- Seasonal spenders
- Frequent travelers
- Travel transportation methods
- Luxury travelers
- Vacation type
Let’s break down each category so you can better understand the travel behaviors and preferences of each group.
Seasonal spenders
These travelers are known for their willingness to spend during peak travel seasons. They’re willing to spend more for travel experiences and have a high propensity to travel.
Let’s take a look at a few audience segments included in this category that you can activate as part of your summer travel advertising strategy.
- Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Travel > Vacation/Leisure Travelers: Summer Trips: Consumers in this segment are frequent, high spenders of summer travel.
- Mobile Location Models > Visits > Summer Break Travelers: Consumers in this segment are likely to travel during summer break.
Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based
With Experian’s Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based audiences, you can reach consumers who have a high propensity to buy in specific categories like toys, furniture, apparel, and more. This audience is created by combining known credit and debit transactions with advanced modeling to ensure the highest likelihood of future purchases.
You can use these audiences to find travelers interested in the outdoors that spend their money on related gear and activities, or travelers who use rental cars throughout their trip.
Mobile Location Models
Our Mobile Location Models are based on a statistical analysis of mobile location data from devices. The model is built from individual, household, and area-level Experian Marketing Data.
You can use these audiences to find travelers that like to visit theme parks, travel during the July 4th holiday, and travel during summer break.
Frequent travelers
Consumers in this audience category prioritize travel as a lifestyle choice and they’re always looking for their next adventure. They’re willing to spend money to make their travel dreams come true and often participate in loyalty programs to earn rewards.
Here are just a few examples of the audience segments you can activate to target frequent travelers as part of your travel advertising strategy:
- Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Travel > Frequent Flyer Program Member: Consumers in this segment are likely to be members of frequent flyer programs.
- Retail Shoppers > Purchase Based > Travel > Hotels > Frequent Spend: Consumers in this segment frequently spend at hotels like Holiday Inn, Hyatt, Marriott, and Wyndham.
Lifestyle and Interests
Experian’s Lifestyle and Interests audience segments make it easy to identify and target consumers based on their lifestyle characteristics. These audiences cover a wide array of lifestyle categories, such as:
- Activities/Interests
- Purchasing Behavior
- Contributors/Memberships
- Lifestyle/General
You can use these audiences to find travelers that enjoy boating, like to visit zoos, and are fishing enthusiasts.
Travel transportation methods
This audience category consists of the transportation methods travelers use to reach their destination or use throughout their travel experience.
Here are just a few examples of the audience segments you can activate to target travelers based on their preferred mode of transportation as part of your travel advertising strategy:
- Autos, Cars, and Trucks > Vehicle Lifestyle Ownership > Recreational Vehicle (RV) Travelers: Consumers in this segment are likely to currently own an RV and use it for travel.
- Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Travelers > Air Travel (FLA / Fair Lending Friendly): Consumers in this segment are interested in traveling by plane based on their internet activity in the last 90 days.
Luxury travelers
These high-end travelers seek exclusive, high-end experiences, from top-tier dining to luxurious accommodations.
Here are just a few examples of the audience segments you can activate to target luxury travelers as part of your travel advertising strategy:
- Consumer Financial Insights > Discretionary Spend – Travel > $10,000+: Consumers in this segment are likely to spend more than $10,000 for travel.
- Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Travel > Hotels: Luxury: Consumers in this segment are frequent, high spenders at high-end hotels like Renaissance Hotels, Westin, and Hilton Hotels.
Vacation type
Unlike the previous categories, our vacation type category focuses on the type of trip a traveler is planning and the destination they’re heading to. Whether it’s a beach getaway or an adventure-filled trip, segments within this category can help you target consumers looking for those particular experiences.
Here are just a few examples of the audience segments you can activate to target travelers by vacation type as part of your travel advertising strategy:
- Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Travel > National Park Travelers: Consumers in this segment are likely to travel to national parks.
- Travel Intent > Activities > Winery Distillery Brewery Tours: Consumers in this segment are likely to visit wineries, distilleries, and breweries while traveling.
Family size and structure
In addition to our five recommended summer travel advertising audience categories, it’s important to add audiences related to family size and structure to your targeting strategy for the summer travel season.
Families with children, for example, are a significant market for summer travel, as parents are looking to create memories with their kids before they go back to school. Families with children have distinct needs and preferences when it comes to travel. For instance, they may need larger accommodation options, kid-friendly activities, and safe environments.
On the other hand, married couples with no children or single travelers may have different preferences for their travel experiences. These groups may be looking for more adventurous or adult-oriented experiences, such as camping, hiking in national parks, or winery tours. By segmenting your audience based on family size and structure, you can provide more relevant and personalized recommendations to your target audience, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates.
Here are just a few examples of the audience segments you can activate to target travelers based on their family size and structure as part of your travel advertising strategy:
- Demographics > Marital Status > Single: Consumers in this segment are likely to be single.
- Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Moms, Parents, Families > Married Mothers: Consumers in this segment are likely to be married females with at least one child under the age of 18 years old.
- Demographics > Presence of Children > Ages: 0-18: Consumers in this segment are likely to have children between the ages 0 to 18 years old in a household.
- Demographics > Presence of Children > Ages: 7-9: Consumers in this segment are likely to have children between the ages 7 to 9 years old in a household.
We can help you reach summer travelers
From seasonal spenders to luxury travelers, there are a host of audiences you should keep in mind as you build out your summer travel advertising strategy. Experian audiences can help you tap into the potential of your summer campaigns by enabling you to identify, reach, and engage with a variety of travelers in their preferred channels.
Latest posts
Usually a new year means looking ahead – it’s a fresh start where marketers look forward to making the most of their business resolutions for the new year. This post is anything but that – we’re asking marketers – specifically retailers – to take a look back at the Holiday selling season because there are a few steps to take in order to finish out strong and THEN start the new year off right. Kamal Tahir, director of product management at Experian Marketing Services, has outlined steps retailers can take to end the year – and start the new one strong. He outlines specific steps retailers can take to get ahead of their competition and keep the holiday sales momentum going strong into the new year. For example, have you thought about how to address product returns? Giftcard redemption? Rewarding loyal customers? Read about the steps you should take to close out your 2011 Holiday season and improve your chances for an even stronger 2012 in his article on Retail Online Integration’s website at http://www.retailonlineintegration.com/article/happy-post-holidays-marketers-5-focus-areas-how-make-count/1. Happy New Year!
If you live in an early primary or caucus state, you’ve probably already had your fill of political advertising. According to The Washington Post, politicians and political groups spent more than $23 million on campaign television ads as of December 1, 2011. With record ad spending predicted for the 2012 election, the rest of the nation will soon be bombarded with television ads “approved by” politicians from the left, right and the center of the political spectrum. Candidates and those groups that support them need to know where to allocate their ad dollars to either connect with their base or reach swing voters. Experian Simmons analyzed the viewing audiences of over 600 broadcast, cable and syndicated TV programs that were measured in our most recent National Consumer Study in order to pinpoint opportunities for politicians to reach partisans and middle of the road voters. This analysis has already gathered the attention of major media outlets, including Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, AOL, Huffington Post and more. Below are the entertainment and news programs that score the highest concentration of liberal Democrats among their viewers, Conservative Republicans and Middle-of-the-Road Voters registered with any party. Be sure to check out our free 2011 PoliticalPersonas report in which Experian Simmons delivers the mindset of the American voter, including attitudes, brand preferences and their penchant for social media. You can also check out a similar analysis of TV preferences of political partisans that we conducted last year here and here.
Social media continues to be one of the fastest growing industries online. Between September 2010 and September 2011 visits to Social Networks and Forums have increased by nearly 11% and, if you saw my Internet clock blog last month, social media accounts for nearly a quarter of all time spent online. But when are people engaging with social media the most? We took a look at the UK Internet visits to the Social Networks and Forums category each month between 2009 and 2011. We then averaged those visits across the months to see the seasonal trends with social media. What this shows is that social media usage is at its lowest at the beginning of the year and climbs throughout the course of the year towards a peak in December. Over the last three years December has always seen the peak of online visits and in fact last Christmas Day Facebook overtook Google for the first time ever in terms of UK Internet visits. We know that Christmas is a very social time and a time for sharing messages with loved ones, friends and family, so the increased visits to social networks during December is to be expected. More generally, what this graph shows is that social media observes two seasonal trends. The first is an early summer peak in visits in June, before a decline in visits in July and August. This seasonal dip in July and August can be explained by summer holidays where people are more likely to go abroad and therefore less likely to be using social networks. The second seasonal trend is a recovery in visits in September and October before a yearly peak at Christmas. With students starting university terms, kids going back to school, and the working population returning from holiday this would account for the increased interaction in September and October before the Christmas surge. In particular what we’ve seen in September data is a resurgence in market share of visits to Facebook, which bounced back after the summer dip to account for nearly 52% of all visits to a social network. The message here for brands who want to capitalise on social media traffic is to start implementing their social strategy now rather than waiting for Christmas. As October is the second busiest month of the year for social media visits we are expecting over 800 million hours to be spent on social networks this month, which represents a huge opportunity to engage with new and existing customers online. Follow Hitwise UK on Twitter.