By using data to support the marketing decision-making process, El Al says it can be more efficient and responsive to customers

Every day El Al’s marketing team is looking at ways to deliver a more targeted and relevant customer experience. Recent technology developments involving big data have made this much easier, says the airline’s digital marketing Manager Carmit Dotan.

Whereas in the past, El Al would have had some idea of performance based on clicks or sales at the conclusion of a campaign, today they are able to use data more cleverly to understand so much more.

There are four specific ways that the team uses data to improve digital marketing performance:

1.      Location and Segmentation: Website visitors respond differently to marketing based on their location and language. So El Al is moving away from generic campaigns and using big data based customer profiles that allow individual interactions. Campaigns are dynamically modified for each visitor and optimised with the customer experience in mind. This can be done by offering specific deals to destinations that are aligned with the customer's search query terms, the device used, the current time and location, and dozens of other attributes to help predict the prospect’s online behaviour and preferences.

2.      Real-time actions: In the past, the airline would only be able to optimise the next campaign based on analysis of a previous campaign’s results. “Today, I'm able to access campaign data more frequently and optimise it on the fly  -no pun intended,” says Dotan. In other words, it’s more responsive because changes are made in real-time when it becomes clear that a particular campaign is outperforming other campaigns (in fact, these changes are being made automatically).

3.      Creative optimisation: Previously, the airline used to hold marketing staff meetings to determine the marketing creative they use in our campaigns. “Now, we're able to make many of those decisions with our software partners using adaptive predictive campaign management tools to present the most effective creative for each campaign,” says Dotan. El Al is using Aimee Soft but there are many others like SDL and Sitecore. By using a different creative for the same deal / destination at various places on the website can motivate different types of customers to action.

4.      Campaign Performance: Promotional pricing is always a challenge in the airline industry. Using big data, however, El Al is able to improve the performance of its promotional campaigns by predicting visitor behaviour based on real data responses and what they have booked.  The aim is to create cross-selling opportunities, which complement a customer’s experience by offering additional services, like hotels and events, to customers who have already booked a flight. So El Al is moving in the direction of ownership of the customer journey is something all travel brands are hoping to achieve.

Next week we take a closer look at how campaign management is boosting performance at El Al