Future Proof Your Hotel Marketing Analytics

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March 8, 2022 by

As you may have noticed, there has been a lot of chatter about the “cookieless world” or “3rd party cookies” over the past year-and-a-half and there should be as that wave has already hit us and will soon be by us. If you have not created a plan yet for the “cookieless world” then you need to call a lifeguard ASAP!  One wave that nobody in the hospitality industry is talking about is Google Analytics 4 or “GA4”.  Well, there is talk about it but it seems to be coming from GCommerce, which is quite frightening as most every other vertical market is and has been talking about GA4 since it was announced in 2020 by Google. 

If you did not know, Google Analytics, the most widely used analytics technology, is designed to use 3rd party cookies to track user behavior and transactions. With 3rd party cookies eliminated, analytics data has become unreliable and incomplete. In fact, in a side by side comparison that GCommerce conducted over the past six months with a collection of its customers, Universal Analytics under-reported transaction data (purchases & revenue) by up to 40%! A 40% reduction in revenue through major channels significantly skews what channels are producing. It’s a marketer’s nightmare.  Just so we are all on the same page, most websites today run “GA3” otherwise known as “Universal Analytics or UA”.

In late 2020, Google introduced a new analytics package “Google Analytics 4” or “GA4”. GA4 works regardless of cookies and boosts analytics reliability and useability during this time of transition. GA4 is a brand new tool, aimed at providing a more comprehensive view of your website’s data. As mentioned above, our side by side comparison not only saw under-reporting with transaction data, it also showed that UA underreported Organic by 33%, Paid Search by 26%, and Referral by as much as 51% when compared to the attribution of GA4!  This could be for a couple of reasons:  

  • Legacy cookie tracking (UA) is starting to deprecate as the cookieless world grows closer, creating data gaps for major revenue channels
  • Advanced attribution models based on the new “engaged users” provides more transparency through the booking funnel

Now, you are probably wondering what is the benefit of adding GA4 instead of waiting until Google stops supporting UA?  Well, here are some things to think about when thinking about adding GA4 now instead of waiting.

Benefits of adding GA4 today:

  • Future proof your analytics, regardless of cookies
  • Maintain clean analytics data for your digital marketing initiatives
  • See your booking engine conversion funnel through custom tagging
  • The data captured today in GA4 starts today.  You are not able to collect past history. 
  • Be able to track booking patterns on your site via GA4’s “tagging” ability

If you are interested in learning more about GA4 and the benefits that GCommerce’s customers have seen by adding GA4 please let us know.  We can also let you know about the exclusive Historic Hotels of America GA4 package GCommerce has created. 

Here are a few FAQ's about GA4:

Google said 3rd party cookies aren't going away until 2023. Do I need to get started now?

  • Yes. Particularly with Google Analytics, it doesn't start capturing data until you install it on your site. While you will still have historical data in your Universal Analytics profile, you will essentially be starting from scratch if you wait until 2023 (not to mention you will be operating off of incomplete data for the next year).

Google Analytics is free, why should I pay for my data? 

  • Google Analytics 4 is a new tool that requires custom installation on your website. The custom installation will help you understand how current and future guests interact with your website. 

Do you hold our data? 

  • Yes, but your data will always be found in your native GA4 account. 

What if I build a new website? Should I install Google Analytics 4 at that time? 

  • You should install Google Analytics 4 as soon as possible. You could be missing out on key data and the most up to date attribution models which could empower design and creative decisions for future websites.  

Why should I pay for your GCommerce Google Analytics 4 Report? 

  • As a data driven marketing firm, we believe the raw metrics from GA only tell half the story. Our report was created with decades of experience within analytics and highlight the most important data that informs your marketing strategy. GCommerce’s Google Analytics 4 Report captures more intelligence than traditional GA reports. 

How long is the installation process? 

  • Our typical installation and QA process takes two to three weeks. 

Is there a separate agreement for GCommerce’s Google Analytics 4 Report? 

  • Yes. GCommerce has prepared a simple agreement for execution. 

Can you amortize the setup fee? 

  • Yes. The integration fee can be split up into equal payments in addition to the monthly fee over 12 months. 

Why can’t I see historical data within my GA4 account?

  • Google Analytics 4 commences tracking once the account is created and scripts are integrated on your website.

Does the GCommerce GA4 Report include booking engine production?

  • Absolutely. GCommerce is experienced in retrieving booking engine data, including transactions, room nights, room products, and revenue within most commonly used CRS platforms. 

What access do I need to get started? 

  • To integrate Google Analytics 4 on your website, GCommerce will need account level access to your existing Google Analytics account, access to your Google Tag Manager profile, and CMS access to your website. Access to your booking engine is also needed for any transactional data. 
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What Does Apple’s iOS 15 Update Mean For Hotel Email Marketing?

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September 27, 2021 by

Earlier this summer at it’s WWDC event, Apple announced a preview of feature changes coming to it’s devices with the new iOS 15 update. While the previous iOS 14 update took aim at paid media advertising through app tracking, iOS 15 privacy updates centered its focus towards email marketing through tracking within the Apple Mail inbox. GCommerce, and the entire digital marketing industry, immediately took notice and started to analyze the potential impact this update will have on email marketing. Set to be released sometime this fall, possibly later this month, we’ve been closely following this news.

What email specific features are included in the Apple iOS 15 update?

The two features that are positioned to have the biggest impact on email marketing include the Mail Privacy Protection and Hide My Email features. 

  1. Mail Privacy Protection - Apple states that this new feature “hides your IP address so senders can’t link it to your other online activity or determine your location. And it prevents senders from seeing if and when you’ve opened your email”. This feature is included in iOS15 but is not a default opt-in. The user will have to navigate to features and take action to implement the feature. This may have an impact on adoption rate.
  2. Hide My Email - according to Apple, this feature “instantly generate(s) unique, random email addresses that forward to your personal inbox - so you don’t have to share your email address when filling out a form on the web or signing up for a newsletter”. While important, this feature does incur an additional fee to use, so it’s yet to be seen as to what the adoption rate by users will be.

What do these Apple iOS 15 changes mean for my hotel’s email marketing?

  1. It will impact open rate measurement - The Mail Privacy Protection feature will directly impact your ability to measure email open rates as well as use IP address to understand geo-location of a user which will impact your ability to use schedule send time based on IP location. Over the years Open rate has been the go-to metric to understand the initial engagement of your email’s content and subject lines. WPromote has indicated that within it’s beta tests, open rates appear to be over reported but a lot is still left to be understood when the full release happens. Revinate also indicated that “Revinate emails opened with Apple Mail are only in the single digits,” so the release should not have a “major impact on our metrics or ability to evaluate campaign engagement”. 
  2. Clicks, CTR and Revenue remain as the most important KPIs - While Open Rate may become less of a focus for email marketers, the true measure of success will continue to be placed on clicks, CTR and ultimately the revenue produced. You should focus your testing around creative, content and promotions based on these KPIs.
  3. Greater importance of robust 1st party guest profiles - If your hotel is not already using a eCRM platform such as Revinate to obtain guest preference information and tap into rich guest profile information for advanced segmentation strategies you will be missing out on methods to ensure engagement and revenue generation are maximized from your email marketing efforts.
  4. It could hurt deliverability rates - The auto-generating of unique, random email addresses by Hide My Email could result in higher bounce rates and emails sent to spam folders and is something to monitor.

What should we do now to prepare our hotel’s email marketing for the Apple iOS 15 update?

While a lot of the impact from the launch of Apple iOS 15 is unknown at this point, there are steps you can take to try and mitigate it. Most of these center around previous recommendations made in response to other privacy measures including previous updates from Apple, Facebook, Google and other tech platforms. 

  1. Prioritize collecting and expanding 1st party data and guest profiles.
  2. Focus on delivering valuable content, promotions and packaging to their target audiences. One way to continue to understand what type of content engages their audiences is to monitor and test messaging across various media types including search, social and display. 
  3. Focus testing on content components within the body of the email vs focusing on subject line open rates for success. Since we will potentially have less understanding of subject line performance, consider pulling ideas from other media channel ads such as paid search or social.
  4. Continue to build your brand awareness across all channels to encourage brand recognition and higher CTRs for all types of marketing campaigns.

Have additional questions on the recent Apple iOS 14 or 15 updates and how it impacts your hotel’s digital marketing? Please reach out to one of the experts at GCommerce, we look forward to connecting with you.

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