Conversion Tracking in Online Booking Engines

I stress to our prospective clients every day the need to have a conversion tracking system in place within their traffic analytics platform. As Google Analytics is the dominant system in the market, I find it strange that very few booking engines have managed to incorporate Google Analytics eCommerce Conversion Tracking. In any case, I understand the difficulties these providers face, given the limited documentation available and the complexity of this implementation. This has led us to assist several providers in implementing this tracking system or, failing that, to use alternative systems that allow us to effectively measure the source of each booking made on a hotel website. As a client once told me, the difference between having it and not having it is:

It changes your life

  I understand this client’s reasoning, because knowing the real effectiveness of each and every action aimed at generating traffic makes it possible to focus the entire online strategy with 100% effectiveness:

• Pay-per-click campaigns: are they effective, or are they taking our money?
• Search engine optimisation: which searches generate bookings and which do not generate as many?
• Email marketing and newsletters: which types of links generate bookings and which do not?
• Placement campaigns on other websites: do they deliver returns and, if so, which ones?
• Social media marketing: knowing whether there is truly a direct ROI from our actions on these channels and whether it is worth allocating resources to them.

and so on, which makes it impossible for me to imagine doing the work we do without a measurement system. Call me obsessive, or perhaps Norton & Kapland were right. Of course, otherwise we can always do it another way:

1. Blindly, without knowing the performance of our marketing investments.
2. Believing whatever we are told.
3. Doing nothing.