Reinforcing brand messaging to increase transactions and revenue.

CLIENT: Mix and Match    |    PROJECT: Conversion Rate Optimisation

How reinforcing brand messaging at an essential user journey point increased flight transactions and revenue for Mix and Match.

Mix & Match, part of the House of Travel group, is proud to be New Zealand owned and operated specialising in cheap flights. They offer flights across the globe and also provide cruise, accommodation, insurance and car rental options on their website. The main challenge for Mix and Match is the highly competitive nature of the travel market, with a growing number of online travel agents and flight providers. Experimentation helps them stay ahead of the competition by providing an environment that enables them to test different content, copy and functionality aimed at improving user experience, transactions and revenue..

Experiment Approach

The experiment was conceptualised as a result of the following research and insights:

• Previous testing where the House of Travel logo was added to the Mix and Match booking funnel showed a 5% increase in transactions. This indicated that brand reinforcement is key at certain points of the user journey
  Competitor research showed that flight providers are competitive on price and other unique selling points of the brand should be promoted to stay ahead of the competition
  Heuristic and user journey analysis identified the interstitial flight search page as prime real estate for testing

A test plan and variation were created where three unique selling points – availability of Laybuy, fuel savings and discounts on hotels – were added to the interstitial flight search page as brand reinforcement (see variation below). The objective of the experiment was to increase transactions and revenue while at the same time leveraging experimentation on a new site area.

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Control, interstitial flight search page:

Variation, interstitial flight search page:

Some Key Results

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Transactions increased significantly by 3%
Revenue increased significantly by 6%

Key Insights

Aside from the positive uplift in transactions and revenue, this experiment inspired further testing:

• The same unique selling points were re-used and tested as a pop up on the New Zealand domestic flights landing page to re-engage users and reinforce the brand messaging – this test result is pending
• Other unique selling points were tested on the homepage, such as showing a ‘NZ owned and operated’ slogan which positively increased flight searches from the homepage
• Future tests are planned to find the optimal combination of messaging and USPs on the interstitial landing page

This type of experimentation is extremely valuable for Mix and Match to help the team identify which messaging resonates most with their users and to continue to grow their brand.