ROI Tracking

Milestone provides state-of-the-art tracking services to determine the return on investment from the marketing efforts. The beauty of the internet marketing efforts vs. offline marketing is that the results from marketing campaigns can be tracked which enables our clients to determine the effectiveness of the campaigns. Even though you are marketing on the internet and using different online techniques to get to your target customer, interestingly, several target clients will actually call the hotel and make the reservation on the phone. In order to track the ROI, it is highly recommended that you track the website results as well as the results from the phone call activity generated from your internet marketing efforts. The last and perhaps the most important element of Return on Investment tracking is an easy access to all the reporting tools and interpretation of all the data that is available from these tracking tools. The sections below describe different tools available to our clients for tracking their results.

ROI Wizard™ Website Analytics

Milestone uses a state-of-the-art analytics tool to provide website analytics report. The tools will provide information about website visitors, traffic, search engine referrals, keywords, etc. The detailed website statistics and analysis reports are accessible 24 x 7. The tools provide detailed insight into consumer behavior on the client site as well as conversion statistics. Some of the key metrics include:

• Number of visitors to your website
• Number of Page Views
• Referrals – Which search engines, directories and travel sites refer most visitors to your site?
• Hotel’s Feeder Market – From which city or region are visitors coming ?
• Which pages on your websites are bringing in the most number of visitors?
• How much time do people spend on your website?
• What search terms and marketing campaigns are generating the maximum revenue?
• What is the return on investment from organic versus cost-per-click campaigns?
• Which search engines and directories are generating the most revenue?
• What is the conversion to revenue on the website?
• In most cases, we are also able to determine the actual total revenue generated by the website. In cases, where the actual revenue may not be determinable, the tool still provides a close estimation of the revenue based on our experience with over 600 websites.
• Directories that are generating the most revenue.

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Phone Wizard™ Tracking

In tandem with sales leads generated through your website, Milestone has found that a significant percentage of consumers will call the hotel and make reservations instead of booking directly online. We know that for all leads generated by your website and for every reservation made on the website booking engine, the number of reservations received on the phone varies between 2 to 7 times depending on the brand and class of the hotel. This ratio is even higher if you are aggressively marketing packages and special promotions on your website.

Given that phone reservations are such a critical component of your return on investment from your website marketing, it is extremely important to track phone calls generated by your website. To further the effectiveness of our tracking services, Milestone has implemented PhoneWizard, a revolutionary, state-of-the-art tracking tool that enables you to track your phone reservations. Milestone provides a dedicated 1-800 tracking number on the client’s website to track the phone activity generated by the website. All reservations originating from this toll-free number can be definitively tracked back to your website, measuring the actual effectiveness of your site. Some of the key metrics tracked by the tool includes:

• Demographics – Understanding your Customers
  The tool gives you the demographics associated with incoming calls generated from your website marketing effort. You can determine how many calls were received during a given period, the geographies from where the call was received, the profile of calls by hour and by days of the week, and the length of calls.

• Understanding Source of Call Generated
  The tool identifies the source from which the call was generated – organic ad or pay-per-click ad – and even identifies the specific keywords and engines that generated the call.

• Quality Control
  All calls are recorded so the client can listen to the calls to determine the quality of customer service as well to determine whether the call resulted in closed business.

Clients now using Milestone PhoneWizard Tracking have a reliable tool for measuring the total effectiveness of a website, accounting for both online and phone reservations. For many clients, thousands of calls are tracked on a monthly basis. This has become one of top marketing analytics for the hospitality and hotel industry.

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Client Dashboard

One of Milestone’s biggest differentiators is 24 x 7 access to the tracking and ROI reports through the client dashboard screen. These reports are available at no extra cost, unlike most of our competitors who charge a significant amount for access to these reports. The client dashboard is a single interface for Return on Investment Tracking as well as management of the website. The Dashboard also provides access to reporting tools that show the promotion activity being conducted on the website. Some of key reports and tools available through the dashboard include:

• ROI Tracking - Website tracking, Phone Wizard, Group RFP tracking and an ROI Summary Report
• Website Tools – Status of Website Development, Promotion Activity
• Website Content Editor
• Login into other website tools such as PPC management screen, Email Marketing Management, PPC Management, Gift Certificates, Calendar, Surveys, Website Booking Engine.

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Client Reviews

In addition to 24 x 7 access to all client reports and tools, Milestone conducts periodic Client Review calls to discuss the performance of the website and also the steps being taken to enhance the website performance. This results in closing a complete loop for the marketing campaigns and enhances the effectiveness of our campaigns significantly versus our other competitors.

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