AdobeAnalyticsChallenge

Adobe Analytics Challenge is the only global business competition where college students solve challenges using real, anonymized data from leading brands. During the Analytics Challenge, teams are tasked with uncovering insights using Adobe Analytics to provide recommendations addressing a pressing business challenge.

Project Description

In our project, we will identify differences between business and leisure travelers, while keeping an eye on the emergence of “bleisure”—a growing trend where consumers add extra days to their business trips to relax and explore the cities they’re visiting. We will use anonymized, digital experience data provided by Hilton to recommend personalization strategies across different touchpoints, including its website and mobile app, looking at how Hilton can innovate to customize content and experiences for different types of guests and travel needs. In our presentation, we also created some graphics to better illustrate our recommendations.

Main Analysis

In our analysis, we will focus on Hilton Business Objectives to provide the most relevant insights:

• H-ospitality

• I-tegrity

• L-eadership

• T-eamwork

• O-wnership

• N-ow

1. Success Metrics

• Primary Metrics: Digital Reservation: Since cashflow is the most important objective for any businesses, especially after Covid-19, we decided to use it as a measure of profitability and conversion rate for Hilton
• Secondary Metrics: People, Session, Event: This metric measures the long-term relationship between business and customers so it will help us identify the differences in digital usages across different types of customers
• Additional Metrics: Time Spent per Session: This metrics helps give insights into the underlying decision-making process of different types of customers towards a successful coversion.

2. Finding & Insights

• Digital Conversion by Honor Tiers:

  • Diamond members initiate less shopping sessions proportional to their reservation sessions. In contrast, normal members initiate more shopping sessions proportional to their reservation sessions.
  • The lower the honor tier is, the more shopping sessions are initiated for browsing hotels and comparisons.

  --> To avoid "fallout" from customer journey in the lower tiers, we we recommend Hilton add a comparison feature that provides users with a convenient way to compare rooms/hotels within Hilton's brands. Reducing steps/ complexities in a shopping actitivity increases the chance of direct booking while decreasing the likelihood that users opt to OTAs to make reservations.

• Member Registration by Platforms: Browser is more approachable for new users to register as Honor Members whereas mobile app is more often used by existing members 99.7% of our new guests (non-honor) use browser to make their reservations, which makes browser a crucial way to promote joining Hilton Honor.

  --> Add pop-up ads to its browser site to attract new guests' attention on signing up so that we have more information on the behaviors of our potential guests.

• Business vs Bleisure vs Leisure: We classified guests at Embassy and Hampton as business travelers, DoubleTree as bleisure travelers, and Conrad & Curio as leisure travelers.

  • The more towards business travel, the more digital interaction occurs on browser. The more towards leisure travel, the more digital interaction occurs on mobile app.

  --> Implement differential promotions on browser and app to target accurate groups of travelers.

  • We compared time spent per session between app and browser on different Hilton's brands and discovered an axis to define business vs leisure travelers on app. Hilton's browser site shows rating of the properties while the mobile app does not. This difference accelerates the decision-making process for properties with extremely high/low ratings, but may incur adverse impact on brands such as Tru by Hilton.

  • In business hotels, if guests stay longer than 7 days, they are more likely to be "bleisure" travelers (2 adults in a room). If guests stay shorter than 7 days, they are more likely to be purely business travelers (1 adult in a room). Business travelers are more likely to return to the same brand(s) whereas leisure travelers are more likely to choose other brand(s) for future stays.

  --> Improve communication with guests in leisure brands to foster the established relationships.

  • Marketing Channels: Business travelers are usually given a budget for their stays, and Metasearch Engines can help them to compare prices. Despite the domination of natural search, most reservations of business hotels come from Metasearch Engines (13.3%) while that of leisure hotels is Referring Domains (12.2%)

  --> Hilton primarily target business travelers on Metasearch Engines and leisure travelers on Referring Domains. We concluded that the price sensitivity is driving this difference.

• Conversion Rates by Marketing Channels: Despite the domination of natural search, most reservations of business hotels come from Metasearch Engines (13.3%) while that of leisure hotels is Referring Domains (12.2%).

  We defined the customer journey for those users who are redirected from Metasearch Engines as “Less selection, Easy reservation” because the “Quick Book” button bypass the “Select a Rate” page by leading users directly to the “Payment and Guest Details” page. The “Quick Book” button may display the “best match” pricing, by analyzing members’ past reservations and browsing behaviors.

  --> Replicate the "Quick Book" button to all "Select a Room" pages to increase overall conversion.

3. Recommendations

Primary Metrics: Digital Reservation:

• Add comparison feature: Avoid lower-tier members exit the conversion cycle and opt to OTAs
• Improve communication with guests in leisure brands: Catch up in brand loyalty (benchmark business brands) and encourage returning visits through email
• Expand the usage of "Quick Book" button: Boost overall conversion by shortering customer journey at minimized complexity

Secondary Metrics: People, Session, Event:

• "Join Hilton"- browser pop-up ads: Collect footprint from 99.7% of new users
• Differential promotions on browser vs app: Meet the right guests at the right place (Business-Browser, Leisure-App)
• Focus marketing on Meta-search and Referring Domains: Save overall commision expenditure by only investing in "who matters the most" (Metasearch-Business, Referrng Domains-Leisure)

Additional Metrics: Time Spent per Session:

• Rating matters: The presence of rating on browser site made some brands underrepresented
• Time as a measure of traveler types: Distinguish business vs leisure traveler on mobile app by looking into time spent on their decision-making