Google analysis for STA Travel lifts lid on online to offline conversions

Online-to-offline conversions from organic search nearly twice that of paid ads Continue reading →

Analysis for STA Travel by Google has helped the high street agency assess the value of its online activity on in-store conversions.

The results of a Google Analytics 360 study found 40% of web users who came through organic search contributed to online-to-offline conversions. The figure for paid search ads was 22%.

This study has helped STA Travel, which operates over 200 stores globally and two million customers, sees over 80% of transactions in its shops.

Google said the 360 analysis was focused on website visitors who could be authenticated as customers, meaning it covered just a small percentage of web traffic and 26% offline conversions.

A case study posted on the search engine’s Think with Google portal, stated that prior to the test neither STA’s organic or paid search channels would have received any recognition for their contribution to the agent’s overall sales revenue.

IT added: “The methodology also allowed STA Travel to identify its most profitable destinations.

“The team was able to see which destinations’ performance had been previously undervalued because they had been unable to effectively measure the impact of customers who began their path to purchase online and completed it offline.”

Google added that while the study was limited to authenticated users STA was able to make some predictions on the wider impact of its digital activity.

A cross-section of users that were considered to show online signs of high engagement with the STA brand, accounting for another 3.4% of total site traffic, contributed 56% of all offline bookings.

The study concludes that with this figure being only authenticated and highly engaged users, “the total impact of online activity to offline sales is believed to be even higher”.