The Internet Marketing Manager explains how new applications and a partnership with MSN provides the company access to a sizable audience, ripe for geo-targeting.

Has the airline industry made its return to the interactive space? What airline wouldn’t want to book its customers online? We cannot really say this, it is still up for debate. Of recent, several travel sites posted considerable traffic gains. United.com, for example, grew 30% to 474,000 unique visitors recently thanks, in large part, to its sizeable relationship with MSN, which gives the company access to a much broader audience, and it’s geo-targeting capabilities. For airline companies like united.com, the opportunity to exploit new opportunities is ripe. More people are coming online everyday and the Internet provides united.com a way to reach its current base of customers as well as new prospects, and in real time – united.com is able to market, measure, and adapt efficiently and effectively through the Internet. Pam Stein is the company’s Internet Marketing Manager. She spoke recently to iMedia Connection to give her views on the direction of United.com.

Meet Pam at the iMedia Brand Summit, September 22 through 25, 2002 at Stein Eriksen Lodge in Deer Valley, Utah.

iMedia Connection: What has your company done recently that’s different and unique in the interactive space? And can the data be tracked and supported with credible research?

Stein: We have launched a Weather.com desktop application, whereby potential customers use a persistent desktop application to check weather. When people opt-in, they also give certain psychographic information, for example their lifestyle interests (such as travel). We’re going to be the exclusive advertiser for people who are interested and opt in for travel information and offers. We’ll be able to communicate various things—fare sales, different features of the site, flight-tracker systems, etc. There are all sorts of things we can communicate through this vehicle. We’ll set our success based how many people use it and eventually buy tickets.

We also have a fairly sizeable relationship with MSN. This gives us the opportunity to learn about the benefits of using a big player like MSN, and reach a much broader audience. We’ve learned that we need to be able to extend our reach beyond just a small audience. Because of the nature of our industry, everyone travels at some point in his or her life. Catching them at the right time is key. By reaching out to different audiences—MSN, Yahoo!, Weather.com.—we’re able to capture more potential customers.

Lastly, we’ve really started to vary our communication on a local level by geo-targeting. We’re able to deliver specific creative messages to our hub cities. The more we can geo-target people and give them specific messages, the better it is for us. The ability of this media to drive revenue for us is crucial, and so far it has worked well.

iMedia Connection: What sort of cross-media campaigns have you run?

Stein: We’ve worked to some extent with the main airline-advertising group. We’re sponsoring the U.S. Open, which means we’ll have online sponsorships on ESPN and Yahoo! It’s categorized more around branding activities and getting people to sign up for the sweepstakes. Users will be able to come to the site to participate in the promotion. We are going to be looking into the future to do more integrated things.

iMedia Connection: Can your company point to evidence that suggests online advertising and marketing are contributing positively to branding metrics (purchase intent, brand awareness, etc.)?

Stein: We don’t measure exactly in those regards. We measure in terms of how many tickets we sell and repeat customers. At the end of the day, it’s easier to keep a customer than find a new one. We know that when people continue to come back, that certain brand metrics are being achieved – purchase intent, consideration, and loyalty. We continue to monitor these things on an on-going basis and improve on them as we go.

iMedia Connection: Since interactive is the most accountable advertising and marketing medium, what are you doing to effectively measure the overall effects of various initiatives online, such as advertising, promotions, CRM, etc.?

Stein: We do a ton of site-side research, but there hasn’t been a lot of third-party studies. We want to first get a feel for why people come to us, and what’s going to bring them back. And of course we do extensive tracking of the sales, promotions, and e-mail programs we do based on each campaign’s goals.

iMedia Connection: How essential is it for the industry to measure apples-to-apples by using comprehensive online reach and frequency metrics, such as online GRPs?

Stein: I think it’s a valuable tool, but we’re building our own reach curves based on impression levels. I suspect the industry will be building these models on a case-by-case basis, and it’ll be interesting to see if these tools will actually work. I think it’s premature to make that decision. I don’t know how complex these models will be to really tell me the things I need to know as a marketer. I think it has value, I just don’t know to what extent.

iMedia Connection: What are the obstacles preventing your company from allocating a larger percent of your marketing/advertising dollars online?

Stein: The only thing preventing us from allocating more money to online is the economy and internal consensus building. Our company is fully behind the success we can build of this medium.