Travel Distribution Europe Special: ROI in Social MediaWhich is the best way to measure the ROI of advertising campaigns in a social media environment?

Published: 20 May 2008

Travel Distribution Europe Special: ROI in Social Media

Which is the best way to measure the ROI of advertising campaigns in a social media environment?

In order to assess the same, EyeforTravel.com's Ritesh Gupta got in touch with TripAdvisor, YouTube, Trusted Places and gapyear.com. Here is what they had to say:

Martin Verdon-Roe, head of sales - UK, TripAdvisor: The first requirement is to understand fully what the clients objectives are and therefore what ROI they would like to measure.

- Revenue - traditional ROI tracking from CPM or integrations on a historic booking level is very easy through post click and post view tracking of the user to purchase

- Talkabilty can also be tracked. e.g. if an advertisers starts a sale or promotion you will often find our travellers talking about it in our forums so driving further awareness

- Audience dwell time on the advertisers site can also be a key indicator of the quality of the audience e.g. this is especially important for Tourist Board advertisers.

Jonathan Gillespie, head - Media Solutions, YouTube: We want to look at cost per engagement. With search we now have a very good understanding of the value of the click, but for YouTube and its position as a video destination for users, we should be thinking about the value of the brand, of the development of the propensity to purchase, as well as the the click journey itself.

Walid Al Saqquaf, Co-Founder & COO, Trusted Places: Measuring the ROI of an advertising campaign depends really on the objectives of that campaign.

Social media sites provide great opportunities for travel suppliers to generate sales, enhance their brand, creative use of their inventory and creation of new, rich and "free" content. For example Facebook applications have been used by travel suppliers to extend their reach and engage Facebook users in creative ways.

The effectiveness of such an advertising campaign is measured by how many people have attached such an application onto their profile, what percentage are actively using the application, and if relevant how many bookings this application has generated. The challenge facing the industry is that traditional evaluation methods need rethinking and increased sophistication. It's a challenge we welcome as it forces everyone to raise their game.

Tom Griffiths, Founder of gapyear.com: The social media environment is changing fast, so it might be worth checking the state of the playing field before you throw a ball.

The fun of Facebook is starting to lose its appeal with the masses of 'grown ups' who have assisted the boom. Their initial enjoyment of the ability to connect with old friends, create web profiles and post photos with relative ease and at last become part of the global web community is starting to fade. Once you were reminded why you hadn't kept up with those friends, have been 'connected' to random strangers, seen embarrassing photos of you posted up by others for all to see and understood that your life is on display, for many the attraction died. During this whole experience thousands of brands attempted to connect with you and you ignored them all.

As an advertiser the ROI for a broad social network is therefore difficult to gauge. Vertical or localised social networks around interests and community groups, predicted by many to be the 'next big thing', may, however, deliver a higher ROI through more loyal, interested and focused networks. Music, photography, travel, films are all strong areas, the photography site Flickr.com currently enjoying one of the strongest 'Group' networks on the web. Vertical or localised social networks are more relevant, less intrusive, easier to maintain and as such can be turned on and off when required. Those in the travel arena, especially the more niche examples, should deliver a high ROI both in revenue and brand awareness.