DECEMBER 5, 2017

How Tennessee Tourism is Reimagining Travel with Personalization

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Todd GreathouseDirector of Technology

Caitlin CheckettSr. Optimization Consultant

3 , 0 0 0 + V M L E R S / / 3 3 L O C A T I O N S

ATLANTABEIJINGBOGOTÁCAPE TOWNCHICAGO

CINCINNATIDALLASGUANGZHOUJAKARTAJOHANNESBURG

KALAMAZOOKANSAS CITYKRAKÓWKUALA LUMPURLONDON

MEXICO CITYMEMPHISMILANMINNEAPOLISMUMBAI

NASHVILLENEW DELHINEW YORKROGERSSÃO PAULO

SAN FRANCISCOSEATTLESHANGHAISINGAPORESYDNEY

TOKYOWARSAWWHITE SALMON

VML NAMEDTOP PERFORMER

2015 Q4 DIGITAL WAVE REVIEW

VML NAMED A LEADER

2016 Q4 FORRESTER WAVE, LEAD AGENCIES

VML RANKED #5IN ADVERTISING AGE’S A-LIST FOR 2017

IN 2017, VML WAS RECOGNIZED WITH

27 CANNES LIONS2 GOLD | 13 SILVER | 12 BRONZE | 26 SHORTLISTS

IN 2016 VML WAS AWARDED1 SILVER & 1 BRONZE

IN 2016 VML WAS AWARDED1 GRAND CLIO, 3 GOLD

IN 2015, VML WAS AWARDED

1 SILVER & 1 BRONZEIN 2016, VML WAS AWARDED

2 GOLDIN 2015, VML WAS AWARDED

1 SILVER & 1 BRONZE

IN 2015, VML WAS AWARDED

1 GOLD 3 SILVER& 7 BRONZE

ONE OF THE TOP 10IN ADVERTISING AGE’S A-LIST FOR 2016

VML WAS NAMED

Agenda• Introductions• Project Background• The Problem• Goals & KPIs• The Solution• Planning for Personalization• TNVacation.com Personalizations• Results• Lessons Learned• Q & A

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• March 2014 - VML wins five year AOR contract with the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development

• Existing agency releases redesigned site during transition period to VML

• New site maintained by VML for three years

• New commissioner and assistant commissioner appointed

• These new stakeholders are anxious to improve Tennessee’s online presence

Project Background

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T H E P R O B L E M

H O W T O D E L I V E R T H E M O S T R E L E VA N T C O N T E N T T O

A S P I R I N G T R AV E L E R S

Challenges

Site Content• Vague and uninspiring content• Cluttered site structure• Content silos, separate blog site• Low quality partner generated

content• No content schedule, publishing

some content too much• Good for SEO, failing at user

inspiration and engagement

State Tourism• Encompasses a wide geographic area and

radically different experiences• Increased mobile usage equals shorter

attention spans and higher bounce rates• TNVacation.com site visits are high in

conversion funnel• Millennials generally feel state tourism

sites aren’t authentic or trustworthy

G O A L S A N D K P I S

site GOALS

Inspire Travel

Personalize Planning

SupportPartners

Existing KPIs

Site Visits Guide Requests

Title Text

• Body Level One• Body Level Two

• Body Level Three• Body Level Four

• Body Level Five

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Title Text

• Body Level One• Body Level Two

• Body Level Three• Body Level Four

• Body Level Five

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Personalizededitorial content

Title Text

• Body Level One• Body Level Two

• Body Level Three• Body Level Four

• Body Level Five

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Personalizededitorial content

Frictionlessplanning

NEW KPIs

Site Visits• Primary metric reported to the state• Historical benchmark

Captured Leads• Email opt-ins• Guide requests

Itinerary Saving• If we build it, they must come• Precursor to lead-gen & CRM efforts

Partner Outbounds• Proof of partner support• Sets up intent to book measurement• Partner-specific opt-ins

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T H E S O L U T I O N

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How we got there

Industry ResearchPaid research of general tourism trends and Tennessee specific travel habits

Competitive ReviewWhat are our competitors doing well, and what mistakes are they making?

Story MappingMulti-day workshop with the state’s key stakeholders to identify site goals and requirements

Site AnalyticsStudy historical site trends, determine high and low performing content

THE SOLUTIONRobust content strategy• Inspirational imagery/stories• Stronger content relationships• Acquia Lift-driven structure &

content personalization• Influencer integration• Social integration• Campaign integration• Expanded CRM program

• Content scoring, evaluation process

Trip planning• Editorialized trip ideas• Frictionless creation and saving

Partner support• Partner pages overhaul &

integration

ACQUIA LIFT

Unified visitor profileReal-time & historical activity across sessions and devices

Real-time, adaptive segmentationVisitor segments adapt to on- and off-site behavior on the fly

Testing & targetingPersonalization based on A/B test results using existing content

Reporting & analyticsVisualize segment data, test results and personalization goal progression

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3,411,67

Partner generated content is automatically scored. The more complete and high-quality the content is, the higher its score.

Why does the score matter?The site uses algorithms to serve relevant content to visitors based on what we know about them. However, it also prioritizes higher quality, higher scoring content. The higher the score, the more chances visitors have to see the content.

Content Scoring

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3,412 VISITORS

PAGE SCORE: 9

1,677 VISITORS

PAGE SCORE: 6 839

VISITORSPAGE

SCORE: 4

Content ScoringPartner generated content is automatically scored. The more complete and high-quality the content is, the higher its score.

Why does the score matter?The site uses algorithms to serve relevant content to visitors based on what we know about them. However, it also prioritizes higher quality, higher scoring content. The higher the score, the more chances visitors have to see the content.

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TRIP PLANNING

PLANNING FORPERSONALIZATION

User SEGMENTSExperiences• Corresponds to top level

Experience categories• Based on explicit browsing behavior

Destinations• Limited to major cities and regions

in Tennessee, not all city content• Automatically segment on browsing

location based on industry research

• Refine segment based on browsing behavior

CRM Funnel• Guide the user down the conversion

funnel• Optimize real estate to promote

other channels post conversion

ContentContent Authoring• Created content matrix to track

tagging and identify any content gaps

• Established content calendar to track ongoing content authoring based on user segmentation

• Focus on specific Experiences or Destinations to line up with user segments

• Found outside publications or influencer content to fill the gaps

Tagging• Reduced content tags from 250+ to

45 more focused categories based off of analytics and industry standards

• Created Lift specific vocabularies to drive personalization engine

• Re-tagged all site content

TNVACATION.COMPERSONALIZATIONS

HOME PAGE / EXPERIENCE SEGMENT

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EXPERIENCE PAGE / DESTINATION SEGMENT

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St. Louis

NAVIGATION / CRM PROMOTIONS

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CITY PAGE / EXPERIENCE SEGMENT(PROGRAMMATIC)

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RESULTS

RESULTSAverage Session

Duration Bounce Rate

Average Pages per Session

29% 29%

9%

Average Time on Page

8%

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L E S S O N S L E A R N E D

Planning for personalization

• Walk, crawl, run• Crawl first, but make a plan for multiple phases of

personalization and keep your first phase simple• Don’t try to launch with everything, roll out frequent but

smaller personalizations• Never treat personalization as a one time project, it is an

ongoing commitment• Post launch, plan to perform regular A/B tests

Site content• Create a content calendar and plan for ongoing content

development• Create a content matrix to organize existing content and

tagging efforts. Helps greatly to identify content gaps• Consider supplementing site content by partnering with

external content publications, influencers, or writing “content about content”

• Removing poor content may cause a hit to organic search

USER SEGMENTATION• The more segments, the more content the site needs to

personalize• Personalizing on more than one segment at a time causes

multiplicative content issues• Segments need to be based on research, not on assumptions• Start with a few broad segments, refine over time• Try to match your tags with your segments• Structure segments to allow explicit behavior to override

assumptions• With Lift, it’s easiest to personalize on the “favorite” of one

IMPLEMENTATION• Programmatic personalization is a much higher technology

effort than curated content personalization• Limit the amount of personalization on any given page• Determine what your default content should be for any

personalization• Consider a component based approach to assembling

landing pages, it makes it easier to output Lift markup• Be careful about over tagging

Beyond CrawlingProgrammatic

Personalization

Third Party Cookie Data

CRM/ESP Integration

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Questions?

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Thank You