Marketing Sources / Channels / Segments

Modified on: Wed, 21 Feb, 2024 at 9:42 AM

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By using the Marketing elements, you will be able to gain a deep understanding of your performance in terms of sales channels. We’ve come to the conclusion that you should have full control over these elements, hence they are free to create as you see fit. We have divided the elements into 3 different categories: Marketing Source, Marketing Channels and Marketing Segments.

You have the total freedom to choose what sense to invest in each marketing element and what values to set. All segments can be  filled-in in any booking. Afterwards, the reports can show the data of nights and revenues from bookings, segmented by the three analytical parameters.

Example:

  • Marketing sources can be considered as a ‘wider’ group or classification of bookings - e.g. Direct, OTA.
  • Marketing channels can be considered as a second level grouping or classification that fall under a source - e.g. Hotel Website, Telephone booking, Walk-in (under Source ‘Direct), Booking.com, Expedia, AirBnB (under Source ‘OTA).
  • Marketing segments can be used for any other 3rd level grouping or classification you need to apply to bookings such as Leisure, Business traveller, Conference and many more.

Setup

To set values for the marketing elements:

  • From the Navigation menu, select Settings->All Settings->Hotel->Marketing Sources/Channels/Segments
  • Enter different values separating them through a comma.
  • 'Save'. 

Default values

To make sure that the marketing element values will properly be completed for each booking, you can set default values and eliminate the room for errors.

The marketing elements can be set as default values for:

  • New bookings (from the Navigation bar, select Settings->All Settings->Bookings->Booking fields)
  • Rates (Rate settings) - in the specific rate, you can set values for the marketing elements which to be applied to all bookings to which this rate applies;
  • Company / Agent profiles (from the Company menu when you create or edit a profile) - in the company profile, you can set values for the marketing elements which to be applied to all the bookings of the company;
  • WRS bookings (go to Web ->BookDirect - Settings-> 'Marketing' section) - the selected values will be applied to all the bookings  made via your Web Reservation System;
  • Channel manager interface - you can find more about your channel manager interface from the respective articles: Room Cloud, SiteMinder or D-Edge.
  • Event - by editing the event details you can also apply Marketing segments. The values will be applied for the bookings related to the specific event and the revenues generated by this event .
  • Non-Resident Folios - (Settings->All Settings->Documents->Report Segment(Individual Customer)) the values set for the marketing elements will be applied to the segmentation reports referring to the charges from these folios.

Note: It is not necessary to set all default values all at once. Usually it is done gradually while configuring each of the specified elements - rate, profile, WRS, etc. For a starter, you can  begin with the values for a new booking and the non-resident folios, should you decide that these settings are important to you.

Determination of Marketing Elements upon booking creation

In the creation of a booking the following logic is applied to the determination of marketing element values:

Each of the Marketing Elements (source, channel, segment) is searched for in an order described below. If the next level has a value – it replaces the one already found. If there is no value – the already found one remains:

  • If it is a WRS booking – the field values are taken from the Default WRS settings
  • If it is a Channel Manager booking – the field values are taken from the Default Channel Manager settings
  • If it is a booking made by a user – the field values are taken from the Booking field screen default values
  • Then the system checks for the presence of default values in the following order: Rates, Company, Agent, Event.  Each next value found overrides the previous ones.
Note: Bookings imported from the API will not use any of the default values or the additional level ones (Rates, Company, Agent, Event)

Use

Upon creating all configurations related to marketing elements, you will be able to make use of the segmentation in the following reports:  'Charge Segmentation Report', 'Booking Segmentation Report' , 'Bednights Report', 'Occupancy Forecast' and  'Booking Pace Report'. They provide summarised statistical information grouped by your selection of the analytical parameters.

In addition, the 'Bookings - Advanced Search' has a filter for each of the marketing elements. Using them you can find all the bookings of a certain segment. You can also find bookings with missing data for each of the fields.

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