El Al — Israel’s largest airline — saw a 35% increase in revenue and 135% increase in ROAS by measuring the impact of online marketing on their call centre sales with Store Sales Direct.
Understanding the impact of your online media activity on offline conversions is critical to measuring the success of your digital marketing efforts. This is something that most marketers know, but actually untangling the complex customer journey and connecting the dots is much easier said than done.
Until now Israel’s national airline El Al had planned its media budgets based on the effectiveness of its online conversions alone, without taking into account a huge portion of its revenue: call centre sales. But this meant missed opportunities and misplaced marketing spend.
Connecting the dots
El Al wanted to measure how their Search campaigns translated into offline purchases while uncovering key insights on omnichannel consumer behavior. With the support of UM Digital Israel, El Al implemented Google’s Store Sales Direct, a product that lets you import offline transactions directly on to Google Ads. It then matches the customer information tied to your transaction data with Google Ads user information.
Implementing Store Sales Direct helped the airline understand the full value of online activity and adjust the media efficiency of ongoing campaigns. With a clearer omnichannel view, they saw that call centre conversion had additional impact on sales and revenue, while driving an increase in media efficiency.
Uncovering insights
By taking a deeper look, the team found that the majority of call centre conversions were for long haul flights, mostly to North America. Offline conversions accounted for 67% of total sales for long haul flights, compared to only 26% of offline conversions for short haul flights (flights to Europe).
“By focusing on the omnichannel customer journey, and taking advantage of the results of Store Sales Direct, we have a better understanding of the full impact of our online media activity, and we managed to identify where our customers need more offline support” says Amit Sagi, Online Marketing Director at El Al.
Seeing the high volume of call centre conversions for long haul flights, El Al got visibility into different areas of strength and weakness. As a result they are investing in a better online experience, and have also been working with the call centre team to make sure they understand they are crucial in the sales process for long haul flights.
Measuring results
“We are very excited to further understand our media activity, as we can now see the impact of Search ads on our call centre sales. This is an extra pillar to help us understand our media strategy and help optimize our omnichannel strategy” explains Yael Monarov, Head of e-commerce.
Using Store Sales Direct, El Al saw the full influence of Search Ads on call centre sales, which led to a 35% uplift in sales, 135% in revenue, a 25% decrease in CPA and 60% improvement in media efficiency.
And generic campaigns had even better performance, with a 64% uplift in sales, 254% in revenue, a 39% decrease in CPA and 72% improvement in media efficiency.
"We see high importance in the ability to close the full funnel, and understand the customer journey - online and offline - to deliver the best business results possible to our partners"
– Ophir Cohen, Deputy CEO, UM Digital Israel
Making sense of the customer journey helps marketers better understand their users and channel activity. But the benefits go far beyond — you gain access to insights that help you make broader strategic business decisions.
Looking ahead, the results gleaned from these efforts will be a crucial factor when planning future online media budgets.
