Mentor: Prof.

Keyoor Purani

Case Analysis Note : Air France Internet Marketing Optimizing Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Kayak
Sponsored Search

Name : Karan Aggarwal

Roll Number : EPGCMM -11-020
Organization : Varroc Polymers Pvt. Ltd.
(Manufacturer of Automotive Plastic Injection molded parts)
Designation : Manager (Business Development)
Introduction:
Solution provider: Media Contacts
Customer: Air France
Key objective:
1. International growth
2. Increase US Market share
3. Reach large customer segments
Internet impact on Industry:
Internet is an appropriate medium for airline industry
- Fast
- Removal of Agents and hence increase in direct ticket booking
- Bargaining power shifting to consumers
- Enhanced Development of airlines
- Emergence of new way of booking like Kayak, Orbitz, Expedia

Case Questions:

 Ques 1: Should Media Contact recommend a uniform strategy for Air France across search engine
publishers? Or would it be more effective to tailor each publisher strategy to maximize return on
investment?
 How can campaigns be improved to increase overall value gained from investment with a search
engine publisher? Should keywords be added or dropped from the campaign? Should campaign
tactics or copy be adjusted to improve campaign performance?
 What are the most important KPIs and what impact will campaign changes have on these KPIs?
 How should future SEM campaigns be structured? In the past, Media Contacts had concentrated
on Google, Microsoft & Yahoo; was there now an opportunity to optimize search advertising with
metasearch companies such as Kayak?
Ans 1:
- In 2007 online ticket revenue continue to grow, due to success of affiliation campaign.
- Increase in competition in search engine advertising as 9.4Bil USD expense in the SEM channel in
2006 which is double than 2005.
- Efficiency optimization can happen in using more effective mix of tactics
o Most of the budget need to be spend on Google Ads
o Despite Yahoo giving excellent conversion rate, low weightage is given
o Overture is giving very low cost click rate but, probability of clicking is almost zero.
o MSN is very costly, but has good probability of click through.
ROA of Yahoo is best as per below matrix.
Return on Advertisement Probability
Sum of TCR-
Sum of Click Sum of Total CTR- Click Transaction
Publisher Name Sum of Clicks Sum of Amount Sum of Total Cost ROA Take rate
Charges Impressions Volume of Thru rate conversion
Bookings rate
Google - Global Total 72,895 120,947 1,808,326 929,550 120,947 797 669% 4.03% 1.09% 0.044%
Google - US Total 192,109 353,641 3,855,689 1,745,482 353,641 1,550 394% 4.98% 0.81% 0.040%
MSN - Global Total 11,217 12,160 139,979 145,524 12,160 129 1097% 8.01% 1.15% 0.092%
MSN - US Total 10,808 16,098 170,120 181,550 16,098 140 1028% 6.35% 1.30% 0.082%
Overture - Global Total 60,899 64,296 17,898,727 430,085 64,296 372 569% 0.34% 0.61% 0.002%
Overture - US Total 119,323 141,976 17,062,488 347,433 141,976 289 145% 0.70% 0.24% 0.002%
Yahoo - US Total 45,598 46,198 933,345 882,289 46,198 662 1810% 4.89% 1.45% 0.071%
Grand Total 512,849 755,316 41,868,674 4,661,912.550 755,315.922 3,939 517% 1.22% 0.77% 0.009%

Ans 2:
Looking at efficiency of each publisher
- Overture is a wide traffic, which is not recommended
- MSN has a good conversion rate, hence good potential
- Google has great popularity and hence great visibility with good take rate
- Yahoo- in comparison of investments is the best so far.
Campaign mix
- Branded exact key words are most profitable (airfrance)
- Keywords with destination are attracting more clicks
- Geo- targeted and generic are not profitable.

Take rate
13%
21%

12%
0%
1%

25%
28%

Google - Global Total Google - US Total

MSN - Global Total MSN - US Total
Overture - Global Total Overture - US Total
Yahoo - US Total

Ans 3:
KPIs

 Increase international growth.

 Increase in Booking Probability
 Increase in Return on advertising (ROA) (Avg. revenue /booking)
 Decrease in advertising cost (Cost /Click or Click through rate)
A wrong selection of mix of keywords, click charge, search engine will impact heavily on KPIs.
Ans 4: SEA Recommendations
- Air France must invest more on MSN and Yahoo due to weak competition on these sites
- Air France must maintain strong investment in branding keywords and less in generic words like
“cheap”
- Air France must improve website features like per click bids and price policies in large cities.

Kayak- is a new venture which is not very popular in 2007 but looking at the ROA @ 6451%, it seems to
be a major gamechanger for most of the Airlines as it provides both consumer and airline a platform for
choosing the right choice at optimal cost.
- 6 times higher ROA
- Less cost than traditional method
- Average rate of online booking