Overview
Virgin Atlantic decided to use a global container tag at the end of 2009. Global container tags replace the dozens of tags on webpages that track users’ actions. Using multiple tags on a site can be expensive, time-consuming, inaccurate and can slow sites down.
A single global container tag replaces all these with one tag – Virgin chose TagMan to house all tags inside the TagMan container which can then be managed directly through a browser-based interface, saving Virgin time and money and allowing it to see how all of its online channels are working together.
Global container tags allowed:
- Virgin Atlantic to add, edit and remove tracking tags more efficiently and, in so doing, save huge amounts of time and energy in the implementation and management of campaigns
- Virgin Atlantic and its partners to see the entire path to conversion that any user takes to buying from one of its sites and so ‘deduplicate’ between channels that claim commission from the same sale.
In six months, both objectives have been achieved to deliver instant payback for the business.
– Virgin Atlantic has been able to add complex tags to enable it to switch to web analytics vendor CoreMetrics and to track the success of its Live Person online customer service chat system. Both could have meant delays of months without TagMan
– In the tracking of eight separate Cost Per Action (CPA) channels used by Virgin Atlantic in the US and UK, TagMan has helped the company cut its CPA commission payments to affiliate partners by 21.1% through the identification of duplicate sales, achieving an ROI on TagMan of 41:1
Objective
In September 2009, Veronica Brown, e-commerce commercial manager at Virgin Atlantic, appointed TagMan as the airline’s global container tag to help it manage and track the online campaigns it has running across all its websites, which cover 25 markets around the world.
TagMan would be used as the universal tag across all of its sites to act as a single page tag and system that housed all the tracking pixels used to track Virgin Atlantic’s online campaigns, including display, paid and natural search, affiliates and email.
Brown’s objectives at the time were clear: “We are pleased to be working with Tagman as this system will enable Virgin Atlantic to add, edit and remove tracking tags more efficiently and, in so doing, save huge amounts of time and energy in the implementation and management of campaigns.”
She added: “Being able to quickly amend our tracking tags is key for us, as globally we continue to deliver a high number of marketing campaigns. We are very excited about the flexibility and control that TagMan will give us to ensure we are able to track and attribute accordingly.”
Strategy
TagMan worked with Brown, the rest of her team and the business’ IT staff to implement its universal tag across Virgin Atlantic’s key conversion web pages. Tags from providers such as web analytics, affiliate partners and display campaigns were then removed from the Virgin site and plugged instead into the pages through the TagMan container, drastically reducing the number of tags on the site and enabling them all to be managed and tracked in one simple interface.
The system means existing tags can be switched in and out in a matter of minutes and new tags added at will. It also meant that the campaigns associated with all tags could be tracked in one place, enabling Virgin Atlantic to tell the entire path to conversion any user takes and – crucially – identify which affiliate partner, for example, really delivered ‘the last click’ in any sale.
Results
The use of TagMan delivered instantaneous benefits to Virgin Atlantic.
1. Deduplication – Over a two-month period, TagMan tracked 8 separate CPA channels for Virgin Atlantic in the US and UK and identified 21.1 per cent of CPA commission payments that were duplicates – that is where more than one partner claimed the ‘last click’ in that period. This amounted to a six-figure saving in just two months, achieving an ROI – purely on deduplication – of 41:1.
2. Tag deployment – Since it was implemented in October, TagMan has enabled Virgin Atlantic to deploy two complex tags to its sites:
- The first, for web analytics provider Coremetrics, allowed Virgin Atlantic to simply switch web analytics solution, a process that ordinarily would take months
- The second, for the company’s Live Person online customer service chat system, enables Virgin Atlantic customer service staff to launch an online chat with a user at critical points in the buying process to help them through to conversion and so reduce basket abandonment rates. This would have been more challenging without TagMan
Brown says: “TagMan has delivered everything we hoped. We made the investment in TagMan for its benefits in pure tag management and to free us from the bonds of incumbent technology providers such as ad servers. But, to be able to say that this investment delivers a return of more than 40 times on CPA commission duplication alone is fantastic.”
