Analysis of more than two billion “user journeys” and 120 million transactions on travel websites has revealed some important ways to get more money from site visitors.

Qubit reckons brands can boost their RPV (revenue per visitor) by as much as 6% if they make a number of seemingly small changes to their websites.

Top of the list is highlighting items that are low in stock (such as air tickets or hotel rooms), known as scarcity selling – a tactic that can raise RPV by 2.9%.

Deploying so-called social proof methods, by using the behaviour of others to provide information about popular products (such as trending fares or hotels) has an effect on RPV of 2.3%.

A fairly popular tactic is urgency, whereby sites that use a time limit to force a customer to buy before a product runs out, can increase RPV by 1.5%, Qubit found.

Interestingly, some website changes can have a negative effect, such as changing button styles (sends RPV down 0.2%) or making small changes to navigation bars (-0.2%).

Qubit founder and CEO, Graham Cooke, says:

“Travel brands have to get personalization right when they’re trying to compete against the likes of Booking.com, and yet it’s so hard to know what really works.

“We want every marketer to know precisely what tactics will help them beat the 800-pound ecommerce gorilla, and I invite other vendors in our industry to do the same.”

NB: Sold image via BigStock.