Overview
Air New Zealand wanted to deliver best-in-class customer communications with a more personalized, always-on customer experience. The airline chose an email delivery platform that enabled them to send highly personalized communications at scale with insightful and usable A/B testing.
80%
uplift in open rates
38%
increase in click-through rates
challenges
Knowing exactly who we’re talking to
Air New Zealand wanted a closer relationship with its customers. This required a re-think from the foundations up on data, platforms, processes, and content. After a review of who its customers are, how they interact with the airline, and how they want to be communicated with, Air New Zealand undertook a program rededicated to delivering best-in-class customer communications with a more personalized, always- on customer experience.
This led Air New Zealand to a comprehensive and ambitious goal with four key focus areas: to “consolidate, experiment, optimize, and personalize our communications.”
When it came time to make a decision on its new customer communication solution, Air New Zealand chose an email delivery platform that enabled it to deliver highly personalized communications at scale with insightful and usable A/B testing.
solution
Special delivery of highly personalized messages
With Acoustic Campaign, Air New Zealand began experimenting with helpful communications, A/B testing, and always-on communication triggers.
Now, sending communications is easy, but the airline doesn’t just set it and forget it. The team introduced continuous optimization as part of the campaign process. This means continually looking for how best to personalize messages using data-driven targeting across the customer lifecycle.
“The result that surprised us most was personalization through dynamic content. We expected a good uplift, but not to the extent we saw.” The airline uses the Acoustic suite for all marketing and some transactional email messages, with several direct marketing teams being the main users.
The goal for “helpful communications” was also met. “We now have communications that are triggered based on customer behavior at a time that is relevant for the customer.”
“For example, we send notifications to use Airpoints Dollars that are about to expire — or information about a new tier status and the associated benefits that a customer might have reached.”
And what are some of Air New Zealand’s most successful always-on communication triggers? “We have a series of highly successful post-booking and pre-travel advisory emails, informing customers of relevant information, products, and services either after they book or before they fly.”
results
Significant uplifts in key engagement metrics
Along with the ability to quickly deploy new, highly personalized content and setting always-on triggers, some campaigns saw significant uplifts in key engagement metrics. This included an uplift of up to 80% in open rates, up to 38% in click-through rates and up to 5% in reading time.
The Acoustic suite of products helped them achieve success “by allowing ease-of- use and the deployment of personalization at scale across Air New Zealand email communications.”
“Our priorities of consolidation, experimentation, optimization and personalization will never be ‘done,’ so we are on a continuing journey of finding new possibilities and opportunities all the time.”
Air New Zealand partnered with Datamine, a leading data and analytics consultancy and the Acoustic ANZ Marketing Automation Partner of the Year, to support the delivery of its best-in-class marketing communications.
In addition to providing technical expertise and campaign support, Datamine worked with Air New Zealand’s internal teams to maximize their use of the Acoustic platform. From onboarding and training sessions, to providing marketing automation and reporting best practices, it is a truly collaborative approach to ensure the successful use of the platform.
about
About Star Alliance
The Star Alliance network was established in 1997 as the first truly global airline alliance to offer worldwide reach, recognition and seamless service to the international traveller. Its acceptance by the market has been recognized by numerous awards, including the Air Transport World Market Leadership Award and Best Airline Alliance by both Business Traveller Magazine and Skytrax. The member airlines are: Aegean Airlines, Air Canada, Air China, Air India, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Austrian, Brussels Airlines, Copa Airlines, Croatia Airlines, EGYPTAIR, Ethiopian Airlines, EVA Air, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, SWISS, TAP Air Portugal, THAI, Turkish Airlines, and United. Overall, the Star Alliance network currently offers more than 19,000 daily flights to more than 1,250 airports in 195 countries. Further connecting flights are offered by Star Alliance Connecting Partner, Juneyao Airlines.