At CACI, we have been supporting charities in optimising their data by supplying ongoing support through solutions, technology, tools and data that work in a more targeted and efficient way and ultimately help more people. Marie Curie, a leading charity dedicated to providing free palliative and end of life care and support to people living with terminal illnesses, has been making significant strides in enhancing its fundraising and supporter engagement strategies. Their work has been raising public awareness and influencing decision-makers across the UK on the issues affecting those reaching the end of their lives and the people closest to them, enabling more people to access high quality care and support when and where they need it most.
In a recent webinar, we came together to share insights into their collaborative efforts of leveraging data for greater impact. In this blog, I’ll uncover the key takeaways from the webinar and the value of Marie Curie’s work with CACI, combining their own data with CACI’s to improve their supporter engagement and ultimately increase income.
Building strong data foundations and data enrichment
I kicked off the webinar by emphasising the importance of building strong data foundations, highlighting common challenges faced by charities, such as siloed data and inconsistent supporter information. These challenges hinder the depth of data insights and the unification and linking of data, ultimately impacting improvements for the quality of end-of-life outcomes and gaining a granular view into supporters. By addressing these foundational issues, Marie Curie can better enrich their data and activate it for meaningful engagement.
Why did Marie Curie embark on a data enrichment journey?
Mark Lumby, Head of Fundraising Insight at Marie Curie, shared the charity’s motivation for embarking on a data enrichment journey: the necessity of understanding more about their supporters beyond basic demographics. The more data charities have access to, the more robust their engagement strategies can be shaped, resulting in more income from supporters. By partnering with CACI, Marie Curie aimed to gain these deeper, necessary insights into supporter profiles, affluence, interests and behaviours.
CACI’s Acorn and Ocean data have played a crucial role in Marie Curie’s data enrichment efforts. Acorn is CACI’s powerful consumer classification tool that segments the UK population by postcode, enhancing the charity’s understanding of different types of people and places by analysing demographic data, social factors and behaviours. Ocean is CACI’s consumer database that offers lifestyle variables, further enhancing Marie Curie’s customer understanding through the ability to assess 100 variables that illustrate supporters’ profiles and interests to target them effectively. Together, these tools have enabled the charity to create detailed supporter profiles and uncover new engagement opportunities.
What were the strategic objectives & key use cases?
Our collaboration with Marie Curie was driven by strategic objectives, including enhancing their product portfolio by identifying overlaps and opportunities for cross-selling. By understanding the profiles of their supporters through a lens enriched by data, Marie Curie could tailor their engagement strategies more effectively by engaging with supporters at individual or segment cohort levels and determine the best methods of interaction via online or offline channels. Through data enrichment, the type of content and messaging could also be crafted to appeal to the target demographic of supporters and personalise their experience.
What has worked well?
Steph Gray from Marie Curie’s insight team shared practical examples of how enriched data has been used to drive value. One notable success was the creation of a profile model for cash appeals, which significantly improved response rates and ROI. By targeting supporters who resembled existing cash donors, the charity improved engagement and secured higher second gift rates.
Marie Curie’s efforts to cross-sell and acquire new supporters have also benefitted from data enrichment. By identifying key audience groups and tailoring their messaging, the charity has seen improved results in cold acquisition campaigns. This targeted approach has led to more effective use of resources and better overall outcomes.
What’s next for Marie Curie?
Going forward, the charity plans to continue refining their data models and datasets and explore new variables for up-to-date, accurate supporter understanding. They aim to combine demographic data with behavioural insights to create even more robust supporter profiles, along with additional creative and channel selection testing. This ongoing commitment to data-driven strategies will help Marie Curie maximise their impact and influence supporter journeys.
Our partnership exemplifies the transformative power of data in the charity sector. By enriching their supporter data and leveraging advanced segmentation tools, the charity has been able to enhance their fundraising efforts and engage supporters more effectively. By watching the webinar here, you can find out how data can drive meaningful change in the charity sector. To learn more about the continuous innovation and strategy refinement Marie Curie is undertaking, visit their Knowledge Hub.
For any marketing activities to be successful, understanding consumers’ behaviours and whether a channel is oversaturated is essential. While data and analysis play undeniably important roles in this, marketing mix modelling (MMM) plays an even greater one, representing the merging point of data and analysis with the psychology of consumer understanding.
Marketing mix modelling (MMM) is a statistical tool that enables an understanding of how each part of an organisation’s marketing activity impacts consumers’ behaviours, sales, return on investment (ROI) and more. Through MMM, an organisation’s performance can be broken down by channel and various types of data can be incorporated to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing activities and determine which are making the most substantial differences to the organisation’s overall performance.
Benefits of marketing mix modelling (MMM)
Enables organisations to quantify and measure marketing channels effectively to assess which drive the most sales and return on investment
Equips organisations with long-term insights that will bolster planning through effective forecasting and marketing campaign generation based on previous performance
Helps organisations allocate budgets according to the best performing channels due to measuring growth based on investments
Instils confidence due to its statistical reliability and being privacy-safe, both of which are particularly important in a post-cookie world
Offers organisations a holistic view of the impacts that various factors will have on achieving specific KPIs, ensuring marketers can make more informed decisions based on how and when marketing activities will impact KPIs.
How do marketing mix modelling (MMM) & commercial mix modelling (CMM) work?
Marketing mix modelling (MMM)
Marketing mix modelling (MMM) is used by organisations aiming to understand how marketing activities impact KPIs being measured. Its ability to measure the impact that certain pricing choices, promotional offers, product launches or advertising campaigns may have on sales makes it a game-changer for organisations.
In MMM, the dependent variable used to assess the relationship between sales and marketing activities is usually:
Sales volume: to assess the impact of different marketing activities on sales
Revenue: to track the amount of money generated by sales
Competitor analysis: to understand how your organisation’s marketing activities are affecting your position in the market.
In contrast, the independent variables in MMM are the marketing activities or factors that might drive those results, such as:
Advertising spend: the amount invested in promotion across various channels.
Price: to explore the impact of price adjustments on sales
Promotions: discounts, coupons, or offers that could increase sales
Distribution: the potential impact of product availability across various locations on sales.
Commercial mix modelling (CMM)
Commercial mix modelling (CMM) is an analytical approach that examines a variety of commercial factors that drive an organisation’s performance. It begins with collecting data from across the organisation on pricing, promotions, distribution channels, products and more, combining the resulting data into a cohesive dataset. The insights presented within the dataset help organisations gauge which factors contribute most to performance and where investments result in the highest returns. It also enables organisations to test various scenarios— price changes, promotional adjustments, changes within distribution channels— to assess the potential impact on performance. Through this, organisations can optimise their overall commercial mix to grow and become more profitable.
How does commercial mix modelling (CMM) differ from marketing mix modelling (MMM)?
While both commercial mix modelling (CMM) and marketing mix modelling (MMM) are granular approaches that help organisations analyse the impact of marketing activities, their scope, methodology and applications differ.
Scope
CMM offers a broader approach when it comes to evaluating the marketing activities that would impact an organisation’s performance, integrating various functions to optimise revenue and profitability. It encompasses external, non-marketing data sources such as weather, seasonality, competitor pricing, interest rates, etc.
MMM, on the other hand, is more partial, purely marketing data that offers a more detailed and expansive result. As a statistical analysis method, it quantifies the impact that marketing activities— campaigns, paid advertisements, promotions, etc.— have on specific KPIs. Focusing more on media and investments rather than a wider marketing strategy, its granularity is what marks its stark contrast to CMM.
Despite the broad scope of CMM, it is just as granular and technical as MMM.
Methodology
CMM blends analytics, business intelligence and strategic insights, considering both internal and external factors that can affect an organisation’s growth. The approach entails:
Scoping & data auditing: Understanding the KPIs and defining whether the model should target revenue, acquisitions, renewals or some combination form the scoping basis. Data auditing includes tech and journey mapping to determine the stages comprising the funnel for lead gen and closing, as well as the tools and tech used at each stage.
Data collation & cleaning: This includes a data request to outline the full scope of what can be used in the model, with cleansing, organising and playback taken into consideration to check for completeness and broad accuracy. During this stage, data is also combined and reaggregated for ingestion into the model.
Exploratory analysis & feature configuration: Plotting all the raw data to understand distribution and periodicity and exploring this raw data to identify gaps and anomalies is conducted during this stage. Correlation analysis helps find feature relationships and possible collinearity, feature types are configured for use in the model and decay is applied (AdStock) to channel features to simulate the memory effect of advertising. Diminishing returns to channel features simulate channel saturation and other transformations such as smoothing or feature combination.
Pre-processing & feature engineering: Calendar and dummy variables can be included to represent milestones and seasonality, with each variable transforming across a range of parameters to find the most realistic behaviour.
Commercial mix modelling (an iterative process with pre-processing & feature engineering): Once the model for the approach is scoped (e.g. logistic vs. linear, pooled, nested, hierarchical) and fit for processed features to optimise accuracy and generalising power, it is then checked against existing commercial knowledge and external priors and returned to feature processing to refine variables and tune parameters accordingly. All candidate variables are imported and tested from the pre-processing stage. Finally, the model is refined continually by adjusting variables to optimise statistical measures of accuracy.
Optimisation & simulations: The present channel saturation is analysed, the optimal channel mix is delegated for specific budgets and results are presented from scenario simulations to understand which channels have headroom and which are oversaturated. A budget guide is provided for optimising revenue and the ability to plan for different scenarios: mitigating headwinds, capitalising on opportunity and planning contingencies.
Next steps & recommendations: Recommendations are given based on budget optimisations and added value.
MMM, in comparison, focuses on econometric modelling and regression analysis to determine the contributions made by various marketing channels on an organisation’s outcomes. Econometric modelling is a statistical, mathematical approach that quantifies the relationship between marketing activities and business outcomes, built with historical data. Regression analysis is a technique used within econometric modelling to measure the impact of independent variables (marketing activities) on dependent variables (sales or revenue).
Application
Senior executives and C-suite employees may use CMM for longer-term strategic planning and decision-making, whereas MMM would be used by marketing teams to optimise spending and budget allocation towards campaigns or advertisements.
The broader scope of CMM enables senior executives and C-suite employees to gain a complete picture of the various commercial drivers and their impact on marketing rather than isolated results. On the other hand, the granularity of MMM ensures marketing teams strategically plan and forecast how changes in spending across channels might impact sales and plan scenarios accordingly.
How to build a marketing mix model
The first step in building a marketing mix model will be to collate and prepare your data. This will involve collecting historical data on sales and marketing spend across different channels and should go back far enough in time to effectively capture market conditions and seasonality fluctuations.
Next, selecting the appropriate model to facilitate this will be crucial. Selecting the model can come from its robustness or flexibility, catering to your organisation’s unique needs.
Building the model will come after this. This will include defining the relationship between marketing spend and sales or other KPIs and considering carryover effects, saturation or external factors.
Furthermore, fitting the model will use your historical data to estimate the parameters of the MMM. Once the model is fit, the results can be analysed to precisely determine their contributions towards each marketing channel.
Finally, the insights gleaned from these results can help you adjust marketing strategies accordingly, increase budgets within the highest-performing channels and reduce it in those underperforming.
Examples of marketing mix modelling (MMM)
Organisations across a variety of industries can apply marketing mix modelling (MMM) to lead to improved outcomes. A few of such examples include:
Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG): Gathering data on sales, advertisements, campaigns and pricing can help CPG organisations understand which channels—digital advertising, TV campaigns, etc.— drive the most overall return on investment.
Retailers: From seasonal promotions to discounts and the influence of both in-store and online presence, retailers can leverage MMM to understand peak performance periods, digital sales and foot traffic to allocate budgets accordingly or reassess promotional calendars.
Financial Services: Financial institutions can use MMM to evaluate their multi-channel advertising efforts and ensure they are reaching the appropriate audiences, encouraging sign-ups.
Why businesses should choose CACI to carry out CMM
CACI supports businesses in their delivery of optimised marketing efficiency by:
Determining the value and performance of activity through evolved multi-touch and econometric modelling
Producing results to sustain and increase growth through targeted investment and improved marketing performance
Delivering improved accuracy, consistency and availability of marketing performance insights
Enhancing capability by evolving data, technology and process
Supporting the provision of ongoing strategic and delivery resource
Helping businesses dig into bespoke segments and utilise in-house data products to unlock insights
Offer businesses location-based insights into the effects that marketing has at various levels, from stores to regions.
Find out more about the impact that marketing mix modelling can have on your business by contacting us today.
Agilysis is a transport safety consultancy specialising in road safety. There is a wealth of experience working with road safety and a company-wide mission of using data to inform road safety interventions and prevention strategies for casualty reduction and overall road awareness.
One of their key requirements is the ability to supply insights to road safety stakeholders about individuals involved in or exposed to different types of road risk in various local communities.
The Challenge
Agilysis had been using another socio-demographic profiling tool to convey the necessary demographic profiling insights for over a decade. However, as time progressed, two critical issues arose:
The tool’s provider wouldn’t allow Agilysis to view their socio-demographic profiling model at a low enough geographic level to make it as useful as needed.
Agilysis was unable to expose all the available variables to their stakeholders due to license holder restrictions. This particularly affected their road safety stakeholders who generally work for local authorities and police forces.
The Solution
Agilysis began using CACI’s geodemographic segmentation, Acorn, to enhance the calibre of their road safety intervention design and deliver precise, robust results to stakeholders.
“What made Acorn an attractive product from our point of view is that those restrictions were reduced,” Bruce Walton, Technical Director at Agilysis, explained. “We were allowed to expose the kinds of information that are particularly relevant to our stakeholders. We’ve been able to make that available to our stakeholders and therefore sharpen the focus of the information that we are able to give them.”
The business dissected the available list of all the metrics, identifying those which felt most useful, easiest and relevant to understand and apply to the individual forces policing strategy.
By leveraging these insights, Agilysis can better understand the likely propensity of an individual Acorn type to partake in various acts of travel, walking and cycling, a key priority of many road safety stakeholders nowadays.
Read the case study
For more detail on how Agilysis are leveraging Acorn, and what the organisation plans to do next,read the full story here.
For over 30 years, South West Water (SWW) has been supplying reliable and high-quality drinking and wastewater services to customers throughout South West England.
When the business was tasked with developing an affordability model for their customers, they set themselves a target of getting customers out of water poverty and onto the right support tariffs where necessary. While their own data and customer insight could act as a starting point, SWW recognised the impact that pairing this with CACI’s Ocean data would have on achieving their desired outcome.
The Challenge:
Higher financial strain due to the cost-of-living crisis, coupled with the industry-wide ambition of eradicating water poverty by 2025, made it imperative for customers who require and are eligible for support to be proactively identified and lifted out of water poverty through SWW’s holistic affordability toolkit.
The Solution:
Understanding the SWW brief, challenge and previous models used by the industry, a bespoke and granular dataset was created to supply a unique and current perspective into equivalised income at a 6/7-digit
postcode level, in conjunction with the wider validating characteristics of these customers, the complete SWW household customer and the property base.
South West Water built a model which combines this data with their own billing data at a customer level, enabling them to calculate the percentage of equivalised income from their customers’ current spend on their water bill at a property level. They can further combine this with OBR forecasts of income, housing costs and bill profiles to 2030 to model water poverty and wider outcomes into the future.
The Results:
From July 2022 to September 2023, over 15,000 customers were auto-enrolled onto support tariffs and brought out of water poverty. The affordability model enabled SWW to directly engage with these customers, build their trust and encourage further contact and conversation, particularly where customers may be entitled to or require additional support or services.
The use of the full range of our affordability toolkit remains critical to our ambition, we are now able to a high degree of confidence identify and, subject to further validation, engage with and auto-enrol customers onto our tariffs and bring them out of water poverty. These customers are often the struggling silent and hardest to reach who — without the data provided by CACI and the wider inputs into the model — we would not have had the capability to lift out of water poverty or achieve our commitment of eradicating water poverty which we are on track to achieve and is at the heart of our approach.
John Huxtable, Customer and Recovery Data and Insight Manager at SWW
Read the case study
You can access and download the full case study here. If you have any questions or want to learn more about CACI’s solutions, please get in touch with us.
Away Resorts is a holiday park operator specialising in holiday homes, luxury lodges, caravans and home lettings and ownership across the UK. Having grown recently from six parks to 27 after a substantial acquisition, the business hypothesised that there may be new customer groups across their wider portfolio of sites. This presented the team with an opportunity to decipher these customers’ demographics and continue to grow the business through engaging and relevant communications.
The challenge
Laura Miller, Head of Marketing at Away Resorts, highlighted three major challenges that Away Resorts needed to overcome to find out what their customers wanted to get out of their holidays and where the optimal locations for the acquisition of future parks would be:
Reassess how to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of their marketing spend.
Develop a future capital programme that would be backed by a genuine understanding of what customers want from their bookings, their desires when looking for a holiday park, and which amenities to prioritise investing in.
Attract the right customer demographic by refreshing existing marketing communications and channels.
The results and benefits
These insights helped Away Resorts gauge where marketing spend should be focused to target specific segments, how best to distribute campaign spending and how to switch strategic gears to deliver more effectively executed campaigns, including the introduction of new media channels.
“It’s never just been about the project; it’s about wanting a deeper understanding of where we felt like we could go a level down to the market to get more owners. We’ve very much looked at our holidaymakers and those who potentially move from some of our key holidaymaker segments into potential holiday homeowners and we’re supporting all kinds of revenue streams within the diversity that makes up a holiday park.”
Hayley Collins, Commercial Systems Manager at Away Resorts
Plus, it has been particularly beneficial during executive board meetings, where tangible, easily comprehensible customer insights can now be shared with the wider business to bolster decision-making.
“Rather than what you might get from one or two surveys and a gut feeling, there’s tangible data that I can go in and explain my reasoning as to why we should choose a specific piece of media for upcoming planning. That’s the bit I’ve never been able to quite do before – giving the certainty and confidence to the executive level that we’re doing the right things.”
Laura Miller, Head of Marketing at Away Resorts
This deep dive into customers has enabled Away Resorts to adapt their customer feedback survey on holiday motivations and needs to be met by including questions on customers’ specific interests. The business has confidently leaned into an ‘exploration’ narrative based on the findings, which suggested that their target segment wants to explore beyond the park—partaking in walks, bike rides and other activities.
The outcomes and the future
In the coming years, Away Resorts is keen to explore larger-scale data-oriented projects with the help of CACI. Additional data acquisition drilling down into more locations along with the possibilities of what can still be done with the business’ existing data to grow and refine their segments remain a priority. Along with the business’ additional data sources, Away Resorts will continue to monitor changes through the segmentation data to enrich and grow their existing data to grow and maintain their core audience.
Read the full case study here. Or for more information on how CACI can support you with your customer data insights and strategies, please get in touch and one of our data experts will happily arrange a time to talk.
The latest findings from our Cost of Living consumer survey are in, and we’re taking a look at the insights through the lens of the leisure industry.
With over 2,000 respondents surveyed in November, we asked consumers about their thoughts and priorities in the lead up to Christmas to help brands understand how their customers may be behaving. For companies in the leisure space, being able to predict the movements, intentions and spending patterns of customers is key at this time of year, especially in the current economic climate.
So, what did we find?
Nearly half of consumers still want to socialise and spend despite the impact of the Cost of Living
With 46% of respondents agreeing that the increased Cost of Living will not impact their intended Christmas social plans (up from 40% in 2022), leisure brands can expect to benefit from people wanting to attend and spend on events out of the home this year.
While this is reflected in general financial fears dropping since the late summer, there seems to be a generational divide with Gen X, Millennials and Boomers feeling more confident. Gen Z, on the other hand, reached a new peak of concern at over 50%.
Their concerns relate to their personal finances as opposed to family finances or the national/global economy, which could affect brands reliant on young adults to boost their seasonal profits.
Energy fears remain high as the cold moves in, leading to potential cost-cutting in other areas for some groups
With energy costs becoming more of a focus as temperatures drop, some demographic groups are having to cut down on other costs to keep warm this winter – with one in three among the Low Income Living Acorn category expecting to have to do so.
The impact decreases as we climb the affluence scale but remains fairly significant, with over 20% of the Established Affluence category also considering cost cutting for this reason.
Spending on food and drink at home remains a priority, but the importance of entertainment and leisure at Christmas is growing
With a significant 79% of people considering spending on food and drink at home to be important this festive period, there is further optimism for the leisure industry as our latest survey has also detected a shift back towards entertainment and leisure as a source of importance.
While consumers report that most other areas of spending are reducing in importance, entertainment and leisure is trending in the other direction, with 59% of consumers surveyed classifying entertainment and leisure as either somewhat or very important to them this year, which is up from 53% in 2022. This is supported by 47% of respondents identifying that socialising outside of their homes this year is important, which is a slight increase from 2022.
Overall, the social planning picture is a lot less negative than last year
When we consider the contrast between pre-pandemic and Cost of Living crisis behaviours versus consumer attitudes now, it’s fair to say that people continue to exert caution in the lead up to Christmas. Nonetheless, we’re seeing less negativity year-on-year, which shows that there’s opportunity for leisure brands in the coming weeks.
Brands may still want to consider how different demographic groups are going to drive success this Christmas, as levels of concern and caution seem to be directly related to affluence. The findings show that the Established Affluence category appear to place the most importance on maintaining their food and beverage spending and socialising this year.
When taking age into account, we found that a surprisingly large pocket of younger respondents actually prefer New Year’s Eve to Christmas Day as a celebration. So, this could be something to consider when rolling out engagement strategies post-Christmas.
Apply these insights to your consumers and stay in the loop as you strategise
We work with a range of market-leading brands in the leisure industry, helping them to identify, understand and locate their customer base to drive value for their businesses and inform successful estate optimisation and growth. If any of our demographic or location-focused data is of interest to you, or if you’d like to dive deeper into our survey results, please get in touch to discuss this with us.
In our previous blog, we explored some of the most common challenges that have arisen in the travel sector in 2023 and how you can leverage digital marketing and personalisation to tackle them.
In an era where the Cost of Living is placing pressure on consumers’ budgets, the significance of precise, targeted marketing and aligned messaging cannot be overstated. Moving towards the end of the year and the holiday-booking surge that happens in January, marketers will need to be aware of timely shifts in behaviour and expectations to capitalise on customer intent at the right times.
Through our recent Cost of Living consumer survey, we have identified important shifts in travel spending habits that will influence the January booking window, and have pinpointed the demographic groups experiencing the most significant adjustments:
Travellers are more frugal than they were, but still want the best experience they can afford
Travellers will spend more time than usual researching to try and find the best the value options
Travellers may be more sceptical about convenient booking options and package deals still offering the best available value
Solo travellers, travellers without children and families are all being hit differently, and will therefore have different needs and expectations when it comes to researching and booking.
Despite these shifts, there are still plenty of opportunities for travel businesses to keep customers interested in going away. Below we have detailed some of the tactics that can help:
Consumers’ travel spending will continue—with exceptions
Many travellers may have set expectations in their minds around what a ‘good trip’ looks like, such as having to be a certain distance away or for a minimum number of days. Our findings concluded that despite the ongoing Cost of Living crisis, holidays remain a priority for consumers of all ages, and they are determined to find ways to make them happen.
In fact, 57% of consumers surveyed have or will be making changes to their holiday habits to save money and get more for their money.
Respondents expect to cut their expenditure on their next holiday, with 45% saying they will either find a cheaper destination, travel option, accommodation, do fewer activities or simply reduce their trip length. Which means that they will most likely spend more time researching their holidays and trips. Equally, this may affect the package holiday market as consumers compose their own holidays by booking their own flights, hotels and transfers.
The most affluent Acorn demographic groupsexpect to cut their holiday expenditure in this way more than other groups, as do millennials and Gen Z respondents. 22% of respondents are also taking fewer breaks compared to previous years.
To continue to encourage travellers to go away, travel businesses will need to shift the focus from larger packages and holidays and instead start spotlighting the benefits of closer destinations and shorter trips or weekend getaways. Their focus language will need to be around ‘doing more with less’ to ensure travellers continue to see the value in getting away no matter the length of holiday. Travel businesses can promote this throughout the year as well, as shorter breaks are far more flexible and can happen at any time.
Gen Z are spending the least on travel this year
Younger holidaymakers—particularly Gen Z— appear to want to spend as little as possible to keep travelling this year.
When it comes to cheaper destinations and accommodation, more than 1 in 5 respondents of younger age groups have opted for these. Younger men surveyed are particularly determined to continue to take breaks as they have before. Just 14% of Gen Z men expect to take fewer breaks compared with previous years, yet that rate more than doubles among Gen Z women, 29% of whom reported that expectation.
To combat this, travel businesses that speak directly to traveller concerns around value will build their trust in the options they’re being presented with. For travellers that are wary of costs and will expect to be researching for longer periods of time to seek the best value, curated options and direct, value-based messaging will help to make their concerns feel acknowledged and will offer a faster and more convenient option for them to browse.
Family holidays are being cut…
Respondents that have children appear to be affected to a greater extent than those without. The appeal of cheaper destinations rises from 14% among those without children to 24% among those with under 18s in their household. Bearing this in mind, more price-sensitive families can be a stronger focus for value-based messaging and cheaper travel options from travel businesses.
…while solo travellers are on the rise
The results show that independently living, single travellers are taking the most advantage of getting away on holiday this year. In fact, rates of those cutting back on holiday expenditure are nearly 1/3 lower among those who live alone. This includes reducing spend in other areas to make room for travel and shortening the length of trips compared to previous years. To maintain interest across all pricing options, travel businesses should target more expensive and premium options towards solo and non-children couples.
How can CACI help?
As a trusted partner to major brands within the travel industry, our team is highly experienced in supporting strategic targeting by leveraging the necessary data and technology to understand customers and their behaviours as innately as possible and being able to design marketing strategies to target these groups.
CACI partners with global brands to harness and enhance customer data, enabling them to identify and prioritise the most valuable customers. Insights are then activated through strategic CRM initiatives and acquisition strategies, ensuring targeting is precise and relevant. This approach is pivotal for brands seeking to align their products with consumer needs and foster long-lasting brand loyalty, repeat bookings and maximising share of wallet.
To find out how we can support your business strategies or operations by enhancing your customer understanding, or to find out more about the products and services we offer, please get in touch.
Ever since helping an automotive client launch their first all-electric vehicle into the UK a few years ago, I’ve had a growing interest in sustainability and the environment. Now, as part of CACI’s internal working group on Climate Change and Decarbonisation, I’m involved in several exciting initiatives where CACI is using data to drive sustainability.
Everyone has a role to play
Climate change and what governments, brands and individuals are doing about it has become a constant in the news cycle and data is proving to be a powerful asset in identifying and meeting key sustainability targets.
Governments need to support their communities
At a local level, governments must understand their communities and provide support via adequate infrastructure. For example, councils are already working with a wide range of data to understand demand and develop strategies for residential EV charging points. Working with CACI means that council-held data can be enhanced through consumer and geospatial data to further define community needs for EV infrastructure or even green space development.
Strong brands are those taking environmental responsibility
The last five to ten years has seen the rise of new, innovative brands that are disrupting their industries. Among my favourites are a company using flexible solar cells to create solar powered remote controls and headphones, and a packaging company being recognised by Prince William and the Earthshot Prize for using seaweed to replace plastics in food takeaways and hospitality.
In more traditional industries, environmental responsibility is arguably even more important if we are to have a sustainable future. B-Corp certification is a widely recognised way of measuring a company’s social and environmental impact, and being certified tells consumers a company is serious about their commitments. The CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) is a not-for-profit charity that enables companies to disclose and take accountability for their environmental impacts – a key first step in positive action – something many of our clients are signed up to.
Away from these more well-known programmes, we’re working with clients who have clearly stated environmental goals of their own and who understand that all departments have a responsibility. This includes Facilities Management assessing how to cut energy consumption, Logistics optimising their routing to reduce CO2 emissions, and Marketing implementing paperless processes and better segmentation to make communications more efficient.
Individuals support net zero goals
A survey by CACI at the beginning of September shows that 84% of consumers support the government’s goal of achieving net zero by 2050. Consumers are actively looking for brands that have strong environmental policies, with half of respondents seeking brands that set their own, earlier net zero targets.
Fig. 1 Support for Net Zero goals from CACI State of the Nation Update consumer survey (September 2023)
How CACI is making a difference
Data is at the heart of everything we do at CACI, and we’re encouraged to think of innovative ways to use it. One example is Ocean, a database of the UK population containing over 600 attributes across demographic, digital and attitudinal characteristics. Our Green Lifestyle attributes include attitudes to recycling, reducing energy use and dietary choices, and can be used to profile and understand your customers’ attitudes to inform targeting audiences and messaging.
Further evolving this, we’ve developed an ESG score, that drills deeper into Environmental, Social and Governance issues and can help brands gauge which customers are likely to pay a premium for sustainable products and services.
Fig. 2 Example Environmental Score pen portrait
In addition to these attitudinal variables, we’ve been looking at carbon emissions and developing innovative ideas and solutions that include:
Carbon footprint of Household and Travel: Identifying and measuring the impact of consumer behavioural choices on carbon emission. This will help consumers understand their impact (based on property, travel and consumption) and improve local governments’ understanding of their communities.
Carbon footprint of Fulfilment: Helping commercial property owners and retailers assess the carbon impact of acquiring customers and fulfilling orders. This could be used to inform parking, EV charging infrastructure and determine whether click & collect is better than delivery.
Carbon footprint of Logistics: Evolving CACI’s Pin Routes route optimisation software to support the electrification of fleet and distribution services. Our algorithms help reduce mileage, vehicle count and CO2 emissions, cutting valuable costs and reducing your carbon footprint.
Carbon footprint of Marketing: Measuring the carbon emissions from different marketing campaigns and channels to enhance businesses’ understanding of their environmental impact. This enables marketing teams to balance sustainability with sales and optimise campaign strategies to improve both.
CACI is registered to the Social Value Portal and is actively working towards achieving social and environmental goals aligned to the National TOMs framework.
We’re passionate about using data and technology to create more sustainable businesses, so if you’d like to discuss how we can help you, please get in touch.
The travel sector has faced turbulence over the past few years. From the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, to the cost of living crisis and ever-changing travel norms, the sector finds itself navigating a host of challenges.
A holiday purchase is often one of the largest purchases that a family will make in a year, withan average UK family spending roughly £4,000 per annum. With ever-inflating costs and even higher customer expectations, providing an exceptional customer experience is critical to your long-term success.
In this blog series for the travel sector, we will be exploring how you can harness the power of data and modern marketing technology capabilities to overcome and even exploit these challenges.
What are the most common issues in the travel sector in 2023?
Changed travel behaviour
The aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis have left their mark on the travel sector. Travellers are more cautious, often opting for cheaper domestic or localised trips over international adventures. Health and safety have become paramount, leading to a new set of expectations from travel providers.
In fact, 25–34-year-olds were reluctant to make holiday plans this year, instead waiting to see how the cost of living crisis evolved.
Moreover, ¼ of those aged 55+ made no plans to travel this year.
With different demographic groups approaching their holiday planning in different ways, applying the right segmentation techniques to target those who are most likely to travel is crucial.
Environmental concerns
There’s also a growing call for sustainable travel. Tourists and travellers are more eco-conscious than ever, wanting to reduce their carbon footprint and seeking eco-friendly options. The consideration of travelling sustainably is especially a factor for 18–24-year-olds, where 22% say this is important to them.
Over-tourism
Popular destinations from Venice to Bali faced issues of over-tourism, where local ecosystems and infrastructures have become overwhelmed.
Complex travel policies
With countries having their own quarantine measures, vaccine mandates and travel advisories, there’s an increasing complexity in international travel logistics.
Trust deficit
After numerous flight cancellations (UK flight cancellations are up 39% in 2023!), changing regulations, strike disruptions and refund issues during peak pandemic times, travellers are more sceptical about committing to bookings.
How can digital marketing & personalisation save the travel sector?
Digital marketing and personalisation have emerged as two tools that can address several of these issues:
Tailored travel options
Through advanced AI and lifestyle and behavioural data analytics, travel companies can now provide tailored packages and ancillaries for individuals. If a user has shown interest in eco-friendly destinations or prefers secluded spots, personalisation and decisioning tools can offer suggestions accordingly. This not only enhances user experience, but can also divert traffic from over-crowded tourist spots.
Building trust through transparency
Customer Experience Platforms (CEPs) like Adobe Journey Optimiser and Braze can provide customers with real-time updates on disruption, travel policies, health and safety measures and reviews. An informed traveller is a happier traveller. That happiness will lead to greater trust, and an increased likelihood of future bookings.
Educative marketing: Digital and content-rich campaigns focused on educating tourists about the importance of sustainable travel can be instrumental. From tips on how to be a responsible traveller to highlighting the less-explored destinations, digital content can shape travel behaviours. It’s worth noting that according to our recent Cost of Living consumer survey, 17% of people believe that they will do most of their travel via sustainable methods by 2030.
Feedback mechanisms: Personalised feedback options and rapid data ingestion help companies understand the unique needs of each traveller, leading to improved offerings around ancillaries, personalised and targeted to the right customers via mobile channels, making holiday purchases easier.
Loyalty programmes & retargeting: CDPs and data-driven marketing allows travel companies to launch personalised loyalty programmes. With retargeting strategies, companies can re-engage potential customers, offering them custom deals based on their search and booking history.
Despite the many challenges faced by the travel sector in 2023, the digital and data tech revolution offers an array of solutions. By adopting well-planned digital marketing and data-driven personalisation, the sector can not only provide enhanced customer experiences, but also address broader issues such as over-tourism and environmental concerns. It’s a transformative era, and travel companies at the forefront of these digital innovations are poised to chart a smoother course ahead.
How can CACI help?
CACI is already a trusted partner to major brands within the travel industry, developing strategic customer journeys to increase frequency of bookings and ancillaries’ revenue through the effective use of data, technology and targeted marketing.
If you would like to discuss your needs in any of these areas, or to find out more about the products and services we offer, please get in touch.
In ourlatest Cost of Living Podcast, we examine how expectations around missing payments are doubled among the least affluent demographic category in the coming months, with concerns around paying utility bills affecting nearly one in five households within the Low-Income Living category.
How we drew these conclusions using our Cost of Living survey
CACI’s recurrent Cost of Living survey has revealed particular concern among this group, who cite their likelihood to miss payments on rent, council tax and utility bills as impacts of the rising cost of living. Where 11% of the UK population fear missing payments on utility bills in the coming months, that figure rises to 18% among those households with the lowest incomes. Unlike other demographic groups, this figure outranks their expectations of going overdrawn or using credit cards to fund or defer payments.
Every three months, we ask a nationally representative sample of 2,000 UK adults a series of themed questions around the Cost of Living, their challenges, plans, behaviours and expectations. CACI has been conducting this research since the height of the Covid pandemic, establishing a series of trackers that monitor feelings towards the Cost of Living, the impacts this is having and how their activities are changing. At CACI, we utilise the power of our demographic segmentation, Acorn, to inform brands about how these changes will influence the way consumers are behaving.
Cost of Living Podcast – Part One: How consumers are reacting & adapting to living costs
Part one of our special two-part podcast focuses on the latest changes in sentiment around living costs, the rising use of foodbanks and how Gen Z have been able to avoid cost-cutting measures on the scale as the older generations. Our hosts, Paul Langston and Hannah Smith, react to the findings, including how housing situations may develop as tenants in particular become priced out of their current rentals.
Cost of Living Podcast – Part Two: Impact of living costs on mental health, travel & brand orientation
Part twomoves on to consider the knock-on impacts of the continued strain on mental health, changes to the way that we are taking holidays and how consumers are turning to brands to lead on Net Zero goals.
If you’d like to find out more or subscribe to our monthly podcast and receive all of our Cost of Living analysis as it’s published, you can sign-up here.
The travel sector has faced turbulence over the past few years. From the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, to the cost of living crisis and ever-changing travel norms, the sector finds itself navigating a host of challenges. 
