The Ultimate Guide To Travel Email Marketing

To be clear, we’re not talking about the type of email marketing that floods your inbox with emails that have little to no meaning. 

No, we’re talking about a well-thought-out strategy to help you engage with your audience, increase your conversion rates, and stand out. 

This article is here to set the record straight about the impact that email marketing can give. So strap in for some expert insight into how this inbound marketing strategy can work for you, plus examples of what’s working with our clients right now to demonstrate some real-life results …

Unsubscribes Aren’t All That Bad…

What?! Unsubscribes aren’t all that bad? 

No, they’re not. We know this probably contradicts everything you’ve ever heard about successful email marketing. Sorry.

If you’re sending around 4 or 5 emails a month, there may be some people on that list who lose interest or find themselves bored with your content. That’s absolutely fine – you can’t please everyone! 

But what we don’t want your recipients to do is report your emails as spam because they’re getting annoyed by them. This is a nightmare for email marketers, affecting deliverability and damaging your email marketing efforts. 

The ideal scenario is for your audience to simply unsubscribe from your emails if they stop enjoying them. This way, your spam rate remains low and you can continue targeting those that are engaged. 

Making sure you have a clear, and simple unsubscribe process is key. If people can’t find your unsubscribe button, or it’s a pain to get off your list, you risk them marking your email as spam.

So, next time you see your unsubscribe rate tick up slightly, remember the following: 

• It is helping cleanse your list. 
• It is working towards reducing the risk of poor deliverability. 
• It shows you what your audience likes and dislikes. 

All that being said, high unsubscribe rates aren’t ideal. We want to keep these as low as possible so that your mailing list stays fruitful. If you have unsubscribe rates above 0.5%, it’s probably worth looking at the quality of your lists or reassessing your content strategy. 

Plus, in February 2024, Google and Yahoo implemented some changes to sending emails and verifying those addresses. It was brought in to help lower the amount of spam emails people received, keeping our inboxes cleaner. 

This change involves domain verification meaning that it is more important than ever to keep those pesky spam rates low.

Senders need to have the following in place to avoid damaging their deliverability under the new regulations: 

• A SPF record
• DKIM authentication 
• A DMARC record 

Unless you’re a real email marketing nerd, those acronyms probably won’t mean anything to you. 

Don’t worry; we’re going to break them down below.

SPF 

A Sender Policy Framework is a text record of servers and domains that are permitted to send emails from a domain. Receiving servers will check your SPF record to ensure that these messages are authorised to be sent by you. 

Basically, it’s another way of ensuring that the person sending the email is actually who they say they are. 

Creating an SPF record requires a line of plain text including a list of tags and values. You can read more about how to implement these here. 

DKIM

DKIM, or DomainKeys Identified Mail is another layer of security, providing a digital signature to verify the authenticity of an email. This keeps your receivers safe by preventing anyone from impersonating a domain and sending spam. 

Without a DKIM signature, it puts your emails at a higher risk of being marked as spam, which can be a nightmare for your deliverability. 

DKIMs are stored in your domain’s DNS TXT and you can learn more about how to set these up here.  

DMARC

DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance and is the last step in the process. This comes after you have your SPF and DKIM set up and is used to send a message to mail servers to let them know what to do when any of the SPF or DKIM checks fail. 

You’ll need to have your SPF and DKIM turned on for DMARC to work, alongside a few other steps. You can read more here for setting up your DMARC.  Your email service provider (For example: Get Response or Mailchimp) will be able to provide you with the SPF and DKIM records.

If you’re still completely baffled by any of the changes mentioned, we would be happy to help you get to grips with the above! Get in touch to speak to the email marketing team who will point you in the right direction. 

You can see from our stats below, that by keeping a healthy list, well-verified email addresses, delivering relevant content, and focusing on segmentation, high spam rates can be a thing of the past!

Example Spam Rates for our Client:

The Results of Good Inbound Marketing 

As we said before, email marketing is here to stay. It is an extremely effective tool and one that continues to produce results. 

Still not convinced? Check out these statistics below… 

• Email marketing produces an average of 174% more conversions than social media (Campaign Monitor) 
• 4 billion people use email daily and this is set to rise to 4.6 billion by 2025. (Statista)
• 55% of marketers use promotional or marketing emails (Litmus) 

Not only is email marketing killing it with the conversions, but there is also a huge market out there to target. Plus, with 55% of marketers using this tactic, you don’t want to get left behind! 

Most people who land on your website will not be ready to make an inquiry or book. So how do we capture the details of those users and nurture them throughout their research journey, positioning our travel brand as the right choice?

Value-Led Opt-In 

Here at north9, we love a value-led opt-in. Why? Because they work! 

They usually include a form that is placed on your website encouraging the user to sign up in exchange for something exclusive, like a piece of content or entry into a prize draw. We usually do this in the form of an e-book, providing visitors with engaging content that will help them plan their next trip or get further insight into the destinations or services that your company offers. 

After delivering the e-book, we then take the email addresses to send story-led sequences (more about that below), allowing us to segment contacts to better understand their interests and target effectively (again, more below). 

• We’ve doubled their list size (added ~16,000+ new users)
• 54% average open rate
• 8% Average click rate
• 14% Average Click-To-Opens
•  Conversions so far in 2024: 400+ tracked in GA4

Story Led Sequences

Story-led sequences take your readers on a journey. We usually deliver these emails as if they were coming from someone inside the business, just text based emails. This feels more personal and human, helping the users feel more connected to the stories.

We usually follow a structure for our story-led sequences, taking the audience on a journey while gathering essential insight into their preferences: 

By automating your story-led sequences, you will provide your users with information that is useful and inspiring, all while gathering key insights into their interests. Ultimately, this allows you to better target your audience. 

Segmentation 

As we can see from the story-led sequences above, we’ve already started to segment our audience. This is done by monitoring what your audience clicks on to send them more relevant information about that destination, experience or service.  How you choose to segment is entirely dependent on what you want to know about your audience, however, here are a few ideas to help get you started: 

• Destination
• Budget
• Type of holidays (family-friendly, romantic, group holidays etc)
• Experience preference  (luxury, activities, beach etc)

Good segmentation in email marketing allows us to: 

• Increase subscriber satisfaction 
• Higher click-through rates 
• Higher open rates 
• Increased conversion rates 
• Better deliverability 

With so many rewards to reap, it comes as no surprise that we’ve seen some incredible results when implementing segmentation tactics in these opt-in sequences for our clients. 

Want to see it for yourself? Check out these stats below…

Personalised Text Style VS Designed HTML 

Personalised text style takes things a step further when it comes to connecting with your audience. 

There are features inside email marketing platforms that allow you to directly address the reader by their first name. This adds a level of personalisation to your emails and prevents it from looking like you’re sending a blanket email out to a large group of people (even if you are)!

Check out the personalisation feature in Get Response (our favourite email marketing platform). 

Master Your On-Going Email Marketing

We’ve covered unsubscribes and value-led opt-ins. What next? 

After building your list, you’ll need to continue your email marketing efforts long-term. We’ve included some best practices below to get you started. 

Brand Consistency on Email 

Brand consistency seems pretty obvious, but surprisingly it’s often overlooked. 

Matching your email’s tone of voice, visual elements and content helps keep things consistent across all channels. You should do this both in the main body of the email and in the subject line. This makes it super easy for customers to know who the email is from, allowing you to stand out from anyone else in the inbox. 

Centralising Your Data – Understand what’s working and what’s not!

Benchmark, benchmark, benchmark! 

There’s no other way to truly know how your emails are performing without creating both internal and external benchmarks. 

Create a spreadsheet that includes all the data from your previous campaigns and continue to add stats from your ongoing emails. This way, you can see what’s working and what’s not. 

We also recommend doing this against others in the travel industry. Plus, it’s a great feeling when your numbers are way higher than your competitors… we’re not one to brag though! 

Here’s a great example of the data from one of our luxury travel clients… 

The data below shows the difference between the industry benchmarks (in yellow) against the actual data (in blue) before this client  started working with north9:

The client’s stats after Working with north9 (May 2024 – September 2024) 

The table below shows the average data from May 2024 to September 2024 since working with north9. We can see an increase in click rates, click-to-open rates and open rates. As well as a decrease in unsubscribe rates, bounce rates and spam complaints.   

Benchmarking and tracking your data makes it easier to plan your ongoing email marketing efforts. Plus, it’s also nice to see when it’s going well! 

Increasing Your Open and Click Rates 

So we’ve asked you to benchmark, but what are we tracking exactly? 

There are a few stats to keep an eye on in email marketing, some more important than others. However, we recommend the following… 

• Open rates
• Click rates 
• Click to open rates
• Conversion data
• Send day
• Sent time
• Deliverability rate
• Bounces
• Spams 
• Unsubscribes

The ideal scenario is to see the opens, clicks and conversions increase and the bounces, spams and unsubscribers decrease. Here’s how we do it: 

• Subject lines – Create engaging subject lines to capture your audience, increasing the number of people that open your emails. 
• Send your emails from a person or include your branding in the name – Your audience likely has an inbox full of emails, so make sure they can easily identify which ones are from you. 
• Turn on Google Analytics – There’s an option in Get Response (and many other email marketing platforms) that allows you to track your emails with GA4, use UTM codes so that you can easily spot key events and understand how your emails are turning into conversions. 
• Ensure you have all of your DKIM, DMARC, and SPF records in place – This will help prevent bounces and spam rates and improve the number of subscribers getting your email in their inboxes. 
• Clean your lists – Make sure you’re sending to people who still want to receive your emails. Clean your lists regularly and get rid of anyone who hasn’t opened your emails in the last 12 months or more. 
• Segment and target effectively – Segment your audience and send emails that are super targeted and personalised. 
• Choose the right send day and time – Keep an eye on when your audience is most likely to open your emails and send at the right time. 
• Include a clear call to action throughout the email – this will help increase your click-to-open rate.
• Include clickable graphics – clickable graphics provide an aesthetic way to encourage your audience to click. 
• Add voting buttons – these not only help create segmentation pots but are also great for increasing your click to open rates. 

The points above will require some testing and it’s okay to not get it right all of the time. Things that work for some travel businesses, may not work for your brand and subscribers. Having an always-testing mentality with your email marketing is key to improving your metrics.

But you should use this data to understand what works and what doesn’t. Change the subject lines, mix up the send days and time and find a method that works. 

Tracking your data 

The numbers below show how we track our data with each email we send. We can see the different subject lines, send day and time and individual breakdown of the email marketing stats. 

This gives a clear picture of what’s working and what isn’t, allowing us to change and adapt our approach accordingly.

Tracking Conversions

When we get down to it, the best outcome from all of your email marketing efforts is to increase conversions. We want to bring in more money and boost your business. So, how do we do this? 

Well, we start by following the steps above in this article and then we implement tracking strategies to understand the benefits of all of your hard work! 

Using UTM links and GA4 is a great way to see how the customer makes their way through the funnel from your email to your enquiry form or booking platform. It allows us to see the types of emails that generate higher conversion rates, meaning we can do more of that! 

It’s also important to track these numbers on an ongoing basis to ensure you get a well-rounded picture of what’s happening with your email marketing. Spend some time gathering this data and be sure to analyse it regularly. 

If you navigate to your GA4 account, Reports > Traffic Aquisition > Change to Campaign > you’ll be able to see how well each email is performing and see how many conversions your email is driving.

Industry Average: 

The travel and hospitality industry’s average conversion rate for email is currently at 2.25%. This is based on the number of conversions divided by the number of clicks. 

But what we really care about here is that our client is currently 1.15% above the industry average after working with our email marketing team – some pretty nice results there! And, we’re still in the early stages of our work and are continuing to test, tweak and adjust each month to keep these numbers rising.

Useful Automation 

We can also use automation to help bridge the gap between marketing and your sales team. A good example of this, is connecting your emails to your CRM system. For example, we can have a clickable voting system, that asks subscribers if they want to “book a call to an expert”, when the user clicks, we can create a lead in our CRM system, and then notify the team to reach out to that user. Seamless and frictionless. 

The subscriber doesn’t have to fill out another form, simply click a button in the email. From here, the automation takes care of all the admin, and makes it easier for your team to pick-up the phone! This is just one example of how automation can be useful in increasing conversions.

Automation also allows you to score your audience depending on their engagement. This is a great way to easily understand those that are still interested in your content and those that aren’t. You can then use this to clean your lists and prevent higher spam and unsubscribe rates. 

Read more about automation best practices here. 

Summary

We hope by now we have you fully convinced that email marketing is more than worth your hard-earned time and money. 

The return on your investment here can be huge when done right. Plus, it seems as though email isn’t going anywhere soon, so we recommend getting on board and start seeing results for yourself! 

Want to implement email marketing strategies but not sure where to start? At north9, we live and breathe all things email. We’ve seen some incredible results for many of our clients and we’d love to do the same for you. Get your free proposalto see how we can tailor this service to your brand!

About The Author...

Ella Whitehead

Content | Email | People

Ella is known for ‘having her fingers in many pies’ across the company, working with the content, email, and links teams. Somewhere that she could visit over and over again is New York, but California is the next spot on her bucket list.