[kuisch]

Hi Michael, Aaron,

My name's Aron and I'm building Wanderlust (www.wanderlust.ly): a travel website that shows where you could go based on how much you can spend and what you're interested in.

Wanderlust provides users with a complete trip, including a destination, flight, and accommodation, as well as an overview of the best things to do and see during their stay in that particular destination - after which users may customize the options we recommend and book or, if they’re not sure yet, simply save the itinerary and flip to the next trip that matches the criteria they've entered.

Our main issue:

Low conversion rates (visitor/booking). Particularly due to the fact that we're higher up in the funnel (vs. traditional OTAs) and don't have a lot of credibility in the early stages.

Although I realize this is quite a broad question, any insight on how we might improve would be super helpful!

[mwseibel]

How are you driving traffic to the site and what are your conversion metrics? Have you done face to face user tests with at least 5 random people? Do people have to book right at that time or do you give them the ability to save/share a booking?

[kuisch]

In terms of driving traffic, our SEO/SEA strategy so far has been considerably difficult to pull-of given our limited resources in light of the incredible budget of the traditional OTAs. FB/Twitter advertising has been somewhat better.

Additionally, SEO/SEA is something that we feel will be much more relevant for the parties in the market that cater to those users that already know where they would like to travel to and just need to find their flight and/or accommodation. We cater to those earlier in the cycle, wondering 'where can I go?'. This is the feeling we try to associate ourselves with, which is why brand advertising might prove more useful than direct response. Again, this is tricky with a small budget (<€1000)

Yes, we've tested with >5 random people. Users don't have to book immediately, but can create an account and save the itinerary for later.

Conversion metrics we're tracking: 'happy 1st visit' (i.e. views more than 5 trips), visit/search, search/save, search/book. account signup

[mwseibel]

What is your cost for acquiring a booking from Facebook and how much money do you make from that booking? For your user testing - what was one part of the product that at least 3 people found confusing? Do you make account sign up painful?

[kuisch]

So far the FB CPC hovers around $0.70. We need >200 users per flight booking. A hotel booking has not been made through our platform yet. Not much data has been collected though, seeing as we've only been live for 2 weeks.

It might be important to note that, at this point, we're not so much interested in how much we make from the actual booking as much as we're interested in the conversion rate itself. We use the Expedia & SkyScanner APIs, which was more practical from a technical perspective to get to MVP as soon as possible. But the affiliate fees for flights are close to nothing ($2 if we're lucky) and we have different solutions in mind.

We only ask for the user to sign-up once she clicks the 'save itinerary' button, which we believed would be the most seamless. The most confusing part of the product so far has been the fact that we currently have two 'book now' buttons once the user tries to book her flight, something we're addressing.

[mwseibel]

Taking a look at the product here are a couple thoughts

1) You push me onto a landing page instead of right into the product - why?

2) The initial form you ask me to fill out is a bit intimidating - perhaps it can be broken up a bit

3) On the results page - its unclear at first what I'm supposed to click on - and you dont tell me anything about the flight or the hotel you've chosen for me

4) Results page loads slowly

5) No button to book trip

6) You are choosing a 1 star crappy hotel for me...

There is a lot of product refinement you can do to improve this experience / conversion rate

[sixQuarks]

I agree, you're wasting potential leads by having that landing page. Just let them see and use the service right away.

[kuisch]

Appreciate the feedback. We've planned to push an update next week addressing most of your points (esp. #3,#5 & #6).

[lazyant]

Hello, I've ben looking for a travel site like this, for example if I have a family of 3, live in Toronto and have a budget of $3k - $4k, where can I go to a tropical beach for a few days (flexible days but need a few days to prepare)?

I just tried it and it didn't work too well for me:

- currency is in Euros - time was fixed to 4 days' vacation couldn't figure out how to change - no range for budget - I asked for "beach" and the results were: Baltimore, Beijing, Berlin, Bucharest, none of them with beaches