Live pricing in emails – especially when it comes to travel – is the best way to deliver accurate, up-to-the-second information about limited-time deals.
In fact, in a study with one of our largest global OTA partners, Movable Ink found that real-time pricing improved conversions 50% over emails that contained static pricing. No surprise there; consumers are savvy and most are actively comparison shopping throughout their travel planning.
But what happens if they click on a price or room only to find out it’s no longer available? Most customers would become frustrated and their trust in the brand would decline fast.
Let’s face it: without real-time pricing, travel marketers risk losing customers to their competitors.
Hotwire’s real-time pricing campaign
Hotwire knew that real-time pricing could drastically enhance their customer experience. They decided to test out live pricing with their customers by providing them with the best available deals for flights from their origin airport.
To do that, they decided to only display the lowest roundtrip prices under $500. If a price was above $500, they could suppress it and instead use the default “See Prices” text.
Here’s what their email looked like:
The results
Thanks to live pricing, Hotwire’s customers could shop the deals in the email without encountering stale or outdated prices. They could easily scan the email to find the deals they wanted and click through to make their purchase.
The result was an incredible customer experience that lifted conversions by 25% and lifted revenue by 17%.