Qantas Case Study

Founded in regional Queensland in 1920 – as the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service – Qantas is one of Australia’s most iconic brands and has played a central role in the development of the Australian and international aviation industry.

Today the Qantas Group is a diverse global aviation business, comprising Qantas Domestic, Qantas International, the Jetstar low-cost carrier group and Qantas Loyalty. The Qantas Group carries 47 million passengers each year and employs more than 30,000 people.

In total, the Qantas Group operates more than 7,300 flights each week and, together with its codeshare and oneworld partners, offers flights to more than 1,000 destinations around the world.

As a global airline, Qantas continues to explore ways to enhance the booking and website experience for its customers.

One of its key objectives was to match the website experience with the experience had by passengers on the day of travel.

Aware that visitors returned to the website at least twice before flying, undertaking activities such as check-in and monitoring flight status, Qantas wanted to improve the user experience and help guide visitors to the relevant sections of the website easily and efficiently.

Qantas wanted to improve the level of personalisation using data captured about customers, including flight destination and whether they have flown with the airline before, in order to tailor content for individual users.

Qantas selected Webtrends Optimize to provide the technology and expert services for testing and targeting, including AB & multivariate testing, advanced segmentation, behavioural targeting and personalisation.

Qantas has run numerous tests across all of its digital properties, both domestic and international. The initial test, however, was focused on the home page.

The Webtrends Optimize team started by testing simple elements such as the text, the colour scheme, the layout and the design of the call to-action buttons to identify areas where changes could improve conversion rates.

Qantas and Webtrends Optimize then moved on to more sophisticated tests on the special offer pages, the frequent flyer online sign-up forms and the pages relating to the Qantas Club using AB testing.

In addition, a number of crucial tests were run on the booking funnel, segmented by desktop and tablet users to ensure that the optimal experience was achieved. This test included changes to the sort style, inclusion of urgency messaging, colour and style alterations, and the size and wording of call-to-action buttons.

Following testing of the frequent flyers sign-up web page, Qantas saw an 8.32% lift in completed applications, and sign-up to the Qantas Club increased by almost 24%.

Testing on the booking funnel for desktop resulted in a 2.14% lift in completed bookings after the first test. Testing on the booking funnel for tablets also saw an increase after the implementation of Optimize, with a 3.15% lift in completed bookings after the initial test.

Since using Webtrends Optimize, Qantas has been able to dramatically improve their website experience and the performance of strategic web pages in the sales funnel, significantly increasing conversion rates and revenue.

It also has a greater understanding of the impact that these key changes to the website experience have had, enabling it to confidently and continuously enhance its digital experience moving forward.

“We wanted to ensure the quality of our website matched the level of service our customers are accustomed to when flying with us,” said Qantas Head of Direct Sales, John Lonergan. “While we wanted to maximise our conversions, our overall goal was to create a positive website experience for our users from the moment they clicked onto our site.