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SAS® Analytics Helping Expedia Reap Big Insights From Big Data
Published Feb 1, 2012
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Expedia, the world's leading online travel agency, tapped SAS Analytics to surface new ways to increase customer satisfaction and keep customers returning. With software and services from SAS, the leader in business analytics, Expedia transforms huge volumes of data into useful insights for decision making. As a result, Expedia is effectively optimizing online customer experiences and increasing customer lifetime value to fuel the company's growth.
"In the direct response business, we track and measure everything so we need powerful analytical products that can handle big data," said Joe Megibow, VP and General Manager, of Expedia US. "We use SAS for our analytical heavy lifting. With nearly 200 terabytes of customer and clickstream data in our data warehouse, we count on SAS predictive analytics and data mining to analyze extremely large data volumes. Analytical insights about customer needs and preferences help us deliver the value and convenience that earns their loyalty.”
Over the last year, Expedia used SAS Analytics to relate customer lifetime value to acquisition-cost decisions. Using clustering techniques, the analytics team explored customer behavior over time. They built predictive models that revealed the factors that most influence transactions. Customer lifetime value insights help Expedia determine which offers encourage repeat business. The benefit to Expedia customers and Expedia's bottom line has been significant.
"With SAS predictive analytics, Expedia discovers important new ways to increase customer satisfaction," said Tapan Patel, SAS Global Product Marketing Manager. "Expedia clearly understands how each marketing channel influences conversions on the site, allowing it to optimize marketing investments by channel. The value of analytics became crystal clear as annual gross bookings and revenue increased. Expedia's smart use of analytics helps them continually innovate and distinguishes the company as a winner in the online travel industry."
CHAMPIONING ANALYTICS
To establish its culture of analytics, Expedia hires creative thinkers who not only understand data and analytics, but also its business and customer needs. The depth and breadth of SAS Analytics inspires innovative problem solving.
"Expedia has capitalized on SAS' experience solving different problems in multiple industries," said Megibow. "SAS' domain expertise is an incredible asset that helps us creatively apply technologies to seize opportunities and solve problems."
Megibow led Expedia's effort to consolidate the company's disparate data feeds into one and apply analytics to optimize marketing. Megibow presented his approach to hundreds of Web Analytics Association members who awarded him the Practitioner of the Year Award for Excellence. Diligence in data-driven decision making played a large role in Megibow's promotion to his current role as Vice President and General Manager for Expedia US.
ABOUT SAS
SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. Through innovative solutions, SAS helps customers at more than 50,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW® .
Posted by
VMD - [Virtual Marketing Department]
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