Skyscanner is a leading global travel search company covering flights, hotels and car hire around the world. The company wanted to understand the anonymised behaviour of consumers on a more granular level than was possible via standard reports in the Google Analytics web interface, or even using the reporting APIs. They wanted to create detailed cohorts to understand how users interacted with Skyscanner over time. Also, different teams in the business were keen to understand the performance of individual pieces of functionality that fell within their remit. Skyscanner opted to address all of these needs by integrating Google Analytics Premium with BigQuery.
Approach
Integrated Google Analytics Premium with BigQuery
Used these in conjunction with other tools such as Tableau and Python
Powered one-off investigations as well as daily dashboards
Goals
Develop more granular insights into consumer behaviour
Conduct analyses quickly and efficiently
Optimise products
Results
Accelerated workflow
Deeper insights more quickly
Conversion rates improved by 30 to 40% on smartphone and tablet devices in the last six months
Founded in 2003, Skyscanner helps over 40 million people each month find the best travel options across its portfolio of websites and mobile apps. The company needed to understand not just the overall conversion rate, but how users who interact with a given piece of functionality convert compared to those who do not. Skyscanner also wanted drill down into specific markets, devices types and marketing channels.
The integration of Google Analytics Premium with BigQuery has become the starting point for many detailed investigations across the business. For example, analysts and engineers now run cohort analyses to understand how frequently users return to Skyscanner, and which channels are most effective at which part of the customer journey. "This type of analysis is allowing a much deeper understanding of our marketing activity and is informing our future strategy and spend," Mark says.
Combining Google Analytics with BigQuery has supercharged Skyscanner's ability to turn raw data into deep understanding of consumer behaviour. "We have been using BigQuery for various pieces of analysis, from one-off investigations to powering daily dashboards," Mark affirms. "In all cases it has speeded up our workflow and enabled us to gain greater insight more quickly. In a fast moving internet economy, this is key. Instead of setting up and scheduling one or more unsampled API reports, analysts can now write a query against BigQuery and have results almost instantly."
