• by Masha Geller , June 16, 2002

How long does it take to find out if your online ad campaign is successful? If you’re in the travel industry, don’t bother fastening your seatbelts because it will be a while.

TripAdvisor, the performance-based marketing service targeted specifically at the travel industry, will announce the results of a study later today, which highlights the fact that consumers often take as long as a month to purchase “complex” online travel products – hotel and vacation packages.

In fact, Trip Advisor says, when measured a month after a consumer’s initial visit to an online travel commerce site, the cumulative conversion rates were 5 times higher than those measured for the same group of consumers for the day of the initial visit.

More specifically, when measured at the one-month mark, the cumulative number of conversions (purchases) was 5 times higher than those seen on the day of the initial click through and visit to the commerce site, and 2 times higher than what was recorded at the five day interval.

TripAdvisor says that the results show that the proper “look back” period (time from consumers initially visiting a site to making a purchase) for “complex” leisure travel products such as hotel and vacation packages is at least a month.

Steve Kaufer, CEO of TripAdvisor, said, “If a marketer’s tracking tools only measure conversion rates during the initial session or the first five days thereafter, they are going to understate the performance of many marketing campaigns by as much as 50% to 80%.”

Something to keep in mind for all non-impulse-buy products.