lastminute.com launches ‘inspire me’ platform powered by FusePump
Search, map and recommendations mashup transforms buying city break deals
London, UK, 8th March 2012 – FusePump, the expert in e-commerce marketing, has helped leading online travel and leisure retailer lastminute.com launch a new on-site merchandising platform that utilises Google maps, customer search, refinement and recommendation tools. Called ‘inspire me’ and powered by FusePump’s data feed extraction technology, it allows lastminute.com customers to browse online for deals that best match the type of city break they are looking for. By ensuring that relevant results are returned every time, inspire me is designed to drive up conversion rates and online sales while improving the search and engagement experience for consumers.
The inspire me platform recommends city break destinations based on user-defined criteria including budget and timescale, as well as attributes such as culture, cuisine, nightlife, pampering and romance. The simple user interface comprises three widgets: a search engine that allows users to specify budget and timescale (i.e. ‘how last minute?’), as well as rank their preferences; an interactive map based on the Google API that dynamically displays destinations; and a search results widget providing package details, further recommendations and flight and hotel options. The unit is powered using FusePump’s product data feed that contains lastminute.com’s inventory of city breaks. In other online marketing applications, the city breaks data feed converts click to buy consumers at around 3%.
Mark Maddock, managing director UK at lastminute.com, says “lastminute.com is one of the most widely recognised brands for dynamically packaged travel and leisure solutions, enabling consumers to book and pay for a combination of products in a single transaction. Many of our customers don’t have fixed ideas about their destination when they’re searching online for the best deals. We wanted to provide them with a creatively designed search interface that’s fun and easy to use. FusePump’s data feed and referral engine technology achieves this and ensures that relevant results are displayed every time.”
Oliver Harkness, product manager for display and merchandising at FusePump, adds: “inspire me is the first project we’ve undertaken that combines Google’s mapping API and the power and flexibility of FusePump’s data feed technology – not just in terms of having accurate product data, but in respect of innovating around how it’s presented to end users. While there are numerous examples of on-site merchandising applications in the travel sector, our objective was to deliver an engaging end user experience. Inspire me provides relevant recommendations every time and eliminates the instances of broken links we encountered on competing websites.”
lastminute.com’s ‘lifestyle’ website attracts 2.5 million visitors each week and already employs FusePump’s data feed technology, tools and services to drive incremental revenues through more effective distribution of product data within the affiliate marketing channel. Its lifestyle data feeds have resulted in a 20 per cent increase in revenue, while FusePump-powered widgets display its dynamically-packaged city breaks feeds and have increased bookings by more than 16 per cent so far.
Lastminute.com’s inspire me platform can be accessed here: http://www.lastminute.com/site/travel/holidays/citybreaks/inspire.html.
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FusePump media contacts:
Amy Redhead/Joe Richards
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About FusePump:
FusePump creates, manages and integrates product data feeds to maximise revenue from online marketing and e-commerce applications. High-quality data feeds increase product visibility and sales conversion for clients and enable consumers to find exactly what they’re searching for online. FusePump provides an end-to-end service meaning their technology doesn’t demand any technical knowledge or management time on the part of their clients.
FusePump partner with affiliate networks, digital marketing agencies and publishers, and serve clients in the retail, travel and mobile sectors – including Argos, Marks and Spencer, lastminute.com, Orange and TUI. FusePump is experienced in the following product marketing channels: Affiliate Marketing, Google Shopping Integration, Dynamic Advertising, Comparison Shopping Engines, Travel Meta Search, Paid Search Automation, Social Media Integrations, Onsite Merchandising Units and Mobile Commerce.
Visit: www.fusepump.com
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