For this dual Aussie/Brit, it’s very satisfying to see the Australian market becoming increasingly fertile for a number of our UK clients.
Econsultancy’s recent release of the State of Digital Marketing in Australia report highlighted Oz as a market that is making the UK sit up and take notice, and not without good reason.
In the travel arena, Australian visitors have long been a high value market due to the sheer amount of time and monetary investment required for a European holiday. No point boarding that hellish flight for a short trip! And with a much stronger currency at their disposal these days, the Australian visitor is only increasing in importance.
An interesting trend we have noted for one of our travel clients is the growing amount of bookings being driven from searches made by Australians via tablet devices. It certainly makes sense that a customer who can afford to consider a European jaunt for their holiday plans could be targeted on gadgets that are likely to be used by the more affluent. With heavy optimisation of this client’s activity towards tablet searches, these higher value customers are much easier to target, and booking revenue from Aussie customers is continuing to play an important and growing part of their overall revenue mix.
A key trend we have noted in the retail market is the growing appetite of the Australian consumer for high end brands, particularly those which are difficult to source within Australia or which are more price competitive here in the UK. Again, the buying power of the Australian dollar (which has traded above parity with the US dollar in 2012) clearly has a crucial role to play in this trend, offering real opportunities for retailers who are able to offer luxury goods which may otherwise be in short supply in Australia.
Delivery options in particular are crucial to enticing Australian customers to buy from UK retailers. In our experience, search campaigns featuring creative which highlights quick and reasonably priced or even free shipping to Australia are achieving considerably higher clickthrough rates and conversion; again something we could reasonably expect from a market located on the other side of the planet, but surprisingly something that few retailers seem to be taking into consideration when devising their promotional calendars. With one of our clients experiencing up to 30% higher average order values from Australia than the UK, it can be worth considering taking the hit on delivery charges in order to drive these larger basket sizes.
As we continue to test and learn, there will no doubt be more stories to tell from our targeting of the land down under, but how about you? What has your experience been with the Oz market? We’d love to hear your feedback.
