In order to make accurate and qualified decisions about where your marketing dollars are being spent, it’s important to know your Web site traffic statistics, including the origin of your traffic. Tools like Urchin Tracker provide this information each month with a minimum amount of effort.

Acorn IS has taken our Urchin Statistics one step further. Our hosting and non-hosting customers alike may now sign up for Intell-a-Keeper™.Intell-a-Keeper™ provides that next step for an innkeeper: the specific information about where the customer found them on the Internet when they actually made the booking.

We’ve created a simple process in which the innkeeper will be delivered an E-mail with each booking, whether the booking be made online through a reservation system, via E-mail or by Phone*.

So, before you decide to purchase Intell-a-Keeper™ you must . . .

1 - *For Phone Reservations Only: Determine if you are willing to take a few extra moments with your customer when they call to make a reservation on the phone.

2 - For All Reservations: Commit to sending an online confirmation, either with your current customer tracking product such as Rezovations, or by sending a simple E-mail confirmation if you normally do all your bookings by hand.

With these additional steps, you will now be able to track not only how many visitors found you from each of your paid listings (BBONLINE, BEDANDBREAKFAST.COM, LANIERBB.COM, BNBFINDER.COM, GOOGLE PPC, OVERTURE PPC, etc.); but you also will be able to match each booking to exactly which of these services provided you the booking, or if the guest simply found your organic/natural listing in a search engine like Google or Yahoo.

This information will close the loop on determining if you are really getting bookings, and not just traffic, from the different directories and PPC companies you pay for each year.

Remember, Intell-a-Keeper tracks all the various places a guest finds you before they book. Google Analytics only tracks the last previous before a booking.

Data Storage
All referrers are stored for 30 days previous to the current date only. Information available at the time of booking will include all referrals for the previous 30 days only. Once the booking has been completed, that booking information is archived permanently into the reservation database for any and all future inquiries or queries made by the innkeeper.

PPC Related
If a customer has PPC accounts, they will need to assign page query tracking code to each of their PPC phrases, or there will be NO WAY to distinguish the difference between PPC and organic search listings. Once this code is installed, Intell-a-Keeper™ will be able to track exactly which PPC phrase was chosen for that particular booking. Also, if the customer is using PPC conversion tracking, an additional "Thank You Page" can be included to record all PPC conversions that occur by phone or by follow-up confirmation E-mail.

The majority of bookings are received in 1 of 5 ways:

1 – Online availability software (Webervations, Availability Online, etc.) These are non-commissionable, non-GDS systems.
2 – A phone reservation where the customer is sitting at a PC and is either LOOKING at your Web page or can access it easily when they call to make the reservation.
3 – A phone reservation where the customer is NOT at a PC.
4 – A simple E-mail request that is NOT part of a secure online reservation system.
5 – Through a separate GDS, commission-paid type system. Intell-a-Keeper™ will not track GDS reservations. That information should be provided directly from the GDS system programs.

How the innkeeper's booking process will change when . . .

. . . your guest makes an online booking.

Script code will be added to any non-commissionable online reservation system that permits such code as conversion tracking for Google Adwords or Overture PPC. This is a one-time coding effort and currently works with Webervations and Availability Online. As customers with other online reservations systems wish to install Intell-a-Keeper™, Acorn IS will need to work with those companies to provide the same type of access to their system’s tracking to make this work.

The innkeeper will receive a separate E-mail with the tracking information about this reservation, including a number that matches the reservation number recorded in the online reservation system. This tracking information will also be stored in the Intell-a-Keeper™ Reporting System Database for archival and reporting purposes.

. . . your guest is on a PC looking at your Web site or can easily access your Web site when they call to make a phone reservation.

An Intell-a-Keeper™ button will be placed on all visible pages of the innkeeper’s Web site. When this button is clicked, it will load a screen consistent with the innkeeper’s Web site design and will require the guest to key in a password provided by the innkeeper. At the end of the phone booking, the innkeeper will instruct the guest to please click on the Intell-a-Keeper™ button, key in the name on the reservation, put in the passcode, and click submit. This action will invoke an E-mail to be sent to the innkeeper with the tracking information about this reservation. This tracking information will also be stored in the Intell-a-Keeper™ Reporting System Database for archival and reporting purposes.

Note: The reason for the passcode is so that you only receive actual reservation referrals and not just data that someone can type in that would skew your percentages in the Intell-a-Keeper™ Reporting System.

Sample script to be used with the phone guest: "There’s just one last thing we need to do to finish up booking this reservation. Do you see the Intell-a-Keeper™ button at the bottom of the screen? Great – please click on it – put in the name we have on the reservation and key in (tell them your short access code that you've been provided) and click submit. Thanks - this will help me log where you found us on the Internet."

. . . your guest calls you on the phone but is NOT at a PC while on the phone.

You must make sure you have a valid E-mail address to make this type of reservation tracking work. Tell the guest you will be sending them a confirmation via E-mail, and they will need to click on the link in the E-mail to confirm the reservation by typing in the name on the reservation and clicking submit.

A link to a private tracker page on your Web site will be included in the E-mail confirmation sent by the innkeeper. Once a guest receives the confirmation, they will know to click to confirm they got it. When the guest enters their name and clicks submit, this will invoke an E-mail to be sent to the innkeeper with the information about where this guest found them. This tracking information will also be stored in the Intell-a-Keeper™ Reporting System Database for archival and reporting purposes.

…your guest sends a simple E-mail request that is NOT part of an online reservation system.

Since you’ve received an E-mail as the first line of communication from your guest, you already have the guest's E-mail address. You’ll simply follow the same rules as provided in the step above (where the guest is NOT near a PC) and send them their confirmation with the link and brief instructions for them to click to confirm receipt by typing in the name on the reservation.

Additional Intell-a-Keeper™ Information