In Marketing We Trust Increased the Conversion Rate of Globus 148% With Sitecore Migration

Globus Family of Brands is a global group of a coach tour, river cruise, and independent travel package companies that operate worldwide.With 4 brands in 13 countries and 52 websites, Globus chose In Marketing We Trust to provide support during, pre and post-Sitecore migration.

The goal was to create a better user experience for both consumers and travel agents, growing both B2B and B2C sales and improve brand positioning in the market.

Situation

Globus Family of Brands has 4 brands in 13 countries. With 1 domain per brand and per country, equaling a total of 52 websites, migrating was a huge undertaking. Starting 12 months prior to the move In Marketing We Trust began planning to provide support during, pre and post-Sitecore migration.

Globus wanted to create a better user experience for both the consumer and travel agent to grow sales and improve brand positioning in the market. The decision to migrate to Sitecore was simple due to non-converting websites that were not customers focussed. The old websites lacked functionality with a blanket approach to marketing communications due to dirty customer data.

The initial migration plan put forward to In Marketing We Trust was challenging due to the volume of sites and the risk to organic visibility. On top of that risk, there was already no trust in the data. All 52 websites had a different analytics setup. Due to the complexity and lack of maintenance, trust in the data was lost. Without fixing these issues before migrating to Sitecore, there was no way they had be able to correctly measure its impact.

Rachelle D., Digital Marketing Coordinator, Globus Family of Brands said:

We don’t feel like a client, we feel that we work together as they are passionate about what they do in order for us to achieve their business goals. IMWT staff is highly skilled and are experts in their field.

I especially appreciate that IMWT are so proactive in ensuring that we are kept up to date with reporting and have been a major help with migration. One of the best agencies we’ve worked with.

How In Marketing We Trust Increased Traffic 50% And Conversions 148% YoY

With 30% of traffic coming from organic search, the risk to visibility as a result of an aggressive migration plan was huge. To mitigate this risk, In Marketing We Trust created a Sitecore migration success plan. This included rolling out 1 brand at a time with a rollback option based on priorities and testing the site with live traffic.

In Marketing We Trust greenlighted stages throughout the migration journey and had daily standup meetings with Globus, the development agency, and the building agency to mitigate any risk. ,They also provided post-migration training on how to complete health checks, training on Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Google Ads. They also provided training on “Advanced Analytics for Travel Marketers”.

As part of the migration process they thoroughly cleaned house. Over 10% of Globus Family of Brands pages were 404s. In Marketing We Trust also focussed their efforts on SEO to reduce the risk of a drop in organic visibility.

Taking Cosmos Australia as their example:

• Reduced the number of 404s by over 13%, Cosmos now has less than 1% of 404s
• Increased the sitemap relevancy to 100%
• Doubled page speed, from 4 seconds down to an average load time of under 2 seconds
• Increased domain authority and reduced spam score to zero

Objecitves

• Maintain footprint and current rankings
• Transfer ALL the authority from legacy site to new site
• Facilitate indexation of new site
• Maintain KPIs and metrics measurements

In Marketing We Trust’s Sitecore Migration Plan for Success

What to Do before Staging

Site Audit

Audit your current site. Provide a list of errors and elements to fix to maximise SEO authority. Include recommendations for the new site (structure, content, URLs, etc.).

Enhance Site

Enhance your current site, including:

• Errors
• Redirections
• On-page
• Content
• Internal linking structure
• Meta-descriptions
• Canonicals
• Robots.txt
• Sitemaps

Benchmark

Set your benchmark with your current KPIs and metrics. This will be used post migration to provide insight into how well you currently perform. Identify your key pages and current footprint.

Review Tracking

Audit your Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager and develop a measurement and implementation plan.

What to Do during Staging

Audit and Enhance Staging Site

Audit and enhance your staging site using the above checklist. This process needs to be repeated until your staging site is healthy and ready.

Plan Redirects

Ensure you’re transferring authority with URL and image mapping.

Implement Tracking

Implement Google Tag Manager and configure Google Analytics. Implement Data Layer for form tracking.

Healthy Site Checklist

• No errors
• No broken links
• All meta-descriptions are defined and optimised
• Hreflang is supported for all pages
• Sitemap includes all pages that need to be indexed
• No redirections
• All titles are defined and optimised
• Canonicals and meta-robots correctly implemented
• Tag Manager Container is included in all pages
• Data Layer is implemented for form tracking

What to Do on Migration Day

Sitecore Migration Day Checklist

• Launch the new site
• Implement redirects to transfer SEO authority
• Monitor
• Audit the new site (check for any potential errors)
• Switch the tracking (publish new tracking)
• Validate redirects
• Verify robots.txt and sitemaps
• Implement fixes (critical problems must be resolved on the day of Sitecore migration)
• Analyse and report after migration
• Compare metrics before and after migration
• Provide recommendations and enhancements as applicable

What to Expect after Migration

• Fluctuation in rankings from week 1 to 3 after migration
• Indexation can take from 4 days up to 1 month
• Slight drop in traffic is to be expected due to redirections
• Changes in Analytics will be noticed as the tracking is updated while migrating

The days after migration are critical. Site performance must be monitored and errors must be fixed as soon as possible.

About In Marketing We Trust

In Marketing We Trust is the online marketing optimisation agency of choice for travel brands. They focus on return, not vanity metrics.

They’ve worked with many highly successful travel clients like Expedia, Club Med, Columbus Direct, and eBay.