Villa Plus implements IBM business analytics software

Holiday company Villa Plus is using IBM's business analytics software to support its advertising campaigns as it increases its number of properties by 40%.

Villa Plus implemented IBM’s Coremetrics analytics software to help it understand customer behaviour. It had previously used Google analytics.

Simon Lifford, head of sales and UK operations at Villa Plus, said that, although using Google Analytics was free, it was not sophisticated enough.

Villa Plus advertises online and pays websites for every click-through. To ensure it gets value for money and fills vacancies quickly, it needed to understand customers, what to advertise to them and on which websites.

The company pays for its properties in advance so leaving them vacant costs money. It needed to be able to understand trends to direct its marketing at the right people. A 40% increase in properties made this more pressing.

Lifford said Villa Plus wanted off-the-shelf software. Coremetrics, which is hosted by IBM on its servers, offered this with the opportunity to create bespoke functionality.

“We wanted to be able to monitor the whole journey of a customer before they buy,” said Lifford. “It helps us pick up, track and understand what people want.”

Villa Plus pays an annual subscription. Lifford said that, although the company got a return on investment quickly, he believes it can achieve much more with the new software.