How Ticket Guide Improved Their Website User Experience – and Increased Conversions
Mia Blu Missfeldt created Ticket Guide with a no-nonsense approach to travel resources. Back in 2015, she had already founded one tourist-focused website. That experience taught her a profound lesson: customers respond better to fewer choices and a streamlined ticket-buying process — in other words, an improved website user experience.
“I was always passionate about travel and had worked in the travel space,” Missfeldt says. “So when I discovered the tours and activities space – which was a growing sector – I immediately thought there was potential to develop a business to help users better navigate the many options.” Ticket Guide provides that clean, crisp customer experience she envisioned.
For travelers excited to get back to adventures – be they in Dubai, Paris, New York, Barcelona, or any number of other cities – Ticket Guide is a straightforward, easy-to-use website presenting the most popular global attractions. From the streamlined home page, website visitors can quickly drill down to a particular attraction and buy tickets.
Missfeldt continues, “Once the vision was established, I started to look for affiliate programs which could partner with us to help monetize traffic.” By partnering with Tiqets, Missfeldt has been able to improve the website usability experience even more. Today, Tiqets accounts for over 90% of the overall affiliate sales Ticket Guide makes.
We looked for an affiliate that would offer good products
which are appreciated by customers, competitive commission, and a good working relationship with the provider.”
Mia Blu Missfeldt
Founder of Ticket Guide
Challenge 1
Simplifying and streamlining a complicated experience for customers
Think of the traveler on a slow Wi-Fi connection in a hotel room, trying to decide which attraction to visit today. Or using their phone to make the purchase as they zip around a new city in the back of an Uber, their attention scattered as they squint at a little screen.
For Ticket Guide, helping this growing audience created a pressing challenge: how to ensure the most efficient, user-friendly experience for customers. “The goal from a user experience perspective was to create a site where users could quickly find the best ticket options without needing to compare on other websites,” she says. Missfeldt knew that offering limited curated options to customers was the key, but along with making it easy to make choices, it was equally important to ensure the ticket-purchase process was smooth.
Before Tiqets, some issues with the API connections of affiliate partnerships had led to a mismatch between the content on Ticket Guide and the content on the affiliate partner website. This created a negative customer experience. Customers would sometimes see different prices and/or outdated content which led them to drop out before getting to the end of the purchasing process.
The entire Ticket Guide website is managed by Missfeldt, along with a full-stack developer who works on website improvements, and a data engineer who works on data pipelines. With such a small team, it was equally important to smooth out the backend experience. In the beginning, Missfeldt says, “There were many issues, including tracking problems, issues in payment, and bad communication. This often led to difficulties in managing performance – and to personal frustration.”
Seeking a stronger affiliate partner that would solve her issues — not introduce new ones or make website administration more complication — Missfeldt found Tiqets.
Challenge 2
An improved user and backend experience all around
Tiqets had a few things that other affiliate partners did not. The main draw was how easy the team at Tiqets made it for Ticket Guide customers to buy tickets without glitches. As Missfeldt explains, “The main criteria for choosing a partner was their ability to provide a seamless technology integration with Ticket Guide, both from the front end and from the technology perspective. It had to allow users to have updated and accurate information and prices.”
She started out entertaining multiple affiliate partners, but quickly realized that Tiqets offered everything Ticket Guide needed in terms of improved user experience, product offerings, and integration capabilities. In addition, she says, “The working relationship with the affiliate team at Tiqets is really fantastic. So we decided to work exclusively with Tiqets.”
We have a great relationship with the team.
They really care about helping Ticket Guide succeed. It almost feels like we are part of the same company.”
Mia Blu Missfeldt
Founder of Ticket Guide
01
A much simpler and more streamlined customer experience
Ticket Guide customers are typically not just browsing. They’re looking to buy tickets pretty quickly. Making them wade through a lot of options is not ideal, says Missfeldt. In fact, “It’s a better user experience to recommend a few good options to choose from and to clearly explain the difference between them.”
Because Missfeldt feeds site visitors exactly what they’re looking for in specific cities, and teams up with Tiqets to make ticket purchases simple, the conversion rates with Tiqets are very high – and the cancellation rate very low.
And since the tickets customers purchase are digital, they can be stored right on a smartphone without the need to download or print anything. The tourist in the back of a cab purchasing tickets on the way to the Burj Khalifa simply whips out their phone at the entrance. A QR code gives them instant access.
Our users are happy with Tiqets products.
We have never received a complaint from one of our users.”
Mia Blu Missfeldt
Founder of Ticket Guide
02
Better backend technology experience
Pre-Tiqets, Ticket Guide struggled with partner integration. “From a user experience point of view,” says Missfeldt, “when the API integration did not work correctly, we were not able to show correct prices – which negatively impacted our conversion rate.”
Because being a ticket provider is at the core of the Tiqets value proposition, the technology works smoothly on the backend of the Ticket Guide website. Deploying the connection was easy, which was key for Missfeldt, who does not have a huge IT team at her disposal to work out technological kinks. From Tiqets, she received clear documentation outlining both the commission structure and the technical steps to integration: “We were up and running in a matter of days.”
03
The ability to track orders more quickly and easily
With Tiqets, Missfeldt could also set up a seamless real-time tracking system directly from the content API, giving her instant updates on ticket sales per product. “Having tracking available via API means we can easily get our booking data into our database, from which we build internal reports,” she explains. This doesn’t impact users at all, but allows Missfeldt to streamline the internal analysis process.
This functionality was important, because with other affiliate partners, Missfeldt had to copy and paste reports or set up scripts in order to retrieve files from reporting emails. With Tiqets, the process is automated and streamlined, which makes mistakes much less likely and allows Missfeldt to make the best use of her and her team’s time.
Missfeldt has had a lot of success with the partnership between Ticket Guide and Tiqets, and one of the biggest reasons for that is the collaborative approach Tiqets’ affiliate team engages in. “The Tiqets team always listens to our feedback,” she says, “then works to address issues.” This cooperative affiliate partnership has been gold for Ticket Guide.
Everything is great all round,
but the collaborative approach we have with the Tiqets affiliate team is what really makes a difference"
Mia Blu Missfeldt
Founder of Ticket Guide
Partnering on improved user experience
The vision for Ticket Guide has always been to provide global travelers a streamlined, more sensible user experience so they can easily secure tickets to popular attractions from an Airbnb, a hotel room, a taxi, an Uber, a ferry, the back of a rickshaw – or wherever they happen to be. By partnering with Tiqets in an affiliate relationship, Missfeldt has been able to achieve her goals and secure a competitive place in the world of travel websites.
Ready to monetize your travel blog?