The ROI of human-generated content

Summary

Pedro Torres, Senior Product Manager at GetYourGuide, discusses the company’s journey to optimize travel planning through its 'Explorer' platform. The Explorer, a travel blog offering inspiration and insights, targets travelers in the planning phase, leveraging SEO and AEO strategies. By using AI to enhance content creation and localization, GetYourGuide scaled from 30 articles per month to over 500, reaching 1 million weekly users in just 10 months. Pedro emphasizes the importance of authentic, human-generated content and the use of AI to streamline processes, aiming to provide a comprehensive travel experience for users worldwide.

Takeaways

• 😀 Pedro Torres, Senior Product Manager at GetYourGuide, shared insights on the company's strategy for organic growth and content creation.
• 🌍 Pedro has traveled to 47 countries and is now planning his trip to Antarctica, which he considers the last continent to visit.
• ✈️ GetYourGuide is a global online marketplace for booking travel experiences, with a focus on activities and tours beyond just flights and accommodation.
• 💡 Despite the widespread availability of travel experiences, 70% of bookings are made on-site rather than online, revealing an opportunity for GetYourGuide to tap into the 'inspirational phase' of travel planning.
• 📈 The Explorer platform was launched as a travel blog to provide users with inspiration and content that helps them plan their trips, targeting users who aren't ready to book yet.
• 🔍 SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) were identified as key ways to measure the success of content-heavy platforms like Explorer.
• 🤖 AI-driven content optimization is essential for scaling the content process, but GetYourGuide emphasizes using human-generated content to maintain authenticity and authority.
• 🔄 GetYourGuide uses AI to optimize processes like translation and content creation, enabling them to scale their content without sacrificing quality or authenticity.
• 📊 The Explorer has published over 52,000 articles and has reached 1 million weekly users during peak seasons, showing the success of their content strategy.
• 🌐 GetYourGuide's content is localized into 10 languages, with plans for expansion into even more languages to reach a broader audience.
• 🚀 By utilizing AI tools like Icon AI, GetYourGuide increased their content output from 30 articles per month to over 500, significantly boosting their reach and efficiency.

Q & A

What is the main objective of GetYourGuide's Explorer product?

The main objective of the Explorer product is to engage travelers during the 'inspirational phase' of their trip planning, providing them with content about destinations and activities before they are ready to book experiences.

What is the significance of SEO and AEO in the success of the Explorer product?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) helps increase visibility of GetYourGuide's content on search engines like Google. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) focuses on AI-driven tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, which provide answers to user queries and drive traffic to content-heavy pages, making them more visible.

How does GetYourGuide differentiate itself in terms of content for the Explorer blog?

GetYourGuide differentiates itself by focusing on human-generated content for authenticity and trust. While AI is used to optimize the process, all the content is created by real people to maintain credibility and authority.

Why is it important for GetYourGuide to have human-generated content on the Explorer blog?

Human-generated content is important for maintaining authenticity and authority. It ensures that the content is relatable and trustworthy, which is essential for engaging users and establishing GetYourGuide as a reliable source of travel inspiration.

What role does AI play in GetYourGuide's content creation process?

AI plays a key role in optimizing content creation, particularly in streamlining the writing, editing, and localization processes. It helps scale the production of content efficiently without compromising quality, by using AI tools like Content Stack and AI-driven translation optimization.

How does GetYourGuide utilize machine translation and AI for localization?

GetYourGuide uses machine translation to localize content into various languages. AI is then used to refine these translations, fixing errors and improving accuracy, which allows for faster and more accurate localization of articles.

What impact has the use of AI had on GetYourGuide's content output?

The use of AI has enabled GetYourGuide to scale their content production from 30 articles per month to over 500 per month, significantly increasing the amount of content they can publish and improving the efficiency of their workflow.

What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) that show the success of the Explorer product?

Key performance indicators include reaching over 1 million weekly users during peak seasons, publishing over 52,000 articles, and expanding the platform to 10 languages, with plans to continue growth.

How does the Explorer product help users who are not ready to book travel experiences?

The Explorer product engages users even if they are not ready to book by providing them with inspirational content, like videos and recommendations, that helps them plan and dream about future trips. It maintains user interest until they are ready to make a booking.

What was the initial goal when launching the Explorer MVP, and how did it evolve?

The initial goal of the Explorer MVP was to publish 30 articles per month and test the concept. As it gained traction, the focus shifted to scaling content production, leading to the integration of AI to optimize processes and boost content output to over 500 articles per month.