Really interesting study, and comments, from Travelocity about click-thru performance:

“I think search marketing is a fantastic channel. My plea is for companies to get more precise about measuring it, to bid smarter. Because if they don’t, they can lose their shirts…For us, we can take a loss on nonbranded terms like ‘Hawaii vacation’ — but not much of a loss,” Mr. Glueck said. Ultimately, he said, it is a “profound mistake by all of us to think we’ve figured out how to measure ROI on search. We’re in stage one“

I find the comments about the value of brand in search marketing interesting, as it isn’t an an area discussed often. The value of ranking for descriptive keywords is seen as a given, but there’s more to search marketing than the keyword funnel, as their conversion data suggests.

The article also highlights the difficulty of tracking and measurement.