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The Travel Insights Podcast, Hosted by Clay Coomer

Consumer Travel Marketing Masterclass

Originally published on April 2, 2025

In this episode of the Travel Insights Podcast, host and travel marketing expert, Clay Coomer leads us through the second part of the Consumer Travel Marketing Masterclass series.

Clay underscores the significance of having a robust and meaningful brand story, using a heart analogy to highlight how brand health is pivotal to a company’s success.

He examines the consequences of brand issues on a company's performance, particularly revenue, and outlines key questions businesses should ask to evaluate the current state of their brand.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Chapters

  • 00:00 Brand Evaluation for Strategic Planning

  • 06:29 Annual Vacation Planning Timeline

  • 10:27 Optimizing Paid Media Investments

  • 13:11 Maximizing Q1 Brand Awareness Strategy

  • 17:11 Optimizing Travel Marketing Budgets

  • 20:11 Seasonal Travel Trends

  • 22:57 Timing for Travel Insurance

  • 28:17 Analyzing Marketing Performance Metrics

  • 31:49 Analyzing Return on Effort Metrics

  • 35:37 Optimizing Conversion and Acquisition Analysis

  • 37:52 Maximizing Travel Marketing Strategies

Listen to this episode on Spotify

Podcast summary

In this episode of the Travel Insights Podcast, Clay leads us through the second part of the Consumer Travel Marketing Masterclass series. Clay underscores the significance of having a robust brand, using a heart analogy to highlight how brand health is pivotal to a company’s success. He examines the consequences of brand issues on a company’s performance, particularly revenue, and outlines key questions businesses should ask to evaluate the current state of their brand.

Clay dives into the consumer travel planning process by breaking it down into four phases: inspiration, passive searching, active searching, and booking. He explains how understanding these phases can guide marketers to tailor their strategies effectively. When it comes to paid media strategy, he advises against spreading out the budget evenly throughout the year, known as ‘peanut buttering,’ suggesting instead to align spending with the phases of trip planning. This targeted approach ensures that marketing efforts resonate with consumer behavior at the right times, ultimately enhancing efficiency and impact.

Finally, the episode explores year-round content planning and the importance of maintaining evergreen content, along with addressing recurring travel themes like wave season and hurricane season. Clay introduces the probability of conversion matrix, an advanced tool to optimize marketing tactics by assessing channel data through a scatter diagram. This tool helps in determining channel efficiency and aids marketers in making data-driven decisions to enhance their marketing performance. Clay’s expertise provides listeners with practical strategies and analytical tools to better align their marketing plans with consumers’ evolving travel behaviors and preferences.

Summer Travel Trends in the US: Travelers Choosing to Stick Closer to Home

Originally published on April 9, 2025

The busiest time of the year for US travel is here and despite economic turmoil and global tension still lingering, travelers appear to still be making plans to leave home. At said, the data suggests travelers are sticking closer to home and spending less on trips, at least compared to summer 2024.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Chapters

  • 00:00 Domestic and Caribbean Travel Booms in 2025

  • 07:04 Shifting Trends in Summer Travel Bookings Compared to 2024

  • 10:06 Top Summer Travel Insurance Packages

  • 12:55 2025 Summer Travel Trends

Listen to this episode on Spotify

Podcast summary

In this episode of the Travel Insights Podcast, host Clay Coomer focuses on revealing the summer 2025 travel trends. Clay dives into trending destinations, noting a shift toward domestic travel as Americans favor destinations closer to home. Interestingly, Montana emerges as the top destination for domestic travel over expected places like Florida or California. Internationally, the Caribbean sees popularity with countries like Guadalupe and Saint Martin making the list, while classic European spots like Italy and Great Britain remain favored, albeit less so than in previous years.

The episode also examines travel costs and planning behavior. It reveals that American travelers are opting for more budget-friendly and shorter trips this summer. The average cost for summer trips has decreased by approximately 7% compared to summer 2024, with a noticeable increase in the number of insured solo trips. Trips are now averaging nine days, three days shorter than the prior year, with booking windows predominantly taking place between January and March. This change implies a growing preference for concise, well-planned vacations amidst inflationary pressures.

Furthermore, Clay uncovers insights into travel insurance trends. He highlights the significance of travel protection benefits, particularly trip cancellation and interruption, which remain popular among travelers. There’s a notable uptick in the selection of travel medical and baggage protection benefits, reflecting increased caution around health and safety issues, even for domestic travels. The discussion underscores how travelers are adjusting their insurance choices to align with their evolving travel habits, influenced by both financial considerations and heightened awareness of potential travel disruptions.

their words, not mine

Former boss #1

Clay was the best marketing hire I ever made.

Former boss #2

I don't know exactly what he does or how he does it, I just know whatever it is he's really, really good at it.

Large OTA Partner

We love the creativeness, innovative thinking, responsiveness, and professionalism brought to the partnership.

info you should know

How long has Clay worked in travel marketing?

Clay started his travel marketing career in April 2015 as a digital analyst for Carmel, Indiana-based Seven Corners. Fast forward to February 2020, he became Vice President of Marketing and E-commerce at WorldTrips, a Tokio Marine Group Company. Most recently, he served as Head of Global Marketing for battleface and Robin Assist and continues contract with both companies.

What is Clay Knows Travel?

Clay Knows Travel was originally started in November 2024 as side project and creative outlet. As of May 2025, its officially in business as a soloprenurship led by travel marketing industry expert, Clay Coomer. After spending nearly 10 years serving in multiple full-time employment roles for three different travel brands, Clay is now building a portfolio career working with several travel companies asynchronously in a fractional capacity for each.

What services does Clay Knows Travel provide?

While the list could be long, Clay is narrowing the focus to work with travel brands to provide his in-depth marketing and brand expertise to smaller sized companies looking to build out a more robust and efficient DTC book of business. He is helping brands address specific needs around brand and product positioning, strategic messaging and content creation, website cleanup and optimization, e-commerce purchase path design, UX and UI, paid media strategy, audience segmentation analysis, and ideal customer profile ideation and creation.

How much of what Clay does is AI-dependent?

AI is making marketers wildly more efficient and helping speed along the creative process by leaps and bounds. Clay leverages AI in his day-to-day by helping him automate more time intensive and tedious tasks, break down data and analysis more efficiently with visual aides, and first drafts for content creation inspiration on an as needed basis.

What are a few pain points Clay is solving for that most travel brands are facing?

Smaller travel brands who compete against massive organizations are at a disadvantage. And most have to get incredibly creative to stand out and get noticed. It's not easy to do, but it is definitely possible. Clay helps travel brands identify specific characteristics that make them unique and crafts messaging and positioning concepts to communicate and distribute to build brand awareness to capture demand from market segments with the highest probability of conversion. At the end of the day, travel brands want to acquire new customers efficiently and retain them as a customer for life. Clay can support to help you achieve this.

How much does it cost to partner with Clay Knows Travel?

Much less compared to the cost of hiring a full-time employee and the cost to partner with an agency. Both options should be considered, because it is a big decision on who to work with when building a sustainable brand in the travel industry. Partnering with Clay will afford you (pun intended) the option of flexibility and highly specialized expertise for areas critical to the growth of your DTC channel. Pricing options vary based on specific needs, RE: flexibility. Clay's standard independent contractor agreement starts at 10-hours per week and $80 per hour on a month-to-month basis. Fixed monthly retainers and one-off project based Master Services Agreements are also available. Each agreement will come with a tailored SOW (Scope of Work) and supplemental mutual NDA (Nondisclosure Agreement) for confidentiality.