For client Delta Air Lines, Minneapolis-based Alvenda created a “Ticket Window” that allows Facebook users to book flights with their friends directly from the popular social media Web site.
Alvenda, Inc., launched what it’s calling the travel industry’s first e-commerce channel on Facebook.
For client Delta Air Lines, Minneapolis-based Alvenda created a “Ticket Window” that allows Facebook users to book flights with their friends directly from the popular social media Web site.
Facebook users can complete full travel bookings on facebook.com/delta without ever navigating directly to delta.com.
Atlanta-based Delta’s Ticket Window will also soon be attached to other Web sites via the airline’s online banner ads.
“We’re looking forward to empowering Delta’s 160 million annual customers to shop on their own terms and give them an easy way to book travel with their friends,” Wade Gerten, founder and CEO of Alvenda, said in a statement. “Delta is the first travel company to open millions of new selling opportunities via a social commerce channel.”
Alvenda creates social commerce channels by integrating social networking, advertising, and e-commerce. The company opens in-stream shopping experiences that include a quick checkout feature inside Facebook’s news feeds and fan pages, and inside banner ads on various Web sites.
Alvenda claims that merchants that partner with the company typically see 10 to 20 times the engagement rates achieved with traditional direct marketing and social media programs. The reason for that, according to the company, is that people interact and transact far more often when they’re not required to leave their favorite Web sites in order to make purchases.
Alvenda, founded in 2008, was the 2009 grand-prize winner of the Minnesota Cup, a statewide competition that seeks out aspiring entrepreneurs and their breakthrough business ideas.
Read more about Alvenda by clicking here.
—Christa Meland
(cmeland@tcbmag.com)