What should marketers do to entice people to visit their Web sites and spend money? For starters, they should learn the simple truth that customers want to manage their own online experiences.

Delta Air Lines, for example, offers a number of services at its site to save customers time. Among other transactions, online customers can book their tickets, change their seats and re-book delayed flights. Delta was the first company to offer these services online, said G.M. O'Connell, chairman of Modem Media, Delta's Norwalk, CT-based agency.

The goal was to set Delta's Web site apart from those of other airlines where the customer feels “you don't know when it's going to happen, but you know at some point you're going to be ‘blanked,’” O'Connell said during a session at the Direct Marketing Association's net.marketing conference in Miami.

It has paid off. This year, Delta will do 20% of its business online — upward of $2 billion in sales.

“We look at a Web site not as a place where you bring people, but as a place where you distribute [services] outward,” O'Connell continued.

The airline uses e-mail to do that, but also often combines e-mail promotions with frequent flyer direct mail, which tells these best customers “what's in it for them online,” he said.

“We found the two-tier approach works best,” O'Connell said of mailing first through one channel, then another. Delta tested sending coupons through the mail and through e-mail to find out what was the best way to stimulate action. “We found that the coupon wasn't necessarily used to save money on the cheapest fare out there,” he said.

The company charts cost per acquisition, cost per action, cost per sale and more. These ROI metrics helped persuade high-level decision-makers that the online program is working, O'Connell said.

Delta also knows how long it takes for each customer action. When the time per action is reduced, customer satisfaction increases — and so do sales.

O'Connell has strong views on what companies shouldn't do online. “You can't annoy people into liking you,” he said. “You can't trick them into it either.”

And “shelfware” doesn't cut it. Many companies launching Web sites arm themselves with “a ton” of software for customer service and measurement, plus hardware — and then spend “about $100,000 on a portal deal,” O'Connell said.

Much of these bells and whistles don't live up to their promise, he said. People prefer a straightforward, workable Web site over technology.