Expedition Trips

A Marketing Story by the matters. group about Expedition trips

4 Views | 0 High Fives

Expedition trips

Increase Sales

Challenge

Market: high end expedition cruising market to exotic locations such as The Artic, Antarctica, Galapagos & more. Inherited situation: the previous agency was not able to improve on a cost per acquisition metric that had increased to the point of being unsustainable. Efforts stalled as the program hit a ceiling and new ideas were unsuccessful at reigning in cost per acquisition. Challenges faced: as a specialty online travel agency with much competition, leads at a profitable CPA are the lifeblood of a firm. Little was known about the agency’s clientele and their motivations for high end speciality travel. With an unsustainable lead acquisition cost changes were needed immediately to bring the CPA to an acceptable level.

Solution

Solution elements: we conducted a customer (buyers) segmentation analysis to understand their motivations. The insights yielded 4 consumer segments that helped drive forward strategy, creative and re-organized PPC campaign architecture. Historical lead and bookings information were analyzed to look for exploitable opportunities.

Branding Strategy

Results

Developed 3 brand positioning recommendations to target best segments. With an understanding of travelers’ motivations we were able to evolve messaging copy and display ad creative. Through an analysis of past buyers we were able to reallocate media to geographies with the highest concentration of similar high end travel enthusiasts. The revised strategies and tactics led to a 70% reduction in lead cost per acquisition. We also realized improvements in lead to booking time, average booking revenue and greater overall lead and sales volumes.