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Mann Travel & Cruises earned $3,356 for every advertising dollar spent on Google AdWords.
Customer Profile
- WebsiteBiz
- www.WebsiteBiz.com
- An Internet marketing agency that delivers results-driven online marketing campaigns to middle market and Fortune 1000 companies. Campaigns are designed to acquire new customers, generate revenue, build brand and enhance customer relationships.
- Mann Travels
- www.123Travel.com; www.MannTravels.com
- One of the largest privately-owned, full-service travel agencies in the United States.
Marketing challenges and goals
- Increase direct online bookings by $15,000 per month
- Triple the monthly number of phone bookings
- Increase site traffic over 30%
- Double the number of visitors referred from paid search campaign
- Raise vacation interest in cruises during the slow summer period
- Match competitors' online booking success
- Boost leads and conversions
- Expand brand awareness
- Monitor keywords to improve campaign performance
- Optimize results and return on investment (ROI)
Solution
- Engaged Internet marketing agency WebsiteBiz to develop online campaign
- Combined natural and paid search campaigns to optimize results
- Used Google AdWords search-based advertising as campaign linchpin
- Distributed ads on Google search and across Google Network of content sites
- Selected keywords around top cruise lines, departure cities and destinations
- Directed people to a landing page on 123Travel.com
- Invested 70 percent of budget in AdWords campaign
Results
- Exceeded the goal of tripling phone bookings from leads generated online with 108 online bookings in one month (July 2006)
- Derived return on advertising spend of 3,352 percent in one month (June 2006)
- Generated over 2.5 million impressions online (June 2006)
- Increased the number of visitors to the site 150 percent
- Nearly doubled the number of visitors driven by paid search
- Increased clickthrough rate (CTR) on 123Travel.com
- Obtained over 70 percent of traffic and sales from Google AdWords
- Garnered more than $100,000 in revenue with $3,000 budget
Business overview
WebsiteBiz delivers results-driven online marketing campaigns designed to acquire new customers, generate revenue, build brand and enhance customer relationships. By analyzing and understanding online audience behavior, aligning campaign tactics with specific business goals and employing a continual improvement methodology, WebsiteBiz maximizes clients’ return on their online marketing investment.
Founded in 1997, WebsiteBiz is a privately held company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. Core competencies include creating integrated online marketing plans, natural search engine optimization, paid search marketing, online media buying, permission based email marketing, Web effectiveness, Web analytics, and more.
Mann Travels is one of the largest privately-owned, full-service travel agencies in the U.S. The company’s size and sales volume make it possible to negotiate low prices with vendors and pass the savings on to travelers. Mann Travels is an American Express Travel Service Representative, yet it remains a family-owned business with a long history of serving travelers in Charlotte, N.C. and surrounding areas, as well as nationwide.
Marketing challenges and goals
Summer is a time when people are often traveling and have already booked their holiday travel plans in advance, and therefore is a slow time for travel agencies. Increasing the number of bookings during this time requires focused marketing effort. Mann Travels wanted to boost overall bookings for its cruises from May through August 2006. Maximizing direct online bookings was especially attractive because of lower marketing, customer acquisition and associated labor costs. Focusing on the Internet as a marketing channel was deemed important because the company knew that competitors had healthy online booking rates, and therefore Mann wanted to devise a plan to meet or exceed its competitors’ successes.
The Google solution
Mann Travels worked closely with Internet marketing agency WebsiteBiz to devise a cohesive online marketing campaign designed to drive profitable cruise bookings. The goals included increasing site traffic by one-third and boosting online leads and conversions. The team also wanted to secure 30 phone bookings per month from leads generated online and increase direct online bookings by $15,000 per month. "We took a two-pronged approach, combining natural and paid search campaigns to maximize results and drive targeted traffic to Mann Travels’ 123Travel.com site," explains WebsiteBiz Account Director, Tom Dressler.
The focus of the natural search campaign was to build relevant content and get search engines to fully index the 123Travel.com site. WebsiteBiz monitored the site performance daily to analyze keywords and their rankings on top search engines.
The second arm of the campaign was a paid search effort structured around advertising on Google AdWords. "The dominance of Google as a search site and the value we knew we could derive from AdWords made it a natural choice," observes Dressler.
WebsiteBiz distributed ads on Google search and across Google Content Network to cast a wider net on travel and related sites. Dressler and the team generated an array of compelling text ads with different creative concepts that could be swapped in and out based on booking conversion performance. WebsiteBiz constantly monitored the performance of different ads and changed creative content based on the number of site visitors and booking conversions. "It was great to partner with WebsiteBiz," said Kathleen Creamer, the Google Account Executive. "Through strategic collaboration and open communication, we were able to maximize our impact on Mann Travels’ business."
Once people clicked on an AdWords ad, they landed on 123Travel.com. Then, if they were interested in a specific cruise, they were sent to a booking engine page for the specific itinerary. In the future, WebsiteBiz intends to enhance the landing pages to further improve results.
Results
Mann Travel & Cruises noticed immediate results from the campaign. Total online leads increased and conversions grew from three in May to 13 in July. On average, the campaign generated more than 2.8 million impressions per month — and nearly 4,500 clicks per month at a modest cost per click of 66 cents. The total number of site visitors grew one-third and search engine referrals also increased during the campaign by 45 percent. In July alone, the campaign exceeded the goal of securing 30 phone bookings more than threefold, with 108 bookings from leads generated online. The campaign also far exceeded the goal of driving an incremental $15,000 in direct online bookings.
The natural search and optimization part of the campaign also yielded results. In June 2006, the keywords "Last minute cruise" and "Last minute cruises" did not rank on Google search. In July, those phrases were in positions 17 and 14, respectively.
Perhaps the most impressive result of the campaign was its cost-effectiveness when compared with its results. In June 2006, the return on advertising spend (ROAS) exceeded 3,356 percent. By August, the ROAS continued to maintain a comparable return."
The ROI from the AdWords campaign was exceptional," says Dressler. "Google AdWords generated 70 percent of the new traffic to the 123Travel.com site, as well as roughly 70 percent of campaign revenues. Mann Travels was impressed with what can be accomplished with a focused, well-executed AdWords campaign."
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