The Covid-19 Pandemic devastated our business. We lost 100%of our previous market which was based on international travel and we were seriously struggling with bookings and our occupancy rate was at it’s lowest ever at 1% or less. We engaged Go South Africa and together formulated a strategy that looks inwards to boost our direct bookings domestically. We gradually see significant increase in our occupancy rate and in direct bookings via our website rather than on OTA platforms. The CPA gradually dropped! We are again focusing on more important aspects of our business like guests experience and general operations of the business.
Andile – Antbear Eco Lodge Management
The Challenge.
Coming out of a pandemic, Antbear Eco Lodge required a strategy that targeted the domestic market and would significantly increase direct bookings and gradually eliminate reliance on Online Travel Agencies (OTA) platforms and travel trade that carries high commissions on each room sold. Prepandemic, more than 85% of the hotel occupancy rate has been solely dependent on bookings from OTAs and travel trade
A secondary issue was that a more automated response to enquiries was required both to reduce workload on reservations as well as improve customer service.
In addition to this, Antbear Eco Lodge was struggling with their online digital presence and was seeking a digital-tech agency with rigorous transformation capabilities to add value to the brand and increase it’s digital presence utilizing the best technology available.
It is therefore imperative that the appointed partner not only understands the African market, its tourism industry but also what makes African tick thereby differentiating the Hotel brand from its competitors. Antbear Eco Lodge tasked Go South Africa with this challenge. The results speak for themselves.
Campaign Strategy Development
Go South Africa formulated a result driven strategy for the performance campaign. The strategy utilized available data and targets specific audience (male and female, age 22 – 50, high income level and across all devices) based on their interests (Recreation, tourism, travel, hotels and inns, entertainment and leisure, news, visiting cultural and entertainment events, attractions, business and career, business trips, hotels and air tickets) and behavioral pattern. We then modelled an audience similar (i.e look-alike audience) in behavioral characteristics on the open web to the target audience of the client and thereafter a re-targeting campaign. The KPI for the campaign is conversions.
The campaign utilized programmatic ad-tech solution. Programmatic advertising uses Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Real-Time Bidding (RTB) to automate and streamline ad buying process. It delivers both broad and accurate targeting of audiences achieved through the combination of inventory on sites relevant to the brand.
Website revamp and landing page development.
Go South Africa completely revamped the Antbear Eco Lodges website as the very first step of the strategy execution. The website was built on latest PHP technology using WordPress with Elementor Pro. Entire project was completed within six weeks including web copy writing and photography. In addition. The connection to initiating conversations in WhatsApp and the auto replies to submitted enquiries was also introduced. The completed website is user friendly, easy to navigate and fully responsive to all screen sizes across all [mobile] devices.
Of huge importance was the introduction of Active Campaign to build an email database and CRM system
Go South Africa put in place a brilliant landing page for the campaign with a simple call-to-action, installed tracking + conversion pixels, set up automations, analytics and reporting.
Programmatic Campaign Realisation
Go South Africa used 1st party and 3rd party data to form the custom segments of the target audience. The chosen advertising formats were in-steam, out-stream video and animated banner. In-stream video was shown mostly on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, the animated gif banners, native, and out-stream video on news/travel websites and other websites interesting for the target audience.
In order not to overload the audience with the same ads, Go South Africa set up ad creatives synchronization across different devices of one user. The ads were shown to one user no more than four times. Setting up look-alike targeting after one week of the campaign. Advertising materials were shown to the users who have similar behavior to the current website audience. Both manual and automatic optimization was used in a real time regime during the advertising campaign. Automated optimization technology Bid Factors allocated budget to the better reacting audience segments (higher CTR rate) and targets.
The Campaign Results
The result speaks volume. It proves that the targeting settings were set up correctly, and the advertising formats were picked right. The View-Through-Rate (VTR) and Click-Through-Rate (CTR) rates exceeded the planned number monthly with the same monthly adspend. The direct bookings from the Antbear Eco Lodge website exceeds the projected figures each month. The aim of the advertising campaign was reached successfully and very progressive.