"Nowhere else in our marketing mix have we seen a greater return. What makes it work is a combination of their knowledge, process, and a healthy dose of rolling up their sleeves and understanding our business and marketing goals. We consider the 90octane team an extension of our department."
Steve Born
VP of Marketing
Globus family of brands
For more than 80 years, the Globus family of brands including Globus, Cosmos, Monograms and Avalon Waterways, has provided a variety of vacations that address the needs of today's diverse traveler with unparalleled experiences.
Globus family of brands (GFOB) has seen considerable PPC advertising success with CTRs consistently above the travel industry average. However, the company sought to dominate specific travel categories online for its Globus and Cosmos brands and use innovative tactics to yield the highest possible CTR for ad placements, both in the search engines and on online publications.
Using a strategic mix of A/B testing, organic keyword research and media optimization, 90octane carefully tracked, measured and optimized CTRs for text and image ads and media placements.
A/B Testing
Ads with slightly different content, i.e. headlines, messaging or calls to action, displayed equally can be analyzed to see which performs better. While many marketers rely on automated tools such as Google Optimizer to evaluate ad performance and display the highest performing ad more frequently, 90octane assessed each ad's attributes and their corresponding CTRs individually and optimized accordingly.
Conducting this "manual" testing allowed 90octane to tweak ad assets for the Globus and Cosmos brand campaigns and appraise each version's CTR, allowing us to gather data and key learnings for future application. For example, testing generic travel headlines for a Globus brand campaign showed that one headline's CTR outperformed the others, and the narrowest margin was 2.9%. This headline will now be used in other ad iterations and included in SEO keyword strategy. However, when testing messaging touting certain savings for the same campaign, 90octane found a mere .01% difference in CTR, prompting further testing.
Organic Keyword Research
Using strategic tracking implementation and careful measurement, 90octane was able to trace conversions (travel bookings) back to organic keyword searches. Analyzing which unique keywords led to purchases allowed 90octane to integrate them into PPC ads and meta data description text to drive traffic to the GFOB sites.
Media Optimization
90octane evaluated the CTR performance of display ads placed in publications across all brands and compared the numbers to initial projected goals. Instead of merely accepting CTRs that fell short of projections but met industry standards, 90octane analyzed the ad sizes, images and messaging along with the publications' demographics to see if optimizing ads might help. In the cases where the agency's research showed that running a variation of an ad would increase CTRs, we contacted the publications to re-negotiate additional placements.
90octane's strategic hands-on optimization tactics resulted in increased CTRs for PPC ads and media, as well as enhanced SEO and PPC strategy. Organic keyword research helped to inform PPC keyword strategy, and implementing A/B testing for the Globus and Cosmos brand campaigns led to a 34% and 272% CTR increase respectively. The success of testing in these campaigns has led to the implementation of A/B testing on other platforms, including Facebook Advertising. Furthermore, 90octane's aggressive hands-on media optimization activities resulted in a 41% increase in CTR and a 17% decrease in CPC for the display category.
90octane leveraged optimization learnings to create a best practices guide for GFOB. The guide includes recommended messaging and attributes for Globus and Cosmos PPC ads. The agency is in the process of creating guidelines for the company's other brands as well.
Aggressively testing campaigns now, while laying the groundwork for future promotions and campaigns, has created new efficiencies and, in turn, more time and money for online marketing initiatives. That means 90octane is helping Globus family of brands send more travelers to Italy, Africa, South America and beyond.
For more information, please contact info@90octane.com.
Download this case study in .pdf format.
A/B testing showed the headline "Globus® Travel" was higher performing than the others.
After evaluating the performance of an Avalon Waterways banner ad on Cruise Critic, 90octane altered the ad's size and page placement for better results.
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