Traveldeal: From customer insights to AI-driven personalisation for every visitor

Personalisation has evolved far beyond being a marketing buzzword. In competitive industries such as travel, addressing customer needs in a relevant, scalable, and real-time way has become an important driver of growth.

This customer case shows how Traveldeal, a leading travel platform, partnered with Yellowgrape to evolve its profiling and personalisation approach using Spotler’s Customer Data Platform (CDP). By combining experimentation, first-party data, and AI-generated content, Traveldeal worked to create a booking journey that feels more relevant and tailored to each visitor.

The challenge: turning choice overload into relevance

Traveldeal’s strength is also its challenge. With fresh travel deals published daily, from short city trips to all-inclusive escapes, visitors are presented with a wide range of options. Many browsed extensively, compared offers, and ultimately left without booking.

The key question became: how can we reduce friction and shorten time-to-book, while making each visitor feel understood, without adding pressure?

Traditional profiling methods, such as static forms and preference settings, proved ineffective. They felt intrusive, leading to low completion rates and fragmented data. Traveldeal needed a way to capture intent earlier in the funnel, seamlessly and intuitively, while clearly demonstrating value for the visitor.

The approach: experimentation as a growth engine

Together with Yellowgrape, Traveldeal adopted an experimentation-led lifecycle marketing approach powered by Spotler CDP. In a cookieless landscape, first-party data became the foundation for segmentation and personalisation.

Data collection, however, had to feel natural and engaging. Instead of relying on one-off forms, the team introduced continuous testing and learning, using experimentation to validate assumptions and optimise each step of the journey. Performance indicators such as engagement, opt-in rates, and downstream booking behaviour were used to evaluate the effectiveness of each iteration.

The wizard: playful profiling at the right moment

To replace static forms, Traveldeal introduced a visual preference wizard, seamlessly integrated into the browsing experience.

In just four short questions, covering travel companions, trip type, duration, and preferred region, visitors could express intent in a conversational way. The flow felt more like interacting with a travel consultant than filling out a form.

At the end of the wizard, visitors were invited to leave their email address to receive a personalised travel brochure, creating a clear value exchange between data and relevance.

The wizard’s effectiveness was evaluated through experimentation, measuring factors such as completion rates, opt-ins, and engagement with the personalised content that followed.

The AI-generated brochure: from data to inspiration

Once preferences were captured, AI-driven personalisation took over. Using Brainvine, Yellowgrape’s AI content engine, Traveldeal generated a dynamic brochure page tailored to each visitor.

Each brochure combined inspiration and practical information, including:

• suggested activities and experiences
• local highlights and hidden gems
• food and culture recommendations
• practical travel tips
• a personalised top-3 destination shortlist selected from more than 100 options

Engagement with the brochure content, such as time spent on the page and interactions with suggested destinations, was used as an indicator of how well the personalised inspiration resonated with visitors.

The aim was not only to increase relevance but also to help visitors translate their initial preferences into concrete travel ideas.

Omnichannel activation: one profile, one story

The enriched profiles created in Spotler Activate were activated across Traveldeal’s full marketing mix, including:

• personalised newsletters
• triggered email journeys
• dynamic social advertising
• search campaigns with intent-based messaging

By using a single customer profile as the foundation, each channel reinforced the same message and preferences, ensuring consistency throughout the customer journey.

Continuous optimisation: testing as a mindset

Experimentation did not stop after launch. Throughout the project, the team continuously tested and optimised:

• wizard placement and timing
• copy and tone of voice
• imagery and layout
• CTA wording and contrast

Each iteration was informed by performance data. Experimentation was therefore not treated as a one-time project phase but as an ongoing way of working.

Results: clear outcomes and strategic impact

Measurable outcomes

• Faster time-to-book by surfacing relevant offers earlier in the journey
• Higher opt-in rates driven by the intuitive, low-friction wizard experience
• Increased engagement with AI-personalised brochure content
• Improved performance across marketing channels through more consistent messaging

Strategic impact

• A scalable personalisation approach built on first-party data
• Richer 360° customer profiles within Spotler Activate
• A stronger foundation for personalisation in a post-cookie environment

Why this matters

The travel industry faces increasing pressure from rising acquisition costs and the decline of third-party cookies. Without strong first-party data, personalisation initiatives become significantly harder to sustain.

At the same time, customer expectations continue to rise. According to research frequently cited in the industry:

• 71% of consumers expect personalised interactions,
• 76% feel frustrated when those experiences are missing.

Research by McKinsey & Company has also highlighted that companies that excel at personalisation can generate significantly higher revenue from those activities, with reported lifts of up to 35% in travel-related contexts.

Traveldeal’s case illustrates how organisations can combine AI, experimentation, and structured data activation to strengthen personalisation capabilities and improve customer relevance across channels.

Lessons learned

• Profiling should inspire, not interrupt. Engagement increases when data collection feels rewarding.
• AI scales creativity. Technology enables relevance, while human expertise defines meaning and direction.
• Consistency builds trust. One profile and one coherent story across channels improves the experience.
• Small tests create a big impact. Incremental optimisation compounds over time.
• First-party data is a growth engine. Intent-based engagement is increasingly important in a cookieless future.

Conclusion

Traveldeal’s collaboration with Yellowgrape, powered by Spotler CDP and Brainvine AI, demonstrates how experimentation and AI-supported personalisation can help improve the booking journey.

By making profiling more intuitive, translating visitor intent into personalised inspiration, and consistently activating insights across channels, Traveldeal moved towards a more relevant, data-driven customer experience.

For experimentation-driven marketers, the key takeaway is that personalisation at scale is not only about data or algorithms. It requires a combination of human insight, AI capabilities, and a culture of continuous testing to continually improve the customer journey.