Success case Traveldeal

In the travel industry, relevance and timing are crucial factors for success. This makes a travel platform ideal for implementing a Customer Data Platform, as experienced by travel specialist Traveldeal. With the personalization tools from Spotler Activate and strategic input from e-commerce agency Yellowgrape, Traveldeal rapidly elevated its platform to an impressive level. Discover the details of this journey here.

About Traveldeal

As part of Bookit, Traveldeal, a travel platform, is one of the largest providers of travel deals and outings in the Benelux. The website offers distant journeys, luxury accommodations, day trips, and everything in between. Mike de Block, CEO at Bookit, explains, ‘Bookit consists of 7 different travel labels that allow us to fulfill every travel need. Our ambition is for everyone, regardless of their travel needs, to book a journey within that group of labels because we can offer them the best match.’

In recent years, Traveldeal has experienced significant growth, not only in the number of website visitors but also in its offerings. This growth made targeted targeting increasingly challenging, while showing relevant offers at the right moment is crucial. Booking a trip is not something done in half an hour; it often involves hours of researching, comparing, and discussing with travel companions. The better a provider assists customers with relevant information and a suitable offer, the greater the chance of conversion.

To continue engaging and binding the expanding audience and segmenting and personalizing the platform, the travel specialist needed to take segmentation and personalization to the next level. Despite already working with a CDP, Traveldeal struggled to perfectly match content to travelers’ preferences and offer it at the right time.

Get off to a flying start with Spotler Activate

In collaboration with Yellowgrape, Traveldeal decided to find a new CDP. After an orientation process and a trial, Spotler Activate quickly stood out. Both the flexibility of the platform and the ability to synchronize data from the warehouse at the profile level were decisive.

After selecting the CDP, the collaboration began. Yellowgrape examined Traveldeal’s marketing landscape, conducted analyses on the database, and mapped out the customer journey. This laid a strong foundation for the new omnichannel strategy, with a focus on increasing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).

Revamping the customer journey

The analyses revealed interesting insights. Traveldeal excelled in acquisition but had much to gain in retention. ‘Many people lingered, especially between the first and second booking,’ Mike explains.

From these findings, new customer journeys were defined to encourage cross- and upselling, promote retention, and increase the average order value. All necessary to ultimately maximize CLV.

A masterful master template

Despite email always being a crucial channel for Traveldeal, opportunities to stimulate retention had long been untapped. Mike states, ‘Email is our biggest revenue driver. We wanted to optimize this channel so we could distribute our spend better and increase profits. And from that personalization perspective, we believe we can encourage that.’

To get the most out of the email channel, the email template needed a significant upgrade. Traveldeal and Yellowgrape developed a master template that surpasses your wildest interactive personalization dreams. Think dynamic blocks, a live countdown, a swipe carousel, and items that automatically adjust in height and width for the optimal visual experience.

The next step involved segmenting the database into useful target groups, with the Spotler Activate audience builder playing a leading role. Based on business rules (such as order history and travel companions) and events (such as the last viewed item), it created micro-segments for real-time use in the ESP. Mike says, ‘The advanced audience builder has virtually no limits in creating segments. And I’m very happy about that.’ The flexibility allows Mike and his team to tailor the newsletter content perfectly to different target groups. This ensures each traveler receives the most suitable offer, based on preferences, recent browsing behavior, and travel companionship.

By continuously monitoring and making optimizations in the first weeks after implementation, significant strides were quickly made. And it paid off: within a few weeks, the average CTR within email significantly improved.

Most importantly, Traveldeal’s marketers now use one template for all newsletters and personalized campaigns, and they are completely independent of IT.

Boundary-pushing email campaigns

From the strategic plan and database analysis emerged a laundry list of new use cases with groundbreaking email campaigns. For this case, we’ve selected our two favorites where data, technology, and creativity converge:

The arrival flow

An email campaign centered around anticipation. The arrival campaign takes customers who have booked a holiday on a journey of preparation, spread across multiple emails. Shortly after booking, customers receive a packing list, a playlist for the journey, and a preview of the accommodation. Just before departure or during the holiday, they receive recommendations for nearby accommodations to encourage extending their trip. This even includes the local weather forecast (if promising) and tips for on-site activities, tailored to the type of traveler and travel companionship. Let the holiday fun begin!

Your next best trip

In this campaign, customers are proactively approached with recommendations for their next holiday or day out. Strong computational work precedes determining the content and sending time. Raw data within the Google Cloud environment is taken to a machine learning platform, which calculates the best deals for the customer and when they should be sent. This data returns to the Google Cloud environment, which then shoots the relevant values to the ESP and Spotler Activate. This allows Traveldeal to adjust the product feed both in the email and on the website.

Prepared for the future

Thanks to Spotler Activate, Traveldeal has not only made significant strides in segmentation and personalization but has also future-proofed its data collection method.

With the phasing out of third-party cookies and increasing focus on digital privacy, developing a first-party strategy that prioritizes transparency and personalized experiences is wise. This not only invests in customer trust but also enables adaptation to all future changes in the marketing landscape. And that’s precisely what Traveldeal is doing with Spotler Activate.