How La Quinta Hotels captured travelers and increased conversions with Digital Marketing - Case stud
Price is often the determining factor when it comes to travel decisions. Questions is how travel companies can capture new customers, as well as retain old clients to come back at their website and purchase again.
This how La Quinta did it.
Results
131% higher click-through rate (CTR)
27% higher conversion rate (CVR)
83% increase in conversion volume compared to typical seasonality
The Approach To identify which customers were most likely to book reservations, La Quinta implemented a solution that combined audience targeting, data-driven attribution, and Smart Bidding.
Data incorporation into Adwords First, the company put data from La Quinta Returns, its customer loyalty program, to good use by incorporating it into Google AdWords with Customer Match. This enabled La Quinta to bid higher for its most valuable customers when they searched for a hotel on Google.com.
Remarketing
Next, it used remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) to bid differently for customers who had previously visited the brand's website. The goal: to stay in touch with those prospective customers as they move from research to booking mode.
This way they were able to target a specific customer based who are looking to book travel trips and were able to retarget people who visited their website for check travel deals.
Previously, if a traveler searched for "hotels in Dallas" or "cheap hotels" but didn't immediately book a room after clicking on a served ad, La Quinta might have assumed that its keyword targeting was off. But in the context of a traveler's subsequent searches, "hotels in Dallas" or "cheap hotels" might have just been the first of many typed phrases that ultimately led to a conversion. By applying data-driven attribution with Smart Bidding, La Quinta could gain valuable insight into how other search terms might influence an eventual booking.
While many companies only bid on their brand terms in search—prioritizing a paid presence when someone searches for their name as opposed to generic terms such as "San Francisco hotel"—La Quinta is now armed with a more comprehensive keyword strategy. By valuing generic terms differently and going beyond the last-click conversion, La Quinta can better understand how travelers are researching throughout their journey and use that information to better tailor its messaging.
The Result Harnessing audience signals has allowed La Quinta to connect early with travelers, drive additional consideration throughout the research process, and ultimately generate more direct bookings at a higher return on investment.
