Case Study – Travel
Client Background
Client is a successful budget hotel chain in US who entered China in late ’04.
Client holds 50+ hotels in 30+ cities of China by JUL’07.
Client built a chinese site for extending their brand in local market and attract potential customers to book hotels online, and started the SEM campaign on DEC’06.
Objectives
Primary objective is to quickly gain the market share in economy / hotel segment
Secondary objective to leverage offline and integrate offline brand efforts online
Additional request to expand direct Internet channel to reduce reliance on 3rd parties (C-Trip, Elong and cba-hotel.com).
Marketing Challenges
New Market Entrant
Client is new to China’s online market
lacks online experience and local knowledge.
Strong competitors with more well known brands are already aggressively advertising online.
The media cost, specially for paid-search campaign was increasing by more competitors joining to bidding.
| Week |
Week1 |
Week2 |
Week3 |
Week4 |
| Date |
1/1 - 1/7 |
1/8 - 1/14 |
1/15 - 1/21 |
1/22 - 1/31 |
| Budget |
16,321.12 |
12,472.29 |
11,664.83 |
14191.94 |
| Clicks |
12,700 |
14,341 |
10,163 |
10,435 |
| Average CPC
|
1.29 |
0.87 |
1.15 |
1.24 |
| Leads / Week
|
57 |
66 |
64 |
98 |
| CPL |
￥286.34 |
￥188.97 |
￥182.26 |
￥144.82 |
Results Table
| Month |
Month 1 |
Month 8 |
+ / - |
| Budget |
54,650 |
43,469 |
-20% |
| Orders |
285 |
474 |
66% |
| CPL |
￥191.76 |
￥91.71 |
-52% |
Marketing Results
Prior to search, best cost per booking was in-flight magazine at 400+ RMB
From Week 1 to Week 4, Darwin lowered search cost per booking from 280+ to 140+
improved online bookings for new market entrant by +38% in 2 months
By the end of the 8th Month, Darwin lowered search cost per booking to 90+, reducing 50%.
Darwin increased keywords managed by 450%, yet orders per month grew by 66% while maintaining cost control with a fixed monthly budget.
Darwin also provided key insights into buying behavior by time of day and monthly vs. weekly trends
