Crystal Mountain Resort Summer Campaign
Client: Crystal Mountain Resort
The Scope
Crystal Mountain is a four-season resort located in northern Michigan. They are well-known for the vast amount of outdoor activities available at the resort, especially in the winter when they become a highly populated ski destination.
The goal of this program was to fill soft periods within the resort’s summer inventory. They already had a “Hot Lodging Dates” program developed with a dedicated landing page for customers to learn more about the resort, along with the ability to make a reservation. The program was developed to drive room sales by targeting new potential guests along with reminding those who have stayed in the past two summer seasons about the special rates and availability.
The Strategy
The target audience was built around personas based on those who have visited the resort in the summer months over the last two seasons. We used an export from the resort’s reservation system to seed the campaign with a quality source data and identify the personas of past visitors. We then developed custom and lookalike audiences to target consumers on the first ad set. We also used Google Analytics data to sub target that audience based on geographic locations with the most engagement on summer related content during the past two season. The GEO targeting included the entire state of Michigan and the following DMAs:
- Chicago, IL
- Indianapolis, IN
- South Bend – Elkhart, IN
- Fort Wayne, IN
- Columbus, OH
- Toledo, OH
- Cincinnati, OH
- Cleveland, OH
- Nashville, TN
- Milwaukee, WI
- St. Louis, MO
10,073+
Pageviews
2:47
Average Time on Site
7,143
Direct Website Clicks
43
Direct Reservations
$9.20
Overall ROI for Every Dollar Spent
The Results
The campaign results included 7,143 direct clicks to the website and more than 10,073 pageviews with an average time on site of 2:47.
Additional goals achieved were overall reservations and revenue based on the ad campaign. We measured the results through Facebook’s attribution module, which allowed us to identify consumers who took direct action based on receiving and clicking the ad and another attribution model where we were able to measure the impact of those who either saw or clicked on the ad and then made a reservation within a 28-day period.
Based on the data, the ads generated 43 direct reservations based on link clicks with a total revenue of $46,018.94. There were also 94 purchases that took place within a 28-day attribution period, which idicates that these consumers made a reservation after seeing or clicking on an ad during that time period. This accounted for an additional $82,578.36 in resort revenue.
Throughout the campaign, each ad improved its click-through rate based on enhanced targeting, refined audience building and the the machine learning capabilities of the application. The initial flight registered a CTR of 1.76%, followed by 2.47% on the second flight and 3.00% on the final flight.
At the close of the campaign, we werewe were able to confirm an ROI number of $9.20 for direct reservations and an additional indirect ROI of $16.52 for every ad dollar spent.
“As a stand-alone, four season, family-owned resort it’s critical that we be strategic with each dollar in our marketing budget. TwoSix Digital’s campaign provided as phenomenal an ROI as any digital campaign we’ve executed this season – over $9 returned for every single dollar spent. The creative and analytical approach they took through each phase of this process maximized engagement and drove conversions in a highly competitive market. It had a tremendous impact on room revenue particularly as we looked to fill dates in the peak summer months.”
