2015 Bronze Best Use of Search

Jacob Bailey

Stansted Express

Fast tracking bookings to beat the slow coaches. A summer PPC campaign for Stansted Express.

The Team

Rob Manning - Managing Director and Partner Roj Whitelock - Creative Director and Partner

James Doncaster - Senior Planner Sam Henning - Account Manager Kate Neill - Marketing Manager

Ela Hawran Beaumont - Marketing Manager Steve Gumbrell - Marketing Director

Campaign Overview

This summer, Stansted Express (STEX) implemented a domestic and international PPC campaign strategy focusing on early sales cycle customer acquisition. Knowing that it was a highly competitive marketplace once passengers arrived at the airport, it was of paramount importance to influence booking behaviour before their departure date.

Strategy

Once passengers arrived at the airport, luggage in tow, STEX had lost the edge. Coach travel was a bit cheaper, but trains were faster and just that bit better. The company needed to drive sales earlier in the cycle by raising awareness of the comfort and convenience of STEX. And it needed to encourage people to book tickets in advance of travel.

Passenger data, preferred modes of transport across Europe and flight volumes from different countries were analysed alongside conversion data and a propensity to buy model. A top 10 list of target countries was created, with inbound PPC complementing geographicallytargeted outbound PPC that served targeted ads to postcodes within a fixed radius around Stansted Airport.

This allowed budget to be shared across campaigns based on likelihood to purchase in a given area at a certain time.

Creativity

The idea was planted that booking transfers in advance was the best option in-terms of both cost and convenience. It was all about giving a gentle nudge – buy in advance, and you gain a bit extra spending money.

Beyond analytics, STEX still needed to persuade potential customers with engaging and creative ad copy, which was translated into local dialects. A team of creative copywriters compiled a PPC ad copy matrix which, when translated, took into account not just local languages but cultural and linguistic keyword differences for each target country.

Geo-targeted campaigns focused budget on metropolitan areas within each country, in the same manner as the outbound UK campaign, ensuring a high level of granularity in targeting potential international and domestic customers, in line with airport passenger frequency research and existing customer profiling.

Results

The campaign smashed STEX’s objective of 5:1 ROMI, delivering nearly 40,000 sales at a rockbottom £2 cost per acquisition.

The STEX site received nearly 1.2 million visitors, a 33% uplift yearon- year, while the transactional conversion rate of these visitors increased by 7.31%.

The stand-out inbound ROMI within the international campaigns included France at a monumental 42:1, Germany at 16:1, Denmark at 14:1 and Poland at 6:1. These figures have helped shape the bidding and proportional budget allowance for the continuing campaign and have been adapted into the lucrative festive travel season.

The domestic and international PPC also helped increase the proportion of digital sales to 22% of direct sales across all channels, a rise from 8% just three years earlier.