Built-in efficiencies to boost a bottom line

The challenge

More Reservations at a Lower Net Cost-Per-Sale

When Wyndham Vacation Rentals approached us, they had a two-pronged directive: oversee a website overhaul, and reduce any revenue loss associated with the relaunching of their site. That meant we needed to provide technical SEO support from pre-launch planning to post-launch to mitigate loss in rankings, as well as maintain a strong presence SERPs with paid search ads. After the website migration was complete, the team continued ongoing SEO and paid search support to protect GLR (gross lodging revenue) as customers began getting acquainted with the new website and booking experience. By moving in lockstep with Google’s evolving landscape while matching users’ search intent in totality, we were able to help lower cost per sale and increase visibility for WVR across search.

The solution

Analysis and Optimization

By performing detailed analysis of each campaign and corresponding keywords, we were able to identify ways to eliminate budget waste. Keeping in mind the seasonality of the business and the time that SEO tactics take to fully kick in, we knew we needed to be proactive with the timing of our optimizations and establishing a stable cost per lead in paid search. 

We focused on both national and local campaigns and created channel-based and keyword-based efficiencies where possible. WVR has 17 markets, all of which require custom research and preparation as linguistic and search habits vary by region. Keyword alignment across all of the local markets provided an opportunity to be more tactical with budget. 

As far as seasonality is concerned, summer is prime booking season for the east coast locations. Because the majority of the active units were available on the east coast, preparation during the spring was imperative to success. During off seasons, the paid efforts would then pivot back to spending in a wider region net for the brand. Using our proprietary PAR tool (Position Analysis Report) to track keywords and their positions based on seasonality and competition, we were able to better understand the behavior of users and larger patterns.

To account for the increased influx of searches during busy seasons, our paid search tactics pick things back up. In the off-seasons, By only spending ad dollars where we absolutely had to, we could reduce costs while directing users to the most appropriate pages, which in this case were the highest revenue-driving sites that were already ranking very well.