Summary
• Proactive affiliate marketing strategy based around development and enforcement of new T&Cs, use ofbespoke offers, and improving coverage of hotel name and brand-hybrid terms using trusted affiliates
• 110% YoY overall increase in annual revenue
• 14% YoY decrease in CPC for hotel campaigns
• Improved ROI across all online channels

Results
Once confidence in the affiliate channel had been restored, there was the potential to devise bespoke campaigns for individual hotels to help boost sales. We tested three different types of campaigns running alongside each other in the first three months comprising:
• Increasing commission for one hotel
• Advertising exclusive customer offers for one hotel
• Combining an exclusive customer offer for one hotel with increased commission

Results from the first three months showed, surprisingly, that option ii delivered the best results and that increased commissions had no impact for these hotels. Bigmouthmedia therefore opted to promote the exclusive customer offer for a number of hotels throughout the year, the impact of which can be seen below.
On average, an exclusive customer offer to the affiliate channel saw:
• 200% increase in monthly bookings
• 219% increase in revenue

“Bigmouthmedia has been a key driving force in the improvement and progression of Macdonald Hotels´affiliate marketing channel and has managed to extend the benefits to the organic and paid search spaces too. The bigmouthmedia team has become an important extension of the Macdonald Hotels marketing department. We really appreciate their invaluable input and are delighted with the results.”

Ruaridh Macdonald
Sales and Marketing Director,
Macdonald Hotels & Resorts

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