ObjectivesIn June 2008 Macdonald Hotels enlisted bigmouthmedia to assist with their a�liate marketing activities. They had been running an a�liate program in-house for about 12 months with varying degrees of success and knew that there were some major issues that needed ironing out in order to:

Regain the con�dence of the individual hotels

Add incremental sales growth without cannibalising sales from other channels.

Our solution When reviewing Macdonald Hotels’ in-house a�liate campaign bigmouthmedia noticed that the terms and conditions that were in place for the a�liates were very loose. This meant that the majority of sales were coming from a�liates that were linking directly through to the Macdonald Hotels website using hotel name based paid search ads. Ultimately this indicated that Macdonald Hotels’ own PPC campaign was being cannibalised, leading to a higher than average CPA across all online channels.

In order to turn this situation around bigmouthmedia established a proactive account management strategy based on three key areas:

Development and enforcement of new T&Cs to gain the trust of each hotel

Implementation of hotel speci�c o�ers utilising the a�liate channel

Improving coverage of hotel name terms and brand-hybrid terms using trusted a�liates

The underlying focus behind each of these key areas was to drive incremental a�liate growth without having a detrimental impact on the ROI of other online channels.

Summary

Bigmouthmedia has been a key driving force in the improvement and progression of Macdonald Hotels’ a�liate marketing channel and has managed to extend the bene�ts 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

Revitalised A�liate Marketing Campaign sees Bookings Triple

Case Study: A�liates

Proactive a�liate marketing strategy based around development and enforcement of new T&Cs, use of bespoke o�ers, and improving coverage of hotel name and brand-hybrid terms using trusted a�liates

57% YoY overall increase in annual revenue

14% YoY decrease in CPC for hotel campaigns

Improved ROI across all online channels

High calibre luxury hotel company with over 40 hotels across the UK.

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ResultsNew T&Cs: By enforcing new terms and conditions that prevented a�liates from linking directly to www.macdonaldhotels.co.uk, bigmouthmedia were able to gain the trust of the individual hotels as they saw the overall cost of the online channels fall.

Bespoke Customer O�ers: Once con�dence in the a�liate channel had been restored, there was the potential to devise bespoke campaigns for individual hotels to help boost sales. We tested three di�erent types of campaigns running alongside each other in the �rst three months comprising:

Increasing commission for one hotel

Advertising exclusive customer o�ers for one hotel

Combining an exclusive customer o�er for one hotel with increased commission

Results from the �rst three months showed, surprisingly, that campaign 2 delivered the best results and that increased commissions had no impact for these hotels. Bigmouthmedia therefore opted to promote the exclusive customer o�er for a number of hotels throughout the year, the impact of which can be seen below.

On average, an exclusive customer o�er to the a�liate channel saw:

307% increase in monthly bookings

215% increase in revenue

The success of these campaigns led to bespoke o�ers being created for several hotels each month, consistently generating excellent results.

Improving the Coverage of Macdonald Hotels in the Search Space: In April 2009 bigmouthmedia approached two a�liates to build dedicated Macdonald Hotels sites. They were permitted to bid on individual hotel names (not brand-only terms) and direct tra�c via paid search through to their landing pages. The impact of these sites was to:

provide more coverage to the Macdonald Hotels sites in the sponsored listings

improve organic rankings for certain keywords

Bigmouthmedia ensured there was no negative impact on Macdonald Hotels’ own paid search campaign. To deliver as smooth a transition as possible, the PPC account manager struck up a dialogue with the a�liates in order to synchronise bid changes.

The result of this dialogue was that click costs for the hotel campaigns actually fell by 14% year on year, resulting in an improved ROI for the client.

Overall Growth: These strategies formed just part of the overall growth plan for Macdonald Hotels’ a�liate program. The roll out of the full a�liate strategy for Macdonald Hotels saw an overall increase in annual revenue of 57% compared to the previous 12 months.

Case Study: A�liates

Before DuringKey:

Average number of monthly bookings by Hotel Promotion

Hotel 1 Hotel 2 Hotel 3 Hotel 4 Hotel 5 Hotel 6 Hotel 7

P P C • S E O • A F F I L I A T E S • D I S P L A Y • O N L I N E P R • I N 1 0 C O U N T R I E S • 3 0 L A N G U A G E S

Want to know more? Speak to a bigmouth today, email hello@bigmouthmedia.com or call 0845 130 0022 for more information on our a�liate services. For company information, buyers’ guides and more case studies go to bigmouthmedia.com

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