Case Study

Perth Central Caravan Park

Living Online used a multi-channel approach to increase direct online booking revenue by 131% in less than 7 months, reducing the commission be paid to booking aggregators like Booking.com, Expedia, and Agoda.

  • 131 %

    Direct Online Revenue

    Direct online booking revenue has increased by 131% year on year.

  • 70 %

    Direct Booking Market Share

    Direct booking revenue increased to drive over 70% of all online revenue.

  • 100 %

    Direct Booking Nights

    Nights booked through the website has increased by 100% year on year.

perth central caravan park logo

The Client

Perth Central Caravan Park (PCCP) is an independently owned accommodation provider in Ascot offering exceptional customer service and a prime location. They provide a number of accommodation types including powered campsites, glamping tents, and cabins.

The Challenge

Like many accommodation and hotel businesses, Perth Central Caravan Park was feeling the squeeze from third-party booking websites and Online Travel Agents (OTAs) like Booking.com, Expedia, and Agoda. Booking aggregators are dominating the market for online accommodation reservations and for PCCP to stay competitive they believed they needed to be present on the platforms with the largest audience e.g. Booking.com and Expedia.

Hotel booking aggregators were successful in delivering more reservations but the fees set by the platforms were eating into Perth Central Caravan Park’s profit margins. Some of the hotel aggregators also required specials and discounts from PCCP to keep their listing from dropping to the bottom of platform search results.

Perth Central Caravan Park had its own online presence with a website and social media profiles, but they weren’t generating enough reservations to be able to reduce PCCP’s reliance on third-party booking aggregators.

Learn how we were able to reverse the industry trend and reduce Perth Central Caravan Park’s reliance on third-party sites to generate revenue with a unique approach to hotel marketing.

The Objectives

  • Increase online bookings through Perth Central Caravan Park’s website to reduce their reliance on high-fee booking aggregators.
  • Increase revenue generated from Perth Central Caravan Park’s website so marketing activities pay for themselves.
  • Improve return on ad spend (ROAS) from digital marketing activities.
  • Develop a multi-channel and holistic digital hotel marketing campaign.

The Solution

To reduce Perth Central Caravan Park’s reliance on Online Travel Agents and third-party booking aggregators, we created a digital marketing strategy to increase direct bookings through PCCP’s website. We conducted website and digital marketing audits of all existing platforms to identify opportunities to drive traffic to the website and increase the conversion rate. Conversion rate optimisation was executed on the PCCP website and several digital marketing services (Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, and Facebook) were used to generate engaged traffic.

Website Design

We conducted an extensive User Experience (UX) Audit to review the user engagement on the website through the use of session recording software, website heat maps, and Google Analytics data analysis.

Based on the results of the UX Audit, we created a detailed list of recommendations to be addressed by the client’s web designer and the Living Online team. Recommendations include responsive website design, styling, page speed, and site functionality.

We designed a wireframe of the website as a visualisation of the UX Audit recommendations. This was given to the client’s web designer to implement the design changes.

Working with the client’s web designer the web design recommendations were implemented to improve the overall site experience for users.

Perth Central website

Conversion Rate Optimisation

To address the low conversion rate of traffic on the Perth Central Caravan Park website, we included a list of conversion rate optimisation (CRO) strategies in the UX Audit.

Included in the CRO strategies were changes to the positioning of the call-to-actions (CTAs), an increase in CTAs, conversion points and relevant content, and optimisation to mobile screens.

The website was migrated to HTTPS to reduce the reduce barriers for users ready to make a purchase. This also had a positive SEO result.

The implementation of the conversion rate optimisation strategies led to a significant increase in reservations, revenue, and channel performance for website bookings.

Reservation System Integration

Integral to the success of the campaign was our ability to integrate website data analytics with the hotel reservation management system, in this case, RMS.

We were required to implement cross-domain tracking to allow us to record conversions and channel attribution for bookings made through the reservation management system’s website.

We enabled Google Analytics Enhanced Ecommerce tracking in the reservation management system to give us granular details on the number of transactions, revenue, average transaction value, marketing channel performance, conversion rate, return on investment (ROI), and return on ad spend (ROAS).

Working from within the reservation management system we were able to add relevant and persuasive content to the booking website to improve the user experience and reduce the rate of users exiting the sales funnel.

Search Engine Marketing

New campaigns were created in Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising to target the search queries near the bottom of the funnel that would lead to online bookings. The campaigns were structure to allow for alignment between search term, advert, and landing page, leading to a higher conversion rate.

We used analytical data on ad group performance and website engagement to optimise the search engine marketing budget to target the highest converting locations, keywords, and devices.

Setting up goal tracking in Google Analytics, Google Ads, and Microsoft Advertising allowed us to track each clicks performance and measure it against the business’ goals, specifically reservations and transactions. From this data, we are able to extrapolate the ROI and ROAS and make strategic changes to improve both metrics.

We worked to increase keyword quality scores to improve ad positions by improving the landing page experience. We achieved top position on highly competitive keywords to outrank competitors, Online Travel Agents (OTAs), and booking aggregators like Booking.com and Expedia.

Organic Social Media

We conducted a Social Media Audit of Perth Central Caravan Park’s social media account to review their current branding, messaging and engagement.

As a result of the Social Media Audit, we identified and presented a detailed list of recommendation that would directly impact direct online bookings.

To aid in the production of organic social media content by Perth Central Caravan Park, Living Online created a social media post and engagement guide, as well as a calendar of organic social media posts.

Due to this organic social media strategy, Perth Central Caravan Park received a 193% increase in organic social media traffic and its first booking generated from an organic social media post.

Perth Central - social media marketing

Content Marketing

A Content Marketing Strategy was developed to address gaps in the website’s copy. Extensive keyword research was conducted to identify content themes with high search traffic and potential to attract users that were in-market to make a reservation.

As a part of the SEO strategy, the new content was planned as silo themes that consisted of landing pages, sub-topic pages, and blogs.

The improvement of the website’s content allowed paid marketing to direct traffic to more relevant landing pages, leading to improved user experience, reduced bounce rate, and higher ROAS.

Could we do the same for you?

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Perth Central Caravan Park

Ornella Sialstis, Owner

Perth Central Caravan Park

Within a few months of working with Living Online, we saw a dramatic increase in direct bookings. Our direct online bookings revenue has gone up 131% compared to the same time last year and now accounts for over 70% of our total online revenue. We reduced our reliance on OTAs and our total online revenue is up 39%.

Thank you to all the team at Living Online. I would highly recommend them for your business.

The Result

By taking this strategic approach, Perth Central Caravan Park was able to take back market share and reduce their reliance on third-party sites to generate revenue, keeping more money in their pocket and increasing their revenue.

  • 131%

    Direct Online Revenue

    Direct online booking revenue has increased by 131% year on year.

  • 70%

    Direct Booking Market Share

    Direct booking revenue increased to drive over 70% of all online revenue.

  • 100%

    Direct Booking Nights

    Nights booked through the website has increased by 100% year on year.

  • 193%

    Social Media Traffic

    An organic social media strategic boosted traffic and bookings.

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