SA-Rail specialise in both local and international travel and is a proud division of the Luxus Travel & Tours Group. As an authorized reservation agent for The Blue Train, Rovos Rail, Shongololo Express and Premier Classes, they were looking to increase bookings specifically for The Blue Train and Rovos Rail luxury train tours from the international market – as locally they are quite established.
We suggested to launch a targeted paid media campaign using Google Ads as the main platform. We created various international campaigns that focus on key markets such as Australia, UK, USA, Germany and UK targeting audiences and keywords that relate to luxury travel and train tours. We also launched various display, video and remarketing campaigns focusing on special offers and promotions. The aim was to re-engage past website visitors and address our top of funnel for brand awareness and bigger reach.
Campaigns that were segmented geographically started to deliver positive results in terms of our CPA and engagement metrics, and we could easily assess which locations were bringing in more traffic and conversions. This enabled us to better optimise campaigns and shift budgets to better performing campaigns.
We also maintained a local campaign that offered great discounts which is still generating the most bookings. The main aim was to increase bookings for the Blue Train and Rovos Rail. From mid January 2019 to the end of May, we’ve managed to steadily achieve a CTR of 8.53% and a conversion rate of 33.33%. Some campaigns have a CTR of close to 20%.
