Case Studies
Leading Travel Brand Grew Revenue 21% by Reaching an Untapped Audience with Paid Spend
Expanding top-of-funnel demand while capturing high-intent audiences created a sustainable method for performance growth, generating 6x in incremental revenue for every additional dollar invested.
Overview
What do you do when your paid search strategy stops working and becomes too expensive? A top vacation rental management platform faced a major challenge when their ad performance plateaued and they found themselves priced out of competitive auctions.
The travel brand didn’t need better lower funnel execution; they needed a system to generate demand upstream. We devised a new ad approach to build brand awareness. By expanding ad targeting to include top of funnel, we created a stronger brand narrative showcasing the company’s unique value in a highly competitive space and reached a previously untapped audience.
The Challenge
A vacation rental management platform serving North America faced stiff competition. The team relied on a search strategy focused on the bottom of the funnel, investing in high-intent keywords. But growth was expensive, and the competitive ad auctions made it difficult to scale ROAS without going over-budget. Once impression shares plateaued, ROI started to slip.
Your strategy should absolutely include capturing high-intent buyers. But while the travel brand’s paid efforts captured demand, there was no audience growth at the top of the funnel to increase that bottom-of-funnel pool of customers.
With ambitious goals to scale bookings and grow market share, the travel brand needed to build brand awareness earlier in the customer journey.
The Strategy
We shifted the travel brand’s media efforts from capturing existing demand to reaching an untapped audience with top-of-funnel ads focused on brand awareness. We leveraged new ad mediums, tested regional campaigns, and revisited growth metrics to ensure we were accurately measuring impact.
→ Audience research to guide media placement: Before buying awareness media, we researched where our target travelers were actually spending their time across platforms, content, and channels so every top-of-funnel dollar was placed with intent rather than spread broadly.
→ Intent-matched video creative: Rather than running generic video across channels, we built creative to match the moment. A ski-themed video ran as a direct placement during the Winter Olympics on Peacock and NBCU, then again in targeted feeder markets to capitalize on ski seasonality.
The Results
→ 21% YoY increase in revenue
→ 6x return on additional Direct and SEM investments
→ 29% YoY increase in SEM revenue
→ 8% YoY increase in Direct revenue
By building a more mature system that increased brand awareness and drove prospective customers into demand, the travel brand saw a sustained, measurable impact on both traffic and revenue.
As top-of-funnel investment built demand upstream, the brand's SEM campaigns began outperforming previous efforts where gross revenue from paid search grew 29% year-over-year, reversing the scalability constraints that had originally limited the program. Direct revenue grew alongside it, up 8% year-over-year, reflecting stronger unprompted brand demand as travelers entered the funnel earlier and with higher intent.
Combined, Direct and SEM revenue grew 21% year-over-year and saw $6 back for each additional dollar invested — a 6x return on their investment. The strong ROI proved that top-of-funnel investment didn't just build awareness, it converted into measurable bottom-line growth across both channels it was designed to support.
By leaning into an ad strategy that spanned the full traveler journey, the travel brand built stronger branding and secured audience growth that ultimately converted into business revenue.