How a Resort Casino Increased Room Bookings with Native & CTV Advertising

Developing a Full-Funnel Marketing Strategy to Reach Travelers

Since the inception of the internet, travelers have performed some form of research before booking a work trip or leisure vacation. After selecting a destination, most travelers will also book online. According to Statista, more than 75% of the total revenue in the travel and tourism market will come from online sales by 2028. With this knowledge, advertisers are looking for precise advertising solutions to help reach travel intenders at every stage in the buyer journey in hopes of leading to a conversion.

For nearly three years, a large resort casino has relied on Simpli.fi’s Native solutions to execute various marketing campaigns. At the end of 2022, the advertiser and their agency partner, the Mighty Media Shop, wanted to continue expanding their digital footprint and surpass previous campaign results using programmatic advertising.

The resort casino and the Mighty Media Shop chose to continue utilizing Contextual Targeting while also incorporating Simpli.fi’s proprietary household-level targeting to precisely reach travelers likely to convert. The advertiser implemented a creative strategy that included both Native and CTV ads to reach users while they searched online or streamed their favorite content. Overall, the advertiser wanted to drive low Cost Per Action (CPA) and Cost Per Site Visits (CPSV) as well as strong Video Completion Rates (VCR), which would ultimately drive tourists to the resort.

Increasing Room Bookings with Native

After proven success utilizing Native Contextual Targeting and Context Behavioral Targeting, the advertiser decided to continue leveraging these solutions to help visually showcase the resort’s promotions and amenities while delivering ads alongside relevant content without disrupting the user experience.

“Simpli.fi has been a valued partner since our inception. Their collaboration with
our advertisers over the past three years has demonstrated the exceptional performance of their platform. Our partnership has consistently achieved remarkable success, surpassing our advertisers’ goals. We are thrilled about our ongoing collaboration and look forward to continued growth together.”
– Alana White, Founder, The Mighty Media Shop

For Context Behavioral, the advertiser leveraged both first-party and third-party audiences to serve ads to travel intenders while they browsed relevant web pages. The first-party audiences included Art and Entertainment, Travel, and Food and Drink Enthusiasts. In addition to these audiences, the Simpli.fi team tapped into segments from leading providers to complement the first-party targeting. Both the resort casino and the Mighty Media Shop wanted to ensure they were reaching users throughout the entire buyer journey. To reach users at multiple touchpoints, the advertiser served Native display ads across all device types including mobile, tablet, and desktop.

In order to further engage travel shoppers during the awareness and consideration stages, the advertiser leveraged Simpli.fi’s Contextual Targeting solution to reach users consuming content related to events and attractions, family and relationships, food and drink, shopping, and travel.

Ultimately, the resort casino and the Mighty Media Shop teams designed the campaign to guide users through the funnel and encourage room bookings, which were considered conversions. To reach shoppers during the decision stage, the advertiser targeted users who were geographically close to the resort in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Orange County. The advertiser also implemented Site Retargeting to serve relevant Native display ads to users who had already expressed interest in the resort casino visiting their website but had not booked a room.

Targeting Travelers with Location-Based Technology

In order to expand reach in the awareness stage, the advertiser and the Mighty Media Shop leveraged Simpli.fi’s Addressable Geo- Fencing solution to target the resort’s first-party CRM data and build a custom household-level audience that aligned with their target audience. By choosing from over 3,000 demographic variables, the advertiser selected the following criteria to identify almost 11,500 households across 75 ZIP codes:

• Household income of $100K+
• Interest in Casinos or Gambling
• Ages 35-54
• Within specific ZIP codes in California

Simpli.fi’s Addressable Geo-Fencing solution used GPS data paired with plat lines to match each address from the CRM list and curated list to the exact physical location, shape, and size of the property. The system then automatically built target zones around each property to target all devices seen within the individual households. The advertiser utilized a blend of :15-second and :30 second CTV ads served on large screen devices within the household to showcase the resort and casino’s many amenities.

The advertiser also supplied a list of 24 competitor casinos and leveraged Simpli.fi’s Geo-Fencing technology to target users visiting those locations. The Simpli.fi team then drew target zones around the addresses provided in order to serve ads to individuals who visited these sites for up to 30 days afterward.

Attributing Online and Offline Conversions

In order to measure performance and follow users through to the conversion stage, the Simpli.fi team set up the campaign to track both online and offline actions:

1. Online clicks to “Book a Room”
2. In-person visits to the resort

By tracking the number of users who clicked “Book a Room,” the advertiser could determine approximately how many users converted after being served an ad. The team also drew Conversion Zones around the resort to measure the number of users that had been served a CTV ad and later visited the resort in person.

Driving Campaign Efficiencies

Throughout the campaign, the Simpli.fi team collaborated with the advertiser and the Mighty Media Shop to determine the best solutions to drive conversions. Due to the consultative relationship of the Simpli.fi team, the advertiser relied on strategy, creative, and optimization recommendations to drive campaign efficiencies. The Mighty Media Shop developed two creative strategies focused on special promotions and general resort and casino amenities. Throughout the campaign, the Simpli.fi team also monitored results and made mid-flight optimizations to improve overall performance.

Simpli.fi’s Native Contextual also utilized Dynamic Pricing to drive over 9 million additional impressions and more than 18,000 clicks. With the help of Dynamic Pricing, the efficiency savings translated to approximately $64,418.47 in the first quarter of the year for the advertiser.

In addition, the Simpli.fi team also made optimizations to both site retargeting and to specific audiences in order to maximize overall campaign efficiencies.

Simpli.fi Increases Overall Room Bookings

The three-month campaign generated more than 40,000 clicks and drove 2,940 total actions considered to be room bookings and in-person visits. Simpli.fi’s Native Contextual drove a low $27.29 CPA, achieving the advertiser’s goal of beating past campaign efficiencies. The Native campaign also drove a total of 10,374 Site Visits. Finally, the CTV video campaign resulted in a high VCR of 99%. Both the advertiser and the Mighty Media Shop plan to continue working with Simpli.fi to most effectively reach travel intenders and drive room bookings.