After the pandemic, Sykes faced intense competition in the travel market, exacerbated by changes in consumer behaviour. To adapt efficiently with a stretched workforce, they increased their use of broad match keywords, however this strategy posed challenges with irrelevant terms and customer journey optimization.
Partnering with Squared.io helped them manage this process through automation. The pandemic also boosted interest in UK holidays with an eco-friendly focus, which was quickly addressed with Squared.io's ChatGPT integration. This collaboration ensured consistency in best practices and efficient management across multiple accounts.
Following the pandemic, Sykes faced the challenge of a rapidly evolving travel market. The domestic travel sector made a comeback, and by 2023, the international travel market had experienced a significant resurgence. This revival brought with it a daunting prospect - fierce competition. Furthermore, Sykes recognized that their customer base was undergoing a transformation. Consumers were becoming increasingly discerning, particularly around green issues, and were engaging with numerous touchpoints in paid search before making their holiday choices. This shifting consumer behavior presented an impending obstacle: a decline in conversion rates. As a result, to efficiently generate revenue, Sykes needed to implement strategies to lower their Cost-Per-Click (CPC) metrics. This reduction in CPC would enable them to purchase more clicks, ultimately navigating their way through the challenges faced.
The pandemic revitalized interest in UK-based holidays, driven by growing eco-consciousness among travelers. To highlight their eco-friendly offerings, Sykes leveraged Squared.io's integration with ChatGPT. New ideas for assets that accurately reflected their eco-conscious concerns were generated in minutes and refreshed within the Squared.io platform every day. This allowed them to refine their messaging and deliver content that not only resonated with their customers but also conveyed their shared dedication to a greener world. Sykes also wanted to implement a strategy to expand their reach and improve efficiency to account for the growth in expected searches from consumers in the market. To do this, they increased the use of broad match keywords. However, this strategy posed challenges related to irrelevant terms and non-optimal customer journeys. The Add Queries tool from Squared.io helped them manage this process at scale, allowing the team to add negative keywords with a single click. Squared.io’s automation features also helped ensure best practice settings were applied universally, by ensuring query routing was performed accurately, and that the correct geo targeting and network settings were applied to the correct campaigns.
By aligning with customer values on sustainability, ad strength improved. As of August 2023, Good or Excellent ads made up 87% of Sykes Cottages total active ads - a drastic improvement from 59% at the start of May. This efficiency, along with other features from Squared.io and the hard work of the Sykes team, led to a drop in CPC’s of 11% and a rise in clicks of 49%. These improvements helped ensure exceptional increases in performance metrics, with revenue increasing 67% and ROAS improving 27%.
“The support from the team at Squared has been phenomenal. We’ve made great strides forward in our activity this year and we wouldn’t be at the stage we’re at now without leveraging the Squared.io platform. The onboarding process was a dream and the training provided to team members was exceptional.”
Paul Oates
Head of Performance Marketing
Sykes Cottages