THE TASK:
German Rail wanted to promote their super saver tickets for fast, inexpensive travel within Germany.
THE PROBLEM:
72% of Germans prefer to spend their holidays abroad – because they find Germany boring.
How do we get them to consider traveling within Germany using German Rail?
THE SOLUTION:
Instead of simply promoting a ticket-offer, we had to go one step further: first, we needed to promote Germany.
Describe the strategy
Our target audience for this offer was basically everyone.
So, how do we make our campaign stand out in today’s social media ad jungle?
Instead of a generic one-fits-all messaging strategy we came up with an approach tailored to each individual person: the first real time social media price comparison.
We developed a microtargeted campaign, changing every Facebook video-ad to address each person’s current location and their travel interests in real time.
Describe the execution
A simple yet convincing side-by-side comparison: One side shows a beautiful international travel destination; the other, a look-alike destination in Germany.
Our message: why pay for an expensive flight, when one can experience the same for 19 Euros?
Data and technology made the campaign even more relevant on Facebook:
Through Facebook-data, we identified target groups interested in specific destinations.
An algorithm found look-alike pictures on Getty Images.
Geotargeting pinpoints the closest airport to each person and the travel destination, while a search engine determines the cheapest flight price – in real-time.
Combining this data, targeted video-ads made travel enthusiasts an unbeatable offer: A train ride for just 19 Euros instead of an expensive flight.
Completely automated. In infinite variations.
Turning a unique visual idea into a relevant, real-time social media price comparison.
List the results
The campaign successfully brought target-group know-how, creativity and real-time data together to create a relevant, first of its kind, real-time social media price comparison.The data-driven approach made it possible to tailor the offer to each individual person and thus made it more successful:
- CTR 850% higher than usual German Rail campaigns
- Reducing the cost per click by 59,3%
- Ad Impressions: 8.6 Mio
- The client set quite ambitious benchmarks - already higher than results from former campaigns.
Yet, the campaign managed to outperform each one:
- CTR: 110% higher than benchmark
- CPC: 24% lower than benchmark
- The total cost per click, including production and agency fee, was also reduced by 60%