In the ever growing world of golf, standing out and attracting new players to your course is a constant challenge.
This case study explores how AC Generates worked with a semi-private golf course to maximize revenue by increasing revenue attributed to online bookings by offering a pre-paid drinks package to players by leveraging digital advertising strategies on Facebook & Instagram.
The goal:
To increase the CLV of each customer. The method used here was to increase revenue attributed to each player (booking) by offering add-ons to the package in the form of drinks packages that are pre-paid.
Increase customer retention to ensure customers return for additional rounds in future.
The first step:
Before diving into the digital advertising aspects, the first step always taken is to analyze the current web traffic, online conversion rates, site bounce rates, where the traffic is currently coming from, gaps that may be in the sales funnel (from first contact to making a booking), and make appropriate suggestions to ensure the digital advertising efforts are maximized.
Targeting Strategies used:
A variety of targeting strategies were used to ensure we tested every option during the initial testing phase including.
Matched audiences - uploading existing segmented customer lists to the Meta platform to allow the algorithm to find all existing customers on Facebook & Instagram for retargeting purposes.
We broke this out into customers who have played at the course once, as well customers who have played multiple times (to create a value based audience).
Lookalike audiences - a custom audience built based on the existing customer list; here we use the meta algorithm to build an audience on Facebook & Instagram of those with similar demographics and personas to those most likely to convert.
A series of interest based audiences.
Geo-fencing within a specific distance of the golf course based on the above.
A series of retargeting audiences, segmented out specifically:
Those who have already booked an upcoming tee-time.
Those who have entered the booking process but not yet booked.
Those who have cancelled a future tee time.
Those who have engaged on social media.
Those who have visited the website.
& more...
Campaign Strategies & optimizations used:
Traffic campaigns - during the testing phase we drove significant traffic to the site to see what actions people would take, and build up as much data on the ad account as possible in a short period of time.
CRM Integration with Meta pixel - the CRM was integrated with the ad account, and pixel installed on the CRM, to ensure everything was tracked correctly and bookings made were attributed correctly to the ad account.
Conversion campaigns - a custom conversion event was created and used as the event to be optimized for. This campaign is run at the TOP of funnel, as well as in the retargeting phase. There is a reason we still run this conversion campaign at the top of funnel; work with us to find out why!
Retargeting campaigns - retargeting existing players with upcoming tee times, website visitors, those who engaged with the social media accounts, and more, were all retargeted also using a conversion optimized campaigns.
Latest campaign results:
The results speak for themselves when determining the success of a campaign. Some agencies will push you to focus on traffic, or other data points that ultimately do not drive conversions. We focus on conversions.
Below these campaign highlights you will find a screenshot directly from the clients ad account.
The month of August.
5,977 individuals reached.
$23.12 average CPM across the two campaigns.
Total spend: $1,542.07
Revenue Generated: $23,638.86
Return On Ad Spend: 15.33
By partnering with Alex, this golf course leveraged hyper-targeted ads, a unique conversion optimization, and a unique growth strategy to reach existing and new customers boosting revenue and in turn selling more high-margin alcohol at the course.
By harnessing the power of paid advertising, this collaboration not only enhanced the courses visibility but also showcased the effectiveness of well-executed digital advertising to drive business growth.