Great Rail Journeys - Shifting budget from print to PPC & Paid Social

Client: Great Rail Journeys

Great Rail Journey's target an over 55 audience and for years had been reliant on offline channels such as print and TV to drive acquisition. They invited IMA to pitch for the the business in 2023 as they questioned whether the same approach continued to be effective for them. Our insight highlighted that despite advancing years this audience was increasing in digital media usage so with that combine with the targeting and tailoring of message that could be applied to paid social and PPC that we recommend shifting budget away from tried and tested print into paid social and PPC.

A historical challenge for GRJ was how they balanced marketing efforts with tour capacity. Naturally the move to online opened doors to hyper-targeted messaging. We could now tailor campaigns based on users specific interests, from dream destinations to regional preferences. Within paid social we were then able to match audiences to destinations based on their preferences and tailor creative accordingly. For PPC we built a bespoke manipulation process which pulls each tour’s sale price, if on-offer, and attribute them to a specific region of the world. From here we were able to find the best possible offer per region and connect to the relevant Search campaigns, ensuring we were always showcasing the best possible financial incentive per search term, dynamically. This approach led to increasing leads x6 and reducing CPA's by over 80%, leading to IMA being awarded GRJ's sister account in the US.