Direct Bookings Are Expensive (Until Now) Do This...

Driving direct bookings from ads can be expensive.

This goes for both Meta and Google ads.

In the last 4 months, we acquired a booking for 20-100% of the total booking value DIRECTLY from ads. 

That's right. $600 in, $600 out.

Yet, every campaign for us ends up profitable. Before I tell you HOW, let's talk about why bookings are so expensive in the first place.

Unlike most industries, there are additional costs a guest takes on when they buy from us. Like:

• Time off work.

• Food / drink.

• Flights.

• Oil changes.

• Cool gas station sunglasses for the road trip.

Most rental operators give guests two options after visiting the website from an ad:

1. Book

2. Leave (and usually never come back)

This doesn't help anyone. Very few people are ready to book after seeing an ad. They need to add up the other costs.

I call this the consideration period.

Your job here is to guide guests towards a successful booking. There are two ways to do this:

1. Keep guests excited (social media)

2. Drive the sale (email)

The result? Profitable ad campaigns.

The recipe:

#1: Keep Guests Excited

Here's how:

I’m gonna say it. Don’t hate me. 

Post really good content on social media. Let me tell you why:

• The better the content, the more people like it. 

• The more people like it, the longer they’ll remember that content.

• The more times someone see’s your content (which they like), the more excited they get.

• The more excited someone gets, the sooner it will be before they-can't-help-it-anymore and make progress towards booking.

Just like dating.

• See the girl.

• Remember the girl.

• See the girl again. Get excited.

• Make a move.

• Say something stupid.

#2: Drive The Sale

The best way to do this is through email. 

Email is personal and extremely transactional. Plus, most people check email with a high intent to pay attention. Social media has a lot of half asleep doom scrollers. 

We automate this process using a system called, “The Welcome Email Sequence.”

It’s pretty easy:

1. When people click from your ad to website, offer something in exchange for an email address (i.e. $ discount). Allowing people to become a lead moves them towards a booking without a huge commitment. Win win.

2. Have that action trigger a 7-14 day automated email sequence that sells your stay.

3. This time is when the guests interest of booking will be the highest. Show pictures. Write good emails.

I’ll be honest, email is mostly responsible for making our ads campaigns profitable. But, we wouldn’t be able to drive as many excited, high quality eyeballs to the site without social media.

If you are advertising on Meta or Google and want to pay less for bookings, do this:

1. Post exciting content on social media to capture high quality attention.

2. Send that attention to your website and offer something for an email address.

3. Sell your stay to those leads with an automated email sequence.

👋 Note from me: The Welcome Email Sequence has easily 3X’d bookings from ads for us. So, I thought I’d turn it into a product. I’m building a waitlist for that HERE. Join it if you like paying less for bookings.

That's all for today. I'll see you in the next article.

P.S. Writing this from the desert (AZ). Mornings consist of half-decent hotel coffee, writing (this newsletter) and running up Camelback Mountain.

Before you go

I spend about 10 hours writing this newsletter each week. The rest of my time is spent running Lodge Social.

Our marketing team will help you get more guests to like, share and book.

Work with me and my team here.

Links you might like:

1. (from 0) 3 ways to grow your social following (The Lodge Social)

2. Lessons from years of campground marketing mistakes (LinkedIn)

3. (Easy) How to repurpose high performing Instagram content (Instagram)

4. The magic behind marketing flywheels (Isaac French)