ABSEM - Lastminute.com Case Study

1. ABSEM
Absolute Search Engine Marketing
CASE STUDY
LASTMINUTE.COM

2. CASE STUDY
LASTMINUTE.COM
ABSEM
ABOUT THE CUSTOMER THE CHALLENGE
Absorb with the help of ABSEM began working with The whole of the Flights category had previously been
lastminute.com on a consultation basis in March switched off by lastminute.com in September 2010
2010, to help turn around lastminute.com’s PPC had not been live since. Previously, it was highly
activity – which at the time was only Brand, Hotels unprofitable and, internally, all attempts to reverse
and Car Hire. We quickly identified that Brand and this trend had failed. The Flights category has the
Hotels were being managed poorly by lastminute. smallest margin of all lastminute.com categories – and
com’s previous agency. We pinpointed Brand as a therefore can be extremely challenging to drive profit
very quick win and were given the scope to implement off the back of this, and would therefore, only yield
changes to the Brand account. In a matter of weeks relatively small revenue for any external agency, so
we made the Brand campaign highly profitable driving maximum performance here is essential. In
and highly efficient – increasing daily bookings by early December 2010, lastminute.com gave Absorb
up to 20%. lastminute.com ended their relationship & ABSEM instructions to devise and manage a Flights
with their previous agency and Absorb & ABSEM category PPC trial – to go live in the first week of
took over, beginning with a complete overhaul of January and run for 6 weeks. After setting the Flights
lastminute.com’s most important category – Hotels. trial live within the agreed time frame, we have since
We restructured the whole Hotels account in the UK as seen the following results:
well as in France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Norway and
• The Flights trial was breaking even within a
Denmark. In the UK we regularly hit and exceeded
couple of weeks of implementation. This exceeded
their Hotels efficiency targets. During this period
lastminute.com’s expectations as the initial goal
lastminute.com also asked Absorb & ABSEM to
was to bring the category into profitability by the
manage the City Breaks category (previously switched
6th week.
off due to it being unprofitable) and we took over this
• The Flights trial was in profit half-way through trial.
account and instantly hit and exceeded their efficiency
target. Brand continued to perform very strongly and • Lastminute.com were so encouraged by the
that performance continues today. ABSEM assisted results that they requested we continue the PPC
with running 90% of all lastminute.com’s travel management for flights indefinitely.
category accounts consisting of • As Week-on-Week performance continued to
improve, lastminute.com asked us to double the
• Hotels size of the activity and add additional destinations.
• Holidays • After the new wave of destinations were added,
• City Breaks performance remained strong.
• and most recently Flights • During the volatile period in late April and early
May brought on by the volcanic ash cloud,
the Flights category was the only category at
lastminute.com to consistently perform strongly and
make profit.
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3. CASE STUDY
LASTMINUTE.COM
THE APPROACH
Our approach was to:
• Restructure the accounts
• Break them into Countries
• Identify the relevant keywords and their landing pages
• Work with lastminute.com’s internal design team to assist
with optimising the sales funnel
• Analyse the historical performance of the account and
identify the key areas contributing the negative ROI &
optimising them further
RESULTS
Cost reduced by 25% Mar - Apr
£410,541.16
£450,000.00
Cost reduced by 28% Apr - May
£400,000.00
Overall cost reduced by 46% Mar - May
£307,752.22
£350,000.00
£300,000.00
£220,557.39
£250,000.00
£200,000.00
£150,000.00
£100,000.00
£50,000.00
£0.00
Mar-10 Apr-10 May-10
March Vs May (All Accounts):
Account Performance
CTR increase by 8%
• March: 1.77
• April: 1.91
Booking Rate Increase by 11%
• March: 1.28
• April: 1.42
Overall CPA decreased by 12%
• March: £34.95
• April: £30.79
ABSEM
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4. CASE STUDY
LASTMINUTE.COM
With more than 15 years
of experience in the Online
Marketing industry, we pride
ourselves in giving you the
level of service that you would
Financial Performance expect from an in-house
team. At ABSEM, we are your
Cost decreased by 25%
partner and ally in your online
• March: £416k
marketing strategy.
• April: £312k
Total Losses decreased by 70% Search Engine Marketing is a
• March: -£58,643 vital method of bringing new
• April: -£17,759 customers into your business
that needs to be constantly
refined and developed so that
your website can maintain its
search position and visibility.
At ABSEM, we believe that
Search Engine Marketing is
not a media buy but rather
an optimisation process that
must be applied to your
website, keeping your target
demographics and your
products and services in mind.
CUSTOMER FEEDBACK
We are glad with signed up Absorb and ABSEM to help us
through the Trial phase. Their knowledgeable team, Google
Certified Account Managers, and in-depth knowledge of
the PPC area not only helped us bring our Negative ROI to
break even, but eventually turn our Flights PPC campaigns
into a profitable investment.
ABSEM Ltd
29 Loates Lane
Watford
Hertfordshire
WD17 2PJ
Tel: +44 (0)20 3239 8601
Email: inquiry@absem.com
Web: www.absem.con
Sales: +44 (0)20 8144 7688
ABSEM
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