Valk Exclusief: reducing man-hours by 95% through automation.
Valk Exclusief & Squaremoon
Valk Exclusief boosted their return on ad spend by 45% – and reduced its time spent on managing campaigns by 95% – after it started running Facebook Hotel Ads in collaboration with Facebook Marketing Partner Squaremoon.
The Goal
Valk Exclusief wanted to find a scalable solution for structurally boosting their online bookings without losing relevance. For this they wanted to test if Facebook Hotel Ads could help to drive incremental sales and increase efficiency compared to standard Facebook campaigns.
Their Story
Valk Exclusief is the Netherlands’ largest hospitality chain. It is run by the Van der Valk family and they operate over 65 sites in the Netherlands and more than 15 in other countries. Apart from hotels, the Avifauna Bird Park in Alphen aan den Rijn is also operated by Valk Exclusief. Its logo is based on the recognizable toucan.
The Solution
Valk Exclusief collaborated with Squaremoon on a Hotel Ads Campaign that used Facebook Collection Ads and Carousel Ads. Using Squaremoon’s automated ad technology, the Dutch Hotel Chain created and optimized a Facebook Hotel Ad campaign for both Facebook and Instagram.
Valk Exclusief customized its dynamic collection ads throughout the year using Squaremoon’s template technology. This enabled Valk Exclusief to insert Hotel room images from their catalogue into the theme based ads that were adapted for the holidays and/or seasons of the year:
In the example above you can see the autumn template that was inserted in all the Hotel rooms from the catalogue into these theme based ads.
Squaremoon’s Pulse Monitor tool helped to optimize both delivery and relevancy of the dynamic ads, by automatically checking the guidelines communicated by Facebook. This way Valk Exclusief made sure they never lost relevance, by replacing templates once audience saturation started to increase.
Creating dynamic ads also allowed Valk Exclusief to learn about what is engaging with their audience(s), which enabled them to make their own website more relevant and engaging.
In the example above you see a template for the Schiphol Valk Hotel. Each Valk Hotel has its own branding guidelines, so we developed some extra intelligence into the campaign that made it possible to add Hotel specific templates.
Their Success
The Dutch Hotel Chain Valk Exclusief partnered up with Squaremoon to achieve a 45% increase in return on ad spend with Facebook Hotel Ads. Moreover, the partnership resulted in:
- 20% decrease in CPC (cost per click);
- 45% increase in return on ad spend;
- 30% decrease in cost per sale;
- A commission rate that is significantly lower than third parties like Booking.com and Hotels.nl.
In a recent update we developed additional intelligence which makes sure Valk Exclusief is only advertising the Hotel Rooms with the highest availability in the upcoming weeks.
Quotes
“Facebook and Instagram have become fundamental channels for our business. Squaremoon’s automation technology helped us to increase our return on ad spend and booking rates. At the same time, they helped us to reduce time spent on managing campaigns significantly.”
Martien van der Valk
“As one of the newest Facebook Marketing Partners in the Netherlands, we are fully focussed on making Facebook solutions accessible to everyone. Working in partnership with Valk Exclusief, we helped them to adopt a scalable way of advertising on the Facebook apps and learn how to be relevant and engaging with your audiences these days.”