Case Study

ONYX Hospitality Group - Customer Success Story

Customer Profile ONYX is a Thai-based, leading hospitality provider across Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. ONYX Hospitality Group offers a wide portfolio of brands, including the market-leading Amari collection of hotels and resorts, the mid-market OZO hotels and Shama serviced apartments. Through these brands, ONYX operates across hospitality price points, from valueoriented products through to mid-scale and luxury offerings.

Campaign Objectives ONYX Hospitality Group is a growing brand in the APAC and ME regions, with several properties under development for launch in the next couple of years. The team has worked with Sojern for over a year, attracting incremental travellers to their brands and driving direct bookings. The Sojern and ONYX teams collaborate, constantly testing new strategies to ensure they deliver the strongest campaign results. “My favourite thing about Sojern is, firstly, the team! They are so supportive,” says Chutima May Fuangkham, Senior Director, Digital Marketing at ONYX Hospitality Group. “Secondly, it’s the performance. I can count on the Sojern team to give me direct feedback. If the campaign performance doesn’t meet our goals, we work together to improve it until we achieve our goals.” Following a series of successful campaigns in 2016, ONYX Hospitality Group and Sojern signed an always-on campaign starting January 2017. “We decided to proceed with an always-on campaign because of how successful previous campaigns were,” continues Chutima May. “Committing to a full year is not something we often do.” The ONYX team set a Return on Investment (ROI) goal of 6:1 for Sojern to achieve, across their brand portfolio.

Sojern’s Approach Sojern runs a truly global campaign for ONYX Hospitality Group, targeting travellers who have shown intent to key ONYX destinations across several key languages including English, Thai, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese. With predictive data science, billions of search and booking intent signals, and real-time analysis of 350 million global traveller profiles, Sojern implemented a two-pronged strategy to inspire high-intent travellers to book with ONYX properties. The first tactic, prospecting, identifies people who are in-market for travel to a destination with an ONYX property, but may not be aware of or have searched them or their brands. sojern.com / [email protected]

Case Study The second tactic, retargeting, engages with those who have been to the ONYX site to search properties, but haven’t yet booked. Both tactics ensure that ONYX is top of mind when travellers are ready to book, leading them to visit the site to book directly. Explains Chutima May, “That’s what makes Sojern special—the quality of their data.” Since January, Sojern has delivered and well exceeded the original ROI goal of 6:1, consistently achieving an unbelievable ROI of 24:1. In addition to more direct bookings, Chutima May and her team also noticed an increase in the quality of their bookings. “The one thing Sojern delivers that other partners can’t, is they manage to successfully drive longer-stay business and higher basket value,” says Chutima May, “That’s an achievement for our group. We’ve never seen long-stay bookings at this level until working with Sojern.” In addition to the ROI and increase in direct bookings, the Sojern team has built an invaluable level of trust with the ONYX team, which allows them to focus on other efforts. “When we first started, I wanted full control,” Chutima May continues, “I’m more able to let go of the control now, because I trust the Sojern team and technology to optimise towards what works best. They are willing to go above and beyond and customise the reports to fit our needs, which reduces time and effort on our side.”

Results & Findings • Delivered an ROI of 24:1 • Increased share of higher value, longer-term bookings • Saved time and effort by focusing on campaign optimisations • Realised higher site visit quality and engagement rate

Chutima May Fuangkham

Senior Director, Digital Marketing, ONYX Hospitality Group “The one thing Sojern delivers that other partners can’t, is they manage to successfully drive longer-stay business and higher basket value. That’s an achievement for our group — and a primary reason we’ve decided to run always-on campaigns with them. We’ve never seen long-stay bookings at this level until working with Sojern.”

Creative Assets

sojern.com / [email protected]