Hertz operates Hertz, Dollar, Thrifty and Firefly car rental brands in more than 10,300 locations throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia, Australia, Africa, the Middle East and New Zealand. Hertz is the largest worldwide airport general use car rental company with more than 1,600 airport locations in the U.S. and over 1,300 airport locations internationally. Product and service initiatives such as Hertz Gold Plus Rewards, NeverLost®, Carfirmations, Mobile Wi-Fi and unique vehicles offered through the Adrenaline, Dream, Green and Prestige Collections set Hertz apart from the competition.
Campaign Objectives
Hertz wanted to broaden its more traditional online marketing channels, such as Search Engine Management (SEM), with newer, cost-effective ways to prospect new customers and increase overall market share.
Hertz began working with Sojern in September 2013 to drive incremental bookings and attract new customers planning intra-European travel.
“We were looking for a one-stop solution for prospecting new customers and retargeting users who already had Hertz in mind as a car rental provider,” said Carine Veyrat, director digital marketing Europe. “We had success through other online channels but were looking for a partner with deep programmatic roots and travel expertise.” Hertz booked a test campaign on the basis of Sojern’s expertise in the car rental market and the ability to reach in-market travellers at scale.
Throughout the partnership between Hertz and Sojern and over multiple campaigns, Hertz’s overarching objectives remained the same; to prospect and retarget users based on Sojern’s advanced audience targeting. Sojern provided a full funnel solution for Hertz’s digital marketing needs and kept Hertz top of mind for active searchers, driving the user to book by using relevant display advertising at key points during the customer journey. In 2015 alone, Sojern drove over 45,000 bookings to Hertz and maintained aggressive CPAs as spending budgets increased.
Over two years, they have been able to scale the partnership and now drive incremental bookings for Hertz in the Middle East, APAC and inbound to the United States from European markets. They are also working with Hertz on strategic projects using their granular data to target users flying into key airports.
Sojern’s Approach
The key objective for Hertz is to drive bookings through prospecting new customers and retargeting those who have already searched Hertz offerings in key European markets. Car rental is a lower funnel purchase for travellers. Sojern is able to see users who have already booked a flight or hotel and target them with relevant messaging at the exact time they are most likely to convert.
Sojern utilises its proprietary first-party traveller data, with a focus on ‘high intenders.’ These are users who have visited multiple partner sites, indicating a stronger than average intent to book within a given timeframe. They also look to target users based on the number of searches they have done and whether intent has increased or decreased over a given period of time. Therefore they are able to see those who are closer to a conversion and drive them to a booking.
Through this partnership, Sojern has continued to improve performance and reach aggressive targets, even as campaign spend has increased.
Visit Sojern’s website here.