Haut-de-France Tourisme
Case Study — Social Media Ads for Travel Company
The Client
Hauts-de-France Tourisme is a collaboration between five French tourism boards — Aisne, Nord, Oise, Pas-de-Calais and Somme. They offer a wide selection of getaways in northern France with a focus on meaningful tourism, hospitality and respect for the planet.
The Brief
Our client was running lots of paid ads on Instagram and Facebook. They were using Meta’s detailed targeting categories, but the campaigns weren’t doing as well as they hoped.
Hauts-de-France approached us for a social media audit to discover how things could improve. Our audit revealed valuable opportunities with the following:
- Audience targeting
- Ad formats, copy and messaging
- Landing page copy and format
The Process
Targeting
We started with audience targeting. Like many businesses, Hauts-de-France was relying solely on Meta’s audience categories to target their paid ads. This can work, but there are better options — not least, lookalike audiences.
Effectively, we cloned their ideal audience. Using first-party data on their best customers, we targeted users with similar interests, behaviours and traits. It took the guesswork out of it.
Ad formats, copy and messaging
Next, the ads themselves. With social media advertising, you have mere seconds to grab attention — so we went all out with instant impact. The visuals were stunning, while the copy and messaging got straight to the point, with clear selling points and calls to action.
We ran fewer ads, but made them more powerful. Importantly, we also varied the formats with a mix of reels, clean images, designed images and carousels.
Landing page copy and format
There’s no point in great ads if the landing page doesn’t convert, so we made some key changes. The booking form moved from the bottom of the page to above the fold, while the wording was redrafted into persuasive, inspirational copy designed to convert.
In numbers…
%
Cost per contact improvement YoY
New contacts
Cost per contact
Benoît Guilleux is the Business Developer at Haut-de-France Tourisme:
Rob has been a great support with our social media marketing campaigns this year at Hauts-de-France Tourisme. He quickly understood our business objectives and provided valuable suggestions on how to improve our campaigns — from refining messaging and targeting to enhancing our creatives.
Implementing his recommendations significantly improved our campaign performance. I highly recommend working with Rob for his professionalism and responsiveness.
The Result
In 6 months, Haut-de-France’s paid ad performance skyrocketed. Impressions, clicks and contacts continue to rise while the cost per lead and cost per contact has significantly dropped.
The headline stat is the cost per contact — a 44% improvement year on year.
How are your paid ads performing? If you’d like a social media audit, and recommendations for some quick wins, get in touch with us at RMK Marketing. We’d be happy to help.
See Our Work
