Fjord Line

Sailing towards an optimized bidding strategy with Google’s DV360

Fjord Line offers charming ferry routes along the fjords and coastal areas of Denmark and Norway. With the peak season approaching, the ferry operator sought new digital opportunities to boost demand. 

DEPT® took on the challenge by implementing an innovative custom bidding strategy to harness the full potential of Display & Video 360, an advertising tool from the Google Marketing Platform

Amid economic challenges

Fjord Line is known for its affordable trips to Norway during the summer’s peak season. But despite reasonable prices, the brand still felt the impact of inflation and economic uncertainty in the country.

It became even more essential to attract potential travelers efficiently. Therefore, we implemented custom bidding in Display & Video 360 (DV360) to target the right audience and maximize conversions.

Frontman of campaign optimization

Being a part of the Google Marketing Platform, DV360 helps create and optimize display advertising campaigns. With its custom bidding, we optimized bidding strategies for Fjord Line’s digital campaigns to leverage the most value from the advertising budget. 

To further enhance results, we tested DV360’s new goal builder tool, which allows us to maximize conversions in custom bidding without programming a custom script. We aimed to generate 10% more conversions with this solution than standard bidding methods. 

Utilizing the goal builder, we devised a method to test custom bidding on qualitative website traffic. To compare its results with the usual ‘maximize conversions’ strategy (as a baseline), we set up an A/B test in DV360.

Custom bidding is certainly an approach that we will explore further. The results gave us good revenue in the summer season.

Ståle Fossum, CRM & Digital Marketing Specialist at Fjord Line

Innovative bidding success

This campaign leveraged Fjord Line’s data and Google solutions to create innovative bidding setups. 

Through A/B experimentation, we objectively measured the findings of the goal builder in custom bidding. It proved its effectiveness by successfully achieving better results with the same budget. 

We also saw a significant increase in qualitative website traffic, especially in the Bergen region (Norway). These solid numbers provide enough reason to reapply the custom bidding strategy for future campaigns. 

  • 21% more conversions with the goal builder in custom bidding.
  • 3% higher conversion rate compared to the baseline.
  • 15% lower cost per action (CPA).

Questions?

Programmatic Director

Mette Schnor Bailey

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