Rotana Hotels: Image-Driven Performance with Paid Search and Paid Social in Russia
Rotana Hotels, one of the leading hotel management companies in the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Turkey, approached us to attract Russian-speaking tourists to their Dubai residence
Background
There are many approaches to paid search and paid social promotion, but this is where the main difficulty lies. It's essential to select only those tools that align with specific campaign goals and available budgets. Based on our experience, the RMAA team can confidently say there is no universal formula for successfully launching such campaigns. Each client requires a customized approach. In this case study, we will demonstrate how we moved away from the traditional lead generation model and replaced it with image promotion for an international hotel chain.
Goal
Rotana Hotels, one of the leading hotel management companies in the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Turkey, approached us to attract Russian-speaking tourists to their Dubai residence. Initially, the client required paid social, but after analyzing the market and available opportunities, we advised them to add paid search Ads.
Solution
The departure of major foreign booking platforms has allowed hotels to almost double their direct sales. We are talking about Booking, which accounted for 60-70% of total online bookings in Russia, and Airbnb, which ceased operations in Russia at the beginning of 2022. As a result, the travel audience has undergone a significant shift in buying patterns. Russian tourists have turned their attention to buying tours on travel companies’ websites. They also began using direct online booking systems on hotel websites.
We seized this opportunity and developed a strategy to attract Russian tourists to the Rotana Hotels website in Dubai. We used paid search and paid social tools to drive traffic to the hotel website. The Russian-language version of the site was a huge plus, and the 15% discount for potential clients was a bonus.
Paid Social Strategy
The launch of the Rotana Hotels campaign was timed to coincide with significant changes in Russia's advertising inventory. We're talking about paid social services. At the negotiation stage, the client was certain that the myTarget advertising service was the best option for promotion. However, we made it clear that this was not the right solution at this time.
VK Holding (owner of myTarget) launched a new advertising service, VK Ads, in 2022. It unifies all the advertising functions of the "old" advertising platforms VK PRO (which ceased operations in 2023) and myTarget (which has limited functionality and authorization was done through VK Ads). VK Ads also has new features.
The RMAA team began actively testing the service and using it in our work, as the campaigns launched through it yielded excellent results for clients, including real estate brands, pharma, and other businesses.
We launched two types of advertising campaigns through VK Ads to promote Rotana Hotels in Russia.
- A media campaign focused on increasing reach and impressions. Traveling abroad and interest in Dubai were taken as key audience characteristics.
- Additional clicks strategy.
VK and Zen sites were the main priority for impressions. We also ensured an important role for working with creatives. During the campaign launch test stage (14 days), we used several ad variants with headlines, main text, and images. The best creatives were selected during the A/B testing process and then refined for greater impact based on audience response. Furthermore, after the test period, we began optimizing traffic by removing sites with insignificant coverage and impressions.
It has to be said that when working with both paid social and paid search companies, A/B testing of creatives and traffic optimization are ongoing processes that must be continually refined through analysis of key promotional indicators. It is a major misunderstanding to believe you can set up a campaign and then forget about it. Such campaigns require flexibility and improvement.
After the first month of promoting Rotana Hotels through the VK Ads platform, the results showed that our approach was correct. We met and exceeded expectations, achieving 6,579 clicks instead of the planned 2,558 (+157.2%). ‘Promised’ CTR of 0.70% rose to 1.75%, which is a pretty great, stable campaign response rate. We continued to work on efficiency right up to the final advertising period.
Paid Search Strategy
Given the limitations of the Google Ads advertising cabinet in 2022, which no longer allows launching paid promotion in Google, and the unreliability of organic traffic in measuring campaign success, we have chosen to focus on Yandex Direct's advertising tools. It is worth noting that, for several years now, Google and Yandex have been the main competitors in the Russian search engine market. However, over the last two years, users have unequivocally favored Yandex (in 2024, 73.93% of total traffic was driven by Yandex).
In turn, Yandex Direct offers a comprehensive set of promotional tools. It is crucial to identify the least effective elements of the campaign and eliminate them, focusing on the most cost-effective options. The client's goals, budget, and auction rates for display/click within the advertising service all play a significant role.
When promoting Rotana Hotels, our paid search strategy had two main directions.
- Advertising in the Yandex search engine, customized according to key queries.
- Media advertising in the Yandex network (note: YAN; includes Yandex platforms and more than 20,000 partner sites), which was also partially customized based on key and competitor queries in the segment.
The campaign's main focus was on media promotion. We deliberately chose to eschew the "classic" lead generation strategy, which appears to be the most effective at first glance. This was an unprofitable decision. Our preliminary analysis showed that the price per click on the ad exceeded the optimal limits. However, we were able to use the image campaign in YAN to increase coverage thanks to the client's other advantages. Firstly, the 15% discount on the creative attracted the user's attention. Secondly, it was Rotana Hotels' status in the international travel market. When a user clicks an ad offering a discount, they are directed to the website and immediately see that Rotana Hotels is not a newcomer to the market but an established travel brand.
It should be noted that the launch and subsequent adjustments to the promotion were conducted using the same testing and optimization processes as the paid social strategy. These processes included A/B testing of creatives, finalizing key queries, and ‘cleaning’ the selected placement sites. To gain a more accurate analysis of the results, we set up Yandex. Metrics and transformed the promotion based on its indicators.
As a result, the Rotana Hotels campaign achieved the best results by gradually building traffic to the client's website and increasing the impact on the target audience.
Results
The campaign for Rotana Hotels was a resounding success from June to August 2023. We exceeded the planned figures for reach, clicks, and CTR during the promotion. This was achieved through active work with the VK Ads platform and Yandex Direct.
It was highly efficient, especially on social networks. We significantly increased ad click-through rates by optimizing creatives and running A/B tests. As for paid ads, the focus on media promotion enabled us to increase impressions and attract more of the client's target audience to the client's website.
The key to success was flexible campaign management, regular site and content optimization, and strategy adjustment based on data analysis. We also kept to the planned budget. The client was pleased with our work and now views the Russian market as a promising avenue for future promotion.
