How did we cut costs by 81.1% for Grecos Holiday in the post-pandemic travel industry?
How did we increase CTR by 179.17% for a client in the travel industry through Meta Ads?
- Services
- Meta Ads
- Website
- https://www.grecos.pl/
- Market
-
Poland
- Industry
- Travel Industry
81.1%
decrease in CPA
179.17%
increase in CTR
Need a similar strategy?
“The most important to us was to cooperate with the highly qualified specialists, which will understand our specific industry, that everything is changing rapidly, sometimes even about 180 degrees. And MTA managed to do that. They are flexible and innovative, which allows us to cooperate successfully.”
Agata Wyrwińska
Jr Community Manager, Grecos Holiday
About the Client
Grecos Holiday is a Polish travel agency headquartered in Poznań, specializing in organizing holidays in Greece. Since 2006, the company has arranged over a million trips, offering 20 Greek destinations and working with nearly 250 hotels. The Grecos Holiday team consists of more than 100 employees in Poland and twice as many in Greece, which allows for comprehensive customer service at every stage of the journey.
Challenges
After the pandemic break, the tourism market began to recover, but at the same time the cost of reaching a purchase-ready user increased. The client wanted to optimize the campaigns for CPA in order to make the most of the seasonal potential.
Although interest in trips to Greece was gradually growing, some consumers still had doubts about traveling abroad. The communication had to account for the need for safety and flexibility.
As a tour operator specializing in a single destination, Grecos needed a strategy that would allow it to single out the people genuinely interested in holidays in Greece—from among a broad pool of potential customers. It was crucial to tailor the messaging to users’ specific needs and motivations.
The budget had to support both the brand and sales goals and the commitments regarding the exposure of selected hotels or departure cities. It was necessary to precisely manage the allocation of funds and measure results in real time.
Our Solutions
We created a comprehensive strategy designed to help Grecos increase online sales and strengthen the brand’s market position. The plan focused on budget optimization, retargeting, and testing various creatives to improve campaign effectiveness. Here are the steps we took to achieve these goals:
Active budget management – locations
We dynamically allocated the budget across different departure cities and selected hotels in Greece in order to maximize reach and effectiveness. It was crucial to build a clear campaign structure: separating campaigns, ad sets, and individual creatives in a way that enabled testing and analysis. This allowed us to accurately deploy funds where they delivered the greatest effect and to quickly identify areas for optimization.
End-of-season retargeting
We implemented remarketing campaigns for the end of the season—previously not planned by the client—which significantly contributed to increasing booking completions. We noticed certain search trends a few months after the pandemic and used remarketing to reach people who, still during lockdown, had been dreaming of a holiday and were ready to take one once the pandemic-related restrictions were lifted.
In addition, we noticed an increase in the number of comments under posts after some light support of the organic content. Tourists shared memories and positive opinions. The following year, we built a remarketing group from these users and targeted a campaign at them again. The Meta Ads activities contributed to increased brand recognition, greater website traffic, and a higher number of conversions.
Creative testing
We committed to extensive testing of creative materials in order to make the most of Grecos’s engaged community, which consists mainly of people over the age of 40. We tested various messages tailored to this group, analyzing the effectiveness of the formats. As early as the first year, we noticed that the video format brought a lower cost per purchase and a lower CPC, despite a CPM more than twice as high. That is why, alongside campaigns optimized for effectiveness, we implemented Reach & Frequency campaigns, which guaranteed a specific number of impressions within a set budget.
This approach allowed us to combine effective reach of the target audience with a lower cost per purchase. Users made purchase decisions faster after watching a video than after seeing a static banner—and these were exactly the reactions we were looking for. The following year, the client provided even better materials, high-quality videos showcasing the charms of the holiday destinations, which allowed us to lower the cost of customer acquisition even further.
Results
Our main goal was to lower the cost per purchase, although—due to our commitments to investors—we also had to ensure a certain number of impressions was achieved. The strategic actions we took delivered impressive results across three consecutive post-pandemic holiday seasons:
- Cost per acquisition (CPA):
- 2021: We struggled with a high cost of acquisition.
- 2022: We managed to lower the CPA by 73.1%.
- 2023: A further reduction of another 29.7%, meaning a total drop of 81.1% compared to the initial value.
- Click-through rate (Outbound CTR):
- 2021: The CTR was 0.24%.
- 2022: An increase to 0.49%.
- 2023: A further increase to 0.67%.
These results show significant year-over-year improvement and growing consumer trust in the Grecos brand. This success was the result of accurate budget allocation, well-chosen marketing messages, and the effective use of retargeting potential.
Summary
Thanks to our team’s strategic actions, Grecos significantly lowered its cost per acquisition (CPA) and rebuilt trust while strengthening consumer engagement. Meticulous budget management, the effective use of retargeting, and continuous optimization of ad creatives and formats allowed the brand to successfully find its footing in the post-pandemic market reality.
This case study shows just how significant a role data-driven activities and an openness to testing unconventional creative solutions play in overcoming industry challenges and achieving long-term growth.
