• by Jess Nelson , December 11, 2015

Virgin Atlantic announced this week that a successful email retargeting marketing campaign had helped the UK travel company boost online bookings by more than 5%.

Virgin Atlantic partnered with behavioral marketing company SaleCycle to employ a marketing campaign targeting consumers who had abandoned Virgin’s Web site without completing a travel reservation. With an integrated on-site and email retargeting program, Virgin Atlantic saw a 5% increase in converted Web visitors.

The on-site remarketing campaign engaged customers before they ever left the Web site, while the email retargeting campaign helped Virgin Atlantic send over 45,000 additional remarketing emails per year.

Virgin Atlantic’s campaign more than doubled industry averages and produced an open rate of 59%. The average email open rate for travel and transportation companies is 20.78%, according to MailChimp’s recent email marketing benchmark report.

SalesCycle also claims that the remarketing email campaign had an ROI of $29 in revenue for every email sent.

“The campaign is a great example of combining cutting-edge technology and world-class creative to improve the customer journey,” states Dominic Edmunds, CEO and Founder of SaleCycle. “By displaying the right message to the right person at the right time, we're proud to be helping Virgin Atlantic deliver a first-class experience from the moment a customer starts their booking online.”