• by August 26, 2008

Costa cruise lines wanted a plan that would increase bookings online and off, and increase the company's share of voice in paid search for branded and generic cruiserelated queries. The caveat: The cruise provider's quarterly budget was 80 percent smaller than its top competitors. Stinson Partners devised a strategy rooted in conversion tracking to justify every dollar spent. The site generated unique 800 numbers for each search query, which enabled the tracking of offline conversions and made it easy to compare the effectiveness of each ad on a cpa basis. The campaign netted a 1,300 percent increase in roas, and Costa earned a 40 percent share of voice in generic Mediterranean cruise terms on Google, almost twice the coverage of better-financed competitors.