Landal GreenParks offers a variety of vacation resorts across The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and other European destinations. The company, which is part of one of the largest vacation and holiday groups in Europe, operates more than 85 parks in total with approximately 15,000 vacation homes and 1,300 camping locations amidst nature. Every year, 2.8 million guests spend their holiday at Landal GreenParks.
The Challenge
Landal GreenParks operates in a highly competitive industry. With vacation rental booking trends on the rise, the company places a strong emphasis on testing and optimization to stay ahead of the competition by providing a cutting-edge user experience that also inspires and converts visitors. Booking pages must establish a balance between giving enough information, presenting information in a concise manner, and directing customers toward a conversion before they drop off.
The company wanted to explore whether their guests were more likely to convert on booking pages that relied on inspirational imagery versus those that focused on driving users to convert with more prominent CTAs and promotional offers. However, Landal GreenParks found it difficult to experiment and test all of these elements at scale.
“Getting insights on our website experiences and how they work with different types of customers is key to our continued growth,” notes Mark Tijssen, Product Owner CRO for Landal GreenParks. “With Evolv AI, we got meaningful insights and results in just two months for what would have taken us nine years using traditional A/B testing solutions. By being able to test many ideas for improving our experience at scale, we’re learning faster and achieving major increases in our conversion rates.”
Identifying experiences that increase conversion rates is difficult, especially in the travel industry, due to the complexity of page designs and steps to convert a customer. A/B testing was insufficient for this task given the 4,600 possible experiences to test and the complexity of hypotheses Landal GreenParks had formulated for improving conversion.
The company needed a more agile solution that could test and analyze a plethora of data and provide them with insight into their inspiration vs. conversion hypothesis.
The Solution
Landal GreenParks elected to use Evolv AI to test their hypothesis as they believe leveraging artificial intelligence for experimentation at scale is a faster way to achieve meaningful results for their testing and optimization team.
The Landal GreenParks conversion rate optimization (CRO) team identified several design elements that they believed play an important role in the customer’s journey. These elements included headers, selective offers, and inspirational image designs, amongst other common UI elements.
The three main groups of elements tested as part of the company’s broader hypothesis Evolv AI Iead around experimenting with the main headers, presenting curated offers vs. showing all offers, and testing inspirational elements that highlighted the emotional appeal of the Landal villages.
Creative Variables Selected
- Headers were designed to encourage visitors to scroll down and engage with the content the company had created.
- Offers were structured based on which deals the company thought specific customers would find most relevant rather than a more complicated page showing all offers.
- Inspiration was the final aspect of the experiment. The company selected several images, USPs, discounts, and other activities that they felt showcased what their parks had to offer and where guests could enjoy certain activities.
To test their three core assumptions, the company established several elements including:
- Headers with no overlay, hidden offer CTAs, hidden inspiration CTAs, and image.
- Quick links with images and links, images, text, and links, and images and buttons.
- Inspirational content with USPs at the top of the page, hidden intro text, hidden prices, added summer activities and added summer activities with bullets and a CTA.
- Other elements tested included hidden in page offers and a default compact view.
Testing each element individually and replicating all 4,600 combinations manually would have been an inefficient use of resources. Instead, with Evolv AI, the testing and optimization team at Landal GreenParks were able to scale their experimentation program by relying on Evolv AI’s cutting-edge artificial intelligence to continually prioritize top performing variations discovered by the platform throughout the test.
With Evolv AI, the team tested thousands of possible unique page experiences while continually validating each experience based on the combinatory impact of elements.
Every experiment was completed for both desktop and mobile, was analyzed using Google Analytics, and further validated in an external experimentation platform for assurance.
The Results
Over two months, Landal GreenParks tested 4,608 combinations that were seen by more than 16,000 visitors. The best performing combination increased bookings by 127% for one of the most important holiday seasons during the summer months.
The best overall performer occurred in a later stage of the experiment and saw both the conversion rates for the mobile and desktop version surpass the control version outcomes. This experiment saw a 0.84% and 5.95% increase in mobile and desktop conversions compared to the control version totals of 0.65% and 2.26%. This version included the following:
- No overlay or image
- Hidden inspirational and offer CTAs
- Quick links with image + text + link using the default compact view
- Hidden prices
- Added summer activities with bullets and a CTA
The experiment revealed many successful mobile combinations that managed to outperform the control test. The best individual desktop experiment saw a 163% increase in bookings, while the best mobile experiment saw a 175% increase in bookings.
By testing 4,608 combinations over a short period, Landal GreenParks was able to identify which combination had the best performance on both mobile and desktop and the individual best performers for each. The results not only led to an improvement in conversions and higher revenues, but it also provided them with actionable data that they can use as validation for future UI/UX updates.
Looking Forward
Landal GreenParks saw how valuable a platform like Evolv AI is when experimenting with a large number of elements and combinations. The experiment itself was successful and led to a substantial increase in both conversions and revenue.
The company intends to re-test their best performer, as well as testing C-variant adaptations with oversight from their in-house designers and marketing teams. Based on these findings, the company plans to implement them across their website and to continue using Evolv to improve experimentation outcomes.
Ready to redefine your own online booking experience and see unprecedented growth in your revenue? Landal GreenParks leveraged Evolv AI to achieve a staggering 127% increase in bookings by embracing our AI-driven experimentation platform. With Evolv AI, Landal GreenParks moved beyond traditional A/B testing limitations, enabling them to test thousands of combinations quickly and effectively, leading to powerful insights and significant conversion lifts. Don't let complexity slow you down. Embrace the power of AI and transform your digital strategy with Evolv AI.
