Velocity equals customer acquisition and revenue for P&O Cruises

P&O Cruises, a British cruise line brand traveling to more than 200 destinations worldwide, came to Evolv AI through a shared partner with Eclipse, looking for a better way to help prospects find their ideal holiday.

Previous to using Evolv AI, P&O Cruises used Adobe Target for the majority of their experimentation orchestration. While Adobe Target has many strengths as a tool, P&O Cruises had several friction points within the platform that made them question the reliability of changes made to their experiments.

P&O Cruises knew they needed technology with more flexibility, automation, segmentation capabilities, and ease of use for more predictable growth.

Solution

P&O Cruises evaluated Evolv AI and was compelled by its ability to automate the most challenging parts of experimentation: ideation, development, and analysis. Evolv AI’s capabilities were the force multiplier P&O Cruises needed, unlocking the option to experiment across multiple touch points and channels concurrently, and generate better ideas and insights faster, ultimately empowering them to reach their business objectives sooner.

Specifically, P&O Cruises liked how clearly Evolv AI shows uplift against control, and allows the team to put more experimentation ideas into the mix without having to pick just one. As an added benefit, Evolv AI also integrates with the Adobe Suite so P&O Cruises could continue to leverage the Adobe Experience Manager and Audience Manager, even as their use for Target waned.

The first project P&O Cruises launched was an initiative to optimize its trip summary checkout page.

P&O Cruises tested 12 different versions of messaging on the summary page over 4 months and quickly came to realize that adding new variants to the same experiment over time was optimal, whereas with other tools they could only test one new variant at a time.

At the end of the experiment, Evolv AI was able to combine variants to cover a search space of 72 combinations, finding one version of the experiment that generated a +2.8% increase in booking conversions, which equated to roughly £1.3 million in revenue.

“Instead of debating which idea to test, they can test all of them and let the data speak for itself” - Oliver Clifton, Senior eCommerce Manager, P&O Cruises

With Evolv AI P&O Cruises has been able to run 58 different experiments, iterating upon versions of landing pages, product detail pages, check out pages, and more. More specifically, with Evolv AI, P&O Cruises has been able to run an average of 20X more experiments than with Adobe Target, with more than 3X increase in revenue generation.

“With Evolv AI we were able to conduct 6 years of experimentation in 3 months,” Oliver Clifton, Senior eCommerce Manager, P&O Cruises

Key Takeaways

When it comes to AB testing, nascent experimenters often fear inconclusive or “failed” experiments. Extensive resources are spent when experimenting manually, and if optimization doesn’t drive more conversions it can feel like a failure. However, employing a self-optimizing system that recommends, builds and dynamically optimizes experiences adapted to real-time user interactions simplifies the process, deriving value from all tests conducted. This fuels comprehensive insights and informs strategic changes to drive better conversion rates.

“The Evolv AI tool pushed us to focus clearly on our core success metrics and KPIs as a brand, resulting in much improved value from testing.’ Oliver Clifton, Senior eCommerce Manager, P&O Cruises

P&O Cruises continues to glean critical insights from Evolv AI, with some of major takeaways: 

• Less is more when it comes to product detail pages
• Focusing on mobile optimization generated more results for P&O Cruises compared to desktop
• Evolv AI's Generative AI capabilities make it easier for P&O Cruises to scale experimentation, validate more hypotheses, and decrease time to value.

Evolv AI was able to meet P&O Cruises where they were at in their digital experience optimization, delivering massive results and helping the team mature their program over time. Want to learn how Evolv AI can help your brand? Book time with one of our experts today.