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The Client:

Rayburn Tours specializes in group travel and school trips, offering educational experiences, ski trips, sports tours for schools, and concert tours for youth and adult ensembles. Founded in 1965, Rayburn excels at creating carefully tailored itineraries that encourage adventure, cultural discovery, and skill development. Their clients are willing to pay a premium for this exceptional service, often returning year after year.

what we did?

During Rayburn’s advertising hiatus, paid media underwent significant changes. We adapted Rayburn’s digital strategy to meet the evolving customer journey and updated the website to fuel better paid media performance.

Restructuring Google Ads

We replaced granular, pre-2020 campaigns with the Hagakure methodology, condensing focus on four core areas of Rayburn’s business.

This move simplified reporting, sped up strategic decision-making, and allowed more data inputs for automated bidding.

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Optimizing Budget & Performance

Despite only 1.2% more budget in 2023 than 2022, results improved substantially, demonstrating higher profitability.

Our team shifted from micro-managing many campaigns to making strategic decisions based on Rayburn’s key KPIs.

Expanding Paid Social

We broadened efforts beyond core paid search channels to include a more robust paid social strategy, reaching new audience segments.

Deeper Business Understanding

A visit to Rayburn’s HQ gave us insights into their Operations, Sales, Product, Marketing, and Finance teams.

Armed with this information, we wrote more impactful ads, adjusted budgets based on location availability, and continually aligned paid campaigns to real-time business needs.

the challenge

Maksol Technologies has partnered with Rayburn for a decade, but the most significant challenge arose in March 2020 when the travel industry came to a halt. With skeleton staffing and more than £5 million in refunded trips, Rayburn’s survival hinged on partnerships, including ours.

By 2021, travel interest began to bounce back—schools and parents were keen to ensure that students didn’t miss out on transformative travel experiences. However, Rayburn faced several hurdles:

  1. Rebuilding Market Reach: Putting the right measures in place to tap into new or returning audiences.
  2. Restoring Internal Capacity: Scaling the team to handle the surge in inquiries after downsizing.
  3. Navigating a Changed Industry: Dealing with new regulations, longer lead times (12–18 months), and continued volatility.

 

Over the next two years, Maksol Technologies’ Paid Media team played a pivotal role in restoring Rayburn’s inquiry volume back to 2019 levels—shifting from year-on-year growth targets to recapturing pre-pandemic performance.

The Results:

Rayburn’s recovery post-pandemic has been driven by a convergence of factors: Maksol Technologies’ strategic input, heightened travel demand, and Rayburn’s elevated reputation due to excellent customer service in challenging times.

First Trimester of 2023

Leads soared across all divisions (Rayburn Tours, Sports Tours, and Venture Abroad) while CPAs declined.

Conversion volume increased by 63% compared to 2019 and 66% compared to 2022, despite lower CPA.

Competitive Non-Branded Keywords:

Shift to broad match terms boosted impressions by 61% and conversion rate by 53%.

Overall, conversions jumped 125%, and CPA dropped 41% for non-branded searches since 2022.

Rayburn’s workforce and revenue continue to thrive post-pandemic, and Maksol Technologies remains a committed partner in their journey—one that has lasted over ten rewarding years.

increase in lead volume in trimester 1 of 2023 (compared to 2019)
63%
increase compared to 2022 for their Sports Tours brand
105%
decrease overall in CPL since pre-pandemic
30%

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