Relevance Playbook: How Volkswagen, an OTA, and a CMS drove results

Action Box: Learn how to build custom AI

Our next masterclass is How to take a conversion marketing approach to Agentic AI and RAG. Discover actionable techniques to create custom AI that can help your marketing, assist your customers, and generate leads and revenue – no technical skills required. Join us on February 12th at 2 pm EST (from MarketingSherpa’s parent organization, MeclabsAI).

Quick Case Study #1: How Volkswagen sent more relevant messages to customers and booked 21,000 repair orders

Volkswagen Group of America is a wholly owned subsidiary of Volkswagen AG. It houses the U.S. operations of Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, and Volkswagen and is the sole importer and distributer of Bugatti and Rimac vehicles in the U.S.

This case study focuses on after sales for the Volkswagen brand in the United States specifically – authorized service and maintenance with genuine parts and accessories.

BEFORE: No middle layer

Volkswagen dealers had two choices: rely on broad, impersonal national campaigns or fund hyper-local ads that lacked scale. The result? Seasonal mismatches, wasted spend, and lost revenue.

“The national approach wasn’t addressing the seasonal and geographical challenges we were having when marketing our top commodities (oil, tires, batteries, brakes, and filters). It also wasn’t something we would abandon; we saw an opportunity to bridge the gap between what we were already doing at the national level and what dealers were doing in their own markets with their own dollars,” said TJ Dolliver, National Parts & Service Marketing Manager, Volkswagen of America.

AFTER: Banding together regionally for more relevant, cost-effective marketing

Instead of fighting the same marketing battles alone, Volkswagen dealers joined forces—pooling budgets and data to create regionally relevant, omnichannel campaigns.

“Showing seasonal-relevant imagery (no snow in Florida in December) had a huge impact on the engagement with the marketing materials (click-through rates and coupon redemptions for example),” said Chris Rucker, Group Direct, Client Leads, Notorious 111(Volkswagen of America’s creative agency of record).

The dealers also pooled data capabilities in the groups, allowing the team to send marketing messages that are specific to the customer, the vehicle, the vehicle mileage, recently declined services and open recalls/bulletins, all down to the specific VIN (vehicle identification number).

“VW is a data-driven client, so we lean heavily on data captured in the dealership at the point of sale and also from the data fed through the Car-Net® system in the actual VW vehicles,” he said.

API feeds allowed the team to use real-time data – like when a dashboard indicator light is active and requires service or a tow. The team can then deliver a personalized email to the customer within an hour of the event being stored in the vehicle’s ECU (engine control unit) highlighting the upcoming maintenance/service need, along with corresponding offers and dealers.

The creative team had to be aware of the data feeds as well, to allow space for the personalized messaging. “The data and presentation of vehicle names, customer names, and dealer names can be inconsistent in their length and how they are input,” Rucker explained.

RESULTS: 21,000 repair orders

Precision-targeted promotions and timely messages led to a 6.67% response rate – resulting in 21,000 repair orders from 300,000 messages sent to customers.

Quick Case Study #2: How online travel agency focused on a target audience’s unique challenges to garner 23,000 video views

FlightHub is a Canadian OTA and a subsidiary of Momentum Ventures, a travel technology company. The team sought to complement its existing efforts with initiatives that would engage audiences on a deeper, more emotional level, starting with the 2024 holiday season.

Holiday campaign

FlightHub knew transactional marketing wasn’t enough. The team needed a way to emotionally connect with their audience – or risk getting lost in the OTA sea.

They conducted a survey of 2,005 Canadians, both native born and immigrants, to better understand the unique challenges immigrants face during the holidays and inform its ‘Where Travel Finds You’ campaign. “We believe that effective campaigns start with a deep understanding of the people they aim to serve,” said Ayoub Hissar, Director of PR and Marketing Strategy, FlightHub.

The core message of the campaign: that travel is more than a journey to a destination – it’s a way to connect people to what truly matters.

The team interviewed four immigrants and created a mini-documentary-style video (four minutes and 38 seconds) with their personal stories of navigating challenges and finding resilience in event the hardest times. A team of five – including a videographer, an assistant videographer, and three members from the FlightHub marketing team – spent eight hours filming interviews and 25 hours filming the participants’ surprise experiences, like a luxury weekend start in the Vogue Hotel Presidential Suite, complemented by chauffeur service in a Mercedes S-Class S580E.

“Our survey revealed the emotional and logistical barriers they face, and this campaign was an opportunity to elevate their voices and share their resilience,” said Jade Rozal, Communications Manager, FlightHub.

The documentary was posted on YouTube, with clips shared on Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, which all led to a landing page. Approximately 100 hours was invested to create and launch the page, from initial wireframes to live deployment.

Creative Sample #1: Travel agency campaign landing page

The audience was invited to nominate someone whose journey inspires them for a chance to win an all-expenses-paid trip for two to Mexico. The prize includes round-trip airfare and a four-night stay at an all-inclusive resort, providing an escape to relax and reconnect.

The team also launched a paid boosting campaign and spent $5,000 on YouTube ads targeting the keywords: family, family trip, travel, immigration, immigrant story.

They spent another $1,000 on Instagram and Facebook ads targeting frequent travelers, immigrants, and users who have shown interest in holiday or family content.

“From interactive Instagram stories to YouTube ads, every piece was carefully designed to reflect the campaign’s message while evoking genuine emotion,” said Sandra Belbekri, Social Media and PR Specialist, FlightHub.

I asked the team to break down what worked best and worst from this campaign to give you ideas for your own campaign.

WHAT WORKED BEST: The universal in the particular

• The focus on immigrant experiences led to high engagement within this audience, making the campaign feel authentic and meaningful.
   
• Real stories resonated. Engagement soared.
   
• While the campaign had a specific focus, the team was confident that the core themes would resonate universally, allowing the message to connect with a broader audience beyond the direct immigrant experience.
   
• Media interest was strong, with coverage from City Biz, Campaign Canada, and Financial Post, highlighting both the survey insights and the campaign’s broader storytelling approach.

WHAT WORKED WORST: Difficult to determine long-term impact

• The narrow audience focus may have limited broader engagement from general travelers who didn’t immediately see themselves reflected in the stories.
   
• Engagement was strong. But did it drive bookings? Still unclear.
   
• Brand-building efforts take longer to measure than performance-driven campaigns, and the absence of immediate conversion tracking makes it difficult to assess direct impact.

RESULTS: 23,000 views

The mini-documentary video achieved 1,300 views in less than 24 hours prior to the start of paid boosting efforts. Following targeted boosting efforts, the video garnered 23,000 views, showcasing its wide appeal and reach.

Quick Case Study #3: How digital experience platform rebranded, attracted $10.3M in new sales pipeline

Magnolia is a digital experience platform. So when the time came to rebrand, the pressure was on. “We can’t tell our customers all the cool things our product can do if we can’t execute them ourselves, using our own product,” Anthony Poliseno, Chief Marketing Officer, Magnolia.

Here’s how they did it, and what they learned. To make this (already long) article manageable, we’ll focus on the homepage header update. But note that the same approach was used across all aspects of the website.

BEFORE: Lacking clarity

Here’s a look at the company’s homepage before the rebrand.

Creative Sample #2: Homepage before

The team analyzed the homepage, and noted these problems:

• Customers couldn’t immediately see the value in the product when compared to other options in the market.
• While the three bullets originally present in copy were meant to showcase value, they didn’t get to the point succinctly enough.
• There were two primary CTA buttons, and they were both dull visually (one was black, the other was white). There was a third green CTA button in the upper right, but it wasn’t getting many clicks.
• The header had a sterile, tech feeling to it, which didn’t spark an emotional response.
• The video received very few clicks and the heat map showed most users scrolling right by it. Even if people started the video, they backed out after a few seconds.

AFTER: Focused messaging

The team had three months to execute the rebrand, with six months to show compelling benchmarks to the board. The execution team consisted of five employees across brand, development, and demand generation, and one external graphic designer for support. Over a period of 85 days, they rolled out the new brand design on all digital assets and deployed a targeted SEO strategy to match.

Here is the homepage after the rebrand.

Creative Sample #3: Homepage after

The homepage’s original headline focused on a pain point – ‘Take “complicated” out of digital experience platforms.’  “By focusing on generic pain points, we weren't able to stand out,” said Jamie Bolland, VP of Product Marketing, Magnolia. The new headlines focused on the outcome – “Turn complex content into incredible digital experiences.”

The original body copy was:

Managing digital experiences across brands, markets, and channels is complicated. Our platform makes it simple with a power combo of:

• Enterprise headless content management software
• Tied-in personalization and analytics
• Modular architecture and powerful integrations

The team reduced the bulleted text in favor of a simple, one-sentence tagline – ‘With Magnolia you can unify your content, customer data and legacy tech to build engaging websites, portals and apps at scale.’

Several tests showed that concise body copy performed better, but it still needed enough key terms and insights to attract attention. “Body copy that's too long will bore and overwhelm people, but body copy that's too short and doesn't include the key terms won't attract people's attention,” advised Vanessa Dietz, Marketing Manager, Magnolia.

The original homepage had two CTAs – ‘See our platform’ and ‘Schedule your demo.’ One button was black, the other white. “Whilst it can be tempting to give customers options with their CTAs, more is not always better,” said Lara Vermont, VP of Demand Generation, Magnolia.

The team went with a single CTA for the new homepage – ‘Get a demo with one of our Experts.’ Research into their target ICP showed a strong preference for blue in those business' own brands, so the team went with a bright blue CTA button.

The team also believes that button clicks were supported better by the new color palette that housed them. Every major CTA button not only changed to blue but had specific colors and textures in the section it lived in, which probably encouraged more action.

Before redesigning the header, the team tested images on LinkedIn and found that people alongside technology performed better than product shots alone. So, the new header design prominently featured faces alongside simple product artifacts to humanize the technology.

“It's tough to sell a software interface because it’s so complicated for the eye and brain to process. But also, tech (as cool as it is) will never compare to the humans that use it. So we stripped our product down to single portraits of users, graphic elements, and simple text boxes so when visitors come to our site, they see themselves in the story of our technology,” said Andrew Conlon, Creative Director, Magnolia

RESULTS: $10.3 million increase in sales pipeline

This wasn’t just a homepage tweak – it was a revenue engine overhaul. With a 68,567% ROI and a $10.3M sales pipeline increase, Magnolia proved that clarity in messaging isn’t just branding – it’s business strategy

The bounce rate and average engagement time held relatively steady”

• 17.87% bounce rate before and 17.82% after
• 1:33 average engagement time before versus 1:40 after

But returning users increased from 26,389 over the previous six months to 38,000, a 44% increase.

Contact sales requests increased from 124 to 210, a 70% increase. Magnolia’s typical client is a global enterprise with an average contract value of $120,000, so the team estimates a $10.3 million increase in sales pipeline.

Given that they spent $15,000 (of their $50,000 budget) on the rebrand, the team calculated a 68,567% ROI.

How to put the ideas from these case studies into action for your brand or clients

I asked the ‘Copywriter – Blog Posts’ expert in MeclabsAI (MarketingSherpa’s parent company) for ideas on how you can put the concepts discussed in this article into action:

1. Leverage Shared Resources: As Volkswagen did, businesses can pool resources regionally or within industries to maximize effectiveness and reach while minimizing individual costs. If you’re in an industry with local branches or independent operators (automotive, franchise, healthcare), consider pooling resources for targeted regional marketing.
2. Implement Data-Driven Personalization: Utilize customer data to tailor marketing messages and offers based on specific needs and behaviors, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates.
3. Focus on Emotional Storytelling: Craft narratives that resonate emotionally with your target audience, showcasing authentic stories or experiences to deepen engagement and connection.
4. Prioritize Clarity in Rebranding: When rebranding, focus on clear, outcome-driven messaging and design elements that resonate with your target audience for increased engagement and conversions.
5. Test and Optimize: Use A/B testing for images, CTAs, and messaging as Magnolia did to determine the most effective strategies that appeal to your target audience.

This article was distributed through the MarketingSherpa email newsletter.

Related resources

Marketing Relevance Case Studies: Right offer, right time, right person

Copywriting and Value Proposition: Unleashing the power of compelling copy

Accelerating Lead Capture: Four psychological keys that transform conversion rates