The Challenge

During the pandemic, customers were naturally more wary about considering travel but still wanted to hear from their favourite brands. Marriott understood how useful email could be to empathetically communicate with guests during a challenging time. Additionally, communications had to be timely and personal, which made email the right channel for the job, but this shift required a quick and agile update in messaging to reflect people’s new mindset.

The Solution

Working with long-time partner Epsilon, Marriott leaned more heavily into email to meet the changing demands of their guests. Since business travel was slower to resume, the team pivoted their strategy toward the leisure audience and developed a campaign for their luxury private home rental brand, Homes & Villas by Marriott International (HVMI). Using Epsilon PeopleCloud Messaging, Marriott served AI-driven personalised email communications promoting HVMI & explaining Marriott’s benefits and safety features.

Impact

Marriott’s fresh strategy was extremely successful in engaging consumers during the pandemic.

We authentically connected with Marriott’s customers by sending 14.5M email with 99.8% delivery rate. Marriott’s bookings increased threefold from the same period in the previous year and a 20% increase in booking revenue.

HVMI has seen more than double the engagement from a previous creative agency partner.

When compared to random decisioning, AI-driven content optimization resulted in a 10% lift in revenue and a 20% increase in revenue per booking.