Cavai, the leading conversational advertising cloud, has been collaborating with BMind, a strategic consultancy committed to enabling digital transformation, and its client Barceló, to drive phenomenal ROI on advertising projects without the need for third-party cookies, through its unique, conversational ad formats.

The challenge was to re-engage North American travellers to Barcelo.com’s Caribbean destinations in the post-Covid era.

Using Cavai’s proprietary technology, Cavai Cloud, allowed Barceló to design, build and serve dynamic conversations within interactive advertising formats across its entire programmatic ecosystem.

Cavai´s interactive formats invite consumers to engage in a two-way messaging-style dialogue; increasing time spent with the brand and creating a personalised micro-journey in addition to actionable insights for each customer.

All Cavai conversational display banners were served through Google DV360 and open programmatic. The format engaged the audience by inviting individuals to dream, once again, about travelling to a paradise destination. It started by asking the open question: “What are you dreaming of?”

Once the audience felt comfortable having a dialogue with the brand, the conversational format led them deeper into the sales funnel by asking about the best timing for their holiday stay in the Caribbean, for instance. Cavai’s conversational ads then centered the dialogue around destinations, with three top holiday sites being suggested; Punta Cana, Riviera.

Thanks to this conversational execution, Barceló successfully learned - through Cavai’s sophisticated Flow Analytics - what individuals want for their Caribbean visit; when they are planning to travel; and where they want to go. As the interactive ads are bot-safe by design, engagements were all true human interactions, available in real-time.

At the end of the conversation, people were presented the option to visit Barceló's website for more information. The engagement generated in the conversational ad was evident from the quality of the traffic coming to their website: Barecló observed a 10% decrease in bounce rate. Furthermore, the average session duration tripled and the pages viewed per session increased by an incredible 45%.

“The quality of the format and the final stage click-through to the landing page has led to low bounce rates and high conversions, all without the need for third-party data - and with user privacy respected at all times,” says BMind’s Jorge Marzal. “Cavai’s interactive formats do not rely on cookies - thereby providing an immediate solution to the multiple data complexities that brands and agencies need to navigate at this time, whilst also improving the quality of performance data via genuine, interaction-driven insights.”

Barceló’s audiences spent up to 60 seconds within the branded conversation, whilst Barceló were able to understand, instantly, how potential customers were interacting; thereby enabling real-time creative optimisation, and using insights to inform future marketing and business efforts.

Manuel Martínez Rodríguez, programmatic activation consultant at BMind, adds: “Asking people what they are interested in enables a personalised and positive brand experience, in which individuals feel respected and heard. [...] By enabling dialogue with brands, quality traffic improves and bounce rates diminish. In a respectful and privacy-guaranteed environment, people are guided through the sales funnel in a natural way. This has improved conversions and led to great results.”

Ruben Vinagre, performance marketing manager at Barceló, adds: "Cavai’s solution has allowed us to interact with users in a novel way. In addition to having obtained valuable insights about individual interests and concerns, it has helped us to attract qualified users who advance through the booking process; something that does not always happen in formats that are not so focused on performance."

Steffen Svartberg, founder and CEO of Cavai, comments: “This is a great example of the ways in which conversational advertising can enable genuine creativity in a competitive marketplace. We are absolutely delighted to have helped Barceló - particularly at this time when consumers are carefully reacquainting themselves with travel. It comes as we see increasing numbers of brands wake up to the need to engage consumers in dialogue; responding respectfully and creatively to their needs in the moment.”