Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) is the organisation responsible for marketing New Zealand to the world. They’re the team who make New Zealand the destination over 3.8 million people choose to travel to every year, a country renowned for its untamed wilderness and rich culture.
Among many things, TNZ supports local tourism businesses and operators (of all sizes), from local tourist attractions to global hotel chains, such as QT. And that’s where we came in.
We started working with TNZ in 2019, after a direct introduction from Facebook (who had been supporting TNZ to find ways to better assist and activate their operator network through digital). We joined forces with their Global Team across multiple departments (including Operator Support, Marketing, Digital and Tech).
The Problem
Supporting their operator network has always been a priority for TNZ, but they wanted to offer more than just a slice of referral traffic from their website. Their previous agency helped TNZ run Facebook Ads on behalf of operators to track conversions and offer basic insights into the value they could provide to their network. However, the process was time-intensive, managed manually within the Facebook ecosystem and generated low uptake (with just 6 trial participants).
TNZ needed an innovative, tech-driven solution they could implement at-scale across their operator network (something no other agencies had the skills or tools to create). That is, until they found The Pistol.
The Solution
We were nominated by Facebook as their agency-of-choice to use our proprietary tech to solve TNZ’s problem. Side note, we’ve been working and building tech platforms alongside Facebook since 2011, making us the only agency of our kind in Australia who has the know-how to design infrastructure from the ground-up for our clients.
Our Strategy team sat down with TNZ to get clear on how we could help. Next, we conducted a deep dive into their operations to find the best solution for their needs. In this case, we landed on our TP.Dynamic platform as the backbone for the Facebook Connects NZ Operators program, which launched in June 2020. And here’s why.
The TP.Dynamic platform captured and dynamically retargeted high-intent visitors from the TNZ website. Visitors received tailored ads from the 100% Pure New Zealand Facebook Page that drove them directly to the operator’s own site to book.
Our tech handpicked ads for each unique visitor, with hyper-relevant creative curated to match to the way users interacted on the TNZ website. For example, if visitors were researching the best hiking tracks on the South Island, we matched them with guided tour operators in the area, overlaying reviews and a range of price points to minimse friction and maximise conversion to streamline the path-to-purchase.
Our proprietary tech empowered TNZ’s operator network with unparalleled access to the more than 50 million annual unique website visitors that head to TNZ’s site, without compromising privacy regulations. This all-new capability provided operators with a personalised dashboard that showcased what dynamic ads our platform curated, how much traffic TNZ drove to their site, plus the number of conversions the program generated for their business. Talk about radical transparency.
During the process, we came up against operational roadblocks and needed to find ways to pivot and improve. As a tech-led company, we had the in-house expertise to build new solutions, create new tools and use our TP.Bespoke business arm to remove roadblocks that would have stopped others in their tracks.
While the wheels for this program were already in motion well before the pandemic, launching in June 2020 couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. Now, more than ever, supporting each other in business is a top priority. Through the Facebook Connects NZ Operators program, we’ve delivered a gold-standard example of collaboration that has generated tangible value for all involved.
The Results
Let’s talk numbers. In the past six months, we’ve partnered with nearly 72 operators and our latest data indicates we’ve delivered close to $5 million in conversion value. To date, the program has reached over 38.4 million users with 17,600 conversions.
Now, we’re in the process of opening this program up to other operators to continue delivering results that move the needle for TNZ and their operator network.
But, we get our biggest kicks from enabling TNZ to realise their ambitions and leverage tech to achieve measurable business outcomes. We’ve sparked TNZ’s appetite for innovation and delivered a solution that can be rolled out across a range of media and creative formats (including dynamic video production).
We’re now TNZ’s trusted partner and collaborator, providing the tools and tech to bring their big ideas to life. Our unique blend of marketing and tech expertise ensures we can support TNZ and their operators to generate market-leading results at-scale.