Wildlands Multi-Channel Approach

Wildlands is a leading activity centre in the West of Ireland that offers over 20 indoor and outdoor activities and high-quality food and accommodation. They are located on 20 acres of mature woodland overlooking Ballyquirke Lough in Moycullen, Co. Galway.

Project Overview

Proactive was enlisted to take over all paid advertising activities for Wildlands over three months and to provide SEO support.

Year on Year Results

%

Website visitors increased

Over

Bookings generated

%

Users time on site increased

%

Google Ad CTR increased

%

Meta’s link CTR increased

%

Meta reach increased

%

Meta link clicks increased

Organic traffic increased

Paid search users increased

Our Approach

Audit

Proactive conducted a review of the client’s website and paid activity. This audit provided the foundations of our suggested approach for the project

Wildlands shared insights on what had been tried and tested in the past as well as other marketing activities being undertaken in-house – this was crucial to the success of this project.

We worked with Wildlands to improve the configuration of their GA4 events and conversions. The Google Ad account was tidied up with old conversions removed, new ones imported and asset folders implemented. We also made suggestions on how to improve paid ad activity across Google and Meta. The Proactive Digital team mapped out a comprehensive campaign strategy with a definitive advertising budget.

Paid Advertising

Google and Meta were used to create a comprehensive campaign strategy, taking into account general awareness campaigns, specific times of the year such as midterm break, seasonal ads as well as events such as the Wildlands Winter Wonderland experience.

Google Ads were mostly used for general awareness purposes to promote the booking of activities and stays, and to make customers aware of Wildland’s food offerings. We also promoted ticket sales for the Winter Wonderland experience and vouchers at Christmas search, display and performance max ad types.

Meta campaigns were used to focus on specific promotions including the midterm break, Black Friday, cabin stays, activities, and vouchers. A mix of images, graphics and videos were utilised to great effect. The client also boosted posts in-house to promote new activities and competitions.

LinkedIn was used to promote Wildland’s availability for corporate events and Christmas parties. This was a strategic campaign, targeting companies in Galway. Proactive liaised with Wildlands’ event manager to cross-share information from the campaign to generate leads.

SEO

As part of this campaign, we reviewed the website SEO and made several suggestions on how to improve performance. Wildlands worked with their web team to resolve any technical issues, while Proactive optimised the on-page SEO.

Using SEMrush, we were able to track improvements in their keyword rankings. Wildlands saw excellent improvements in keywords across all service areas – stay, play and eat, with 42 keywords showing on page one of Google search results, and 25 of these showing in a top three position and 17 in the top organic position.

One of the biggest keyword improvements overall was for their luxury wood cabins. They were previously not very visible organically, but by optimising metadata, improvements were made.

Cosy wooden cabins increased #12 > #2
Woodland cabins increased #19 > #3
Adventure stay increased #20 > #7

Award Listing

Building on the success of 2023 and continuing those stellar metrics into the current year, Wildlands have been recognised for their recent digital marketing efforts. The company has been shortlisted in the All-Ireland Marketing Awards in the category of ‘Small Business Marketing Award’.

This category celebrates small businesses that ‘cleverly leveraged limited resources and demonstrated creativity and flair in competing against larger and more powerful competitors’.

Each year, the All-Ireland Marketing Awards receive hundreds of entries. Wildlands have stood out from the pack and we are delighted to have played a part in their success.

Reporting

Weekly reporting and meetings were essential to share knowledge and keep on top of this multi-channel approach.

Proactive Project Team

Project manager – Elisha Daniëls
Digital strategy – Orla McShane
Digital support – Alex O’Connor, Aidan Reid