The Ziba Hotel & Spa
Smartconnect helped us generate qualified traffic and thus increase quote requests through our website without spending a cent more on advertising.
Peschiera del Garda, Italy
25
Context
The Ziba Hotel & Spa is a stylish boutique hotel in Peschiera del Garda, known for its wellness-focused stays. The property features a 300 m² spa and offers tailored wellness packages developed in collaboration with external professionals like yoga instructors and nutritionists.
Its core audience consists of Italian couples, while in the summer months, the hotel also attracts guests from across Northern Europe. A commitment to sustainability – including paperless operations, plastic-free policies, and the goal of achieving carbon neutrality – aligns perfectly with its wellness philosophy, offering guests a relaxing and eco-conscious experience.
The challenge
The Ziba Hotel & Spa set out to become the go-to destination for wellness in the southern Lake Garda region. To achieve that, the team invested in advertising campaigns focused on acquiring new, high-potential guests – but the results didn’t meet expectations.
“We tried running Google Ads, but the results were inconsistent and the return on investment just wasn’t there. We needed a stronger strategy to build and reinforce our brand identity.” - The Ziba Hotel & Spa Team
At the same time, the property wanted to improve its margins by reducing commissions paid to online travel agencies. While 50% of bookings came through platforms like Booking.com, only 37% were made via direct channels.
The solution
To strengthen its brand and reduce reliance on OTAs, The Ziba Hotel & Spa turned to Smartconnect and managed to transform its guest database into a powerful communication channel.
With Smartconnect, the team built a targeted email marketing strategy centered around three key pillars:
- Segmentation: Sending personalized offers based on guests’ preferences and past stay behavior.
- Planning: Scheduling campaigns around specific moments like Valentine’s Day, ensuring consistent and timely communication.
- Analysis & optimization: Using performance metrics to track results and continuously improve campaign effectiveness.
The results
The very first email campaign, sent for Valentine’s Day, delivered impressive results:
- 55% open rate, well above the industry average of 38%
- 14% click-through rate, nearly three times the benchmark (5%)
- 119 website visits, all without spending anything on paid ads
“To generate the same traffic through Google Ads, we would have had to spend over €100. Smartconnect helped us attract qualified traffic at no extra cost and drove more quote requests through our website.” - The Ziba Hotel & Spa Team
Mono Suites
You have your strategy, your knowledge of your property, and the system helps execute it more efficiently than any manual approach ever could.
Garda Relais
Smartconnect allowed us to start a journey we had in mind but couldn’t put into practice. Now we know it’s possible to turn unused contacts into real guests.