Through the Funnel: Why Travel Brands Must Invest in Awareness to Win Long-Term
If you’ve been watching your digital acquisition costs climb while your growth stalls, your brand might be hitting the "Performance Plateau", and we now have the data to prove it.
We are thrilled to share “Through the Funnel,” a major new industry white paper co-authored by Llama co-founder Heath Heise in partnership with our friends at Accord Marketing and brand-tracking specialists Tracksuit.
After analysing five years of financial and media data across 50 travel brands, the report reveals exactly how an industry-wide over-reliance on short-term performance marketing is quietly eroding profit margins, and why the most resilient brands are actively protecting their upper-funnel brand investment to escape the "Duopoly Tax."
Packed with strategic insights and real-world case studies, this report is your blueprint for balancing emotional storytelling with sales activation to build long-term, profitable demand.
The Launch at News UK
It is finally here.
On 11 March, surrounded by industry peers at the Travel Marketing Question Time event at News UK, we officially launched the findings.
For the last few months, we have been digging deep into this trend. In the post-pandemic rush for immediate ROI and measurable certainty, too many travel brands retreated to the bottom of the funnel. It felt safe. It was easy to justify to the board. But the long-term reality is catching up with us. The result of this short-termism is a growing dependency on "rented demand," skyrocketing CPAs, and a hefty premium paid straight into the coffers of Google and Meta.
We wanted to move beyond the theory and look at the commercial reality. We wanted to see what happens to the bottom line when brands over-correct towards performance, versus those who maintain a disciplined, full-funnel mix.
The results were unequivocal. The brands that treat brand investment not as a "soft cost" or a vanity metric, but as commercial risk management and margin protection, are the ones winning. They understand that you cannot sustainably harvest demand if you are not investing upstream to create it.
The results were unequivocal. The brands that treat brand investment not as a "soft cost" or a vanity metric, but as commercial risk management and margin protection, are the ones winning. They understand that you cannot sustainably harvest demand if you are not investing upstream to create it.
Theory in Action
To bring the data to life, we sat down with some of the sharpest minds in the industry. A massive thank you to the brilliant marketing leaders who candidly shared their "Theory in Action" for this report, proving that emotion, distinctiveness, and upper-funnel storytelling still rule the day:
Jenny Sowerby (Sandals Resorts)
Erin Johnson (The Specialist Holidays Group)
Ross Matthews (Eurocamp)
Elizabeth Cunningham (Avios / IAG Loyalty)
Jody Wallace (Celebrity Cruises)
If you are a travel marketer, a founder, or a CFO wondering why your digital acquisition costs keep rising while your organic growth stalls, this white paper was written for you. It is a strategic blueprint for escaping the Google trap and building sustainable, long-term demand.
We would love to hear your thoughts. Have we as an industry become over-indexed on the bottom of the funnel? Read the report and let us know where you stand in the comments.
