Content, Email, Social Media and SEO marketing strategies implemented for SubastadeOcio’s launch

1. Case Study
S U B A S T A D E O C I O
Content, Email, Social Media and SEO marketing
strategies implemented for SubastadeOcio’s
launch
Alejandro Torres
W R I T T E N B Y

2. W W W . A L E J A N D R O T O R R . E S S U B A S T A D E O C I O C A S E S T U D Y
B A C K G R O U N D
One month before SubastadeOcio’s
launch, the market became more diver-
sified as not one - but two new plat-
forms with our same business model
joined the competition: Biduzz &
Bidaway.
SubastadeOcio.es was launched in
Spain at the beginning of May 2013,
during an economic crisis.
The crisis hit Spaniards and their wal-
lets hard and created the right
market conditions for platforms that
offered low-cost or discounted travel
and leisure activities.
Groupon reigned supreme and many
wanted the crown. The market start-
ed to become saturated with many
companies like Groupalia, Ofertia,
Weekendesk, and LetsBonus offering
similar services while many others
were scammers who prayed on
unsavvy internet users, increasing
mistrust.
Groupon was our competitor and
king of our market, however, we
offered two different business
models: “collective purchase” VS
“auction.” There was no direct com-
petition.
NEW CHALLENGERS ENTER THE
ARENA
They beat us to the punch. Which
made the team nervous, while it
made me excited:
1. They could pave the way and
explain our business model.
2. I could analyze how to competitors
were handling the same issues I
was and use them as a point of
reference while learning what
worked and what didn’t.
THE PROBLEM
Coming in last place. How could I
make SubastadeOcio different and
succeed?
Before we
begin, you
oughtta know

3. ”
“
M A R C Z I N C K
Our second challenge was to find this efficiency we
had to get a sufficiently large volume of people bid-
ding. At this point “online marketing is really import-
ant,” and it is now, a non-existent problem. Ads
should be shown to people interested in travel and
leisure activities to let them know that there is a
different way to book these activities.

4. M A R K E T S A T U R A T I O N & C H E A P P R O P O S A L
THE CHALLENGE: Standing out from both: competitors dominating the
discounts/offers market as Groupon and other online auction websites that were
first to launch. Our business model could risk the perception of having cheap
leisure activities or not encouraging fast action.
C H A P T E R 0 1
Content
W W W . A L E J A N D R O T O R R . E S S U B A S T A D E O C I O C A S E S T U D Y

5. U X W R I T I N G
We offered experiences, and our bidders had to
experience the thrill of a live auction. For users
to be engaged and actively bid - we knew they
had to WANT IT.
The deals and activities offered on Subastad-
eOcio were similar to our competitors; how-
ever, the user experience was completely
different. In order to motivate our users to bid
in our auctions - and try again in case they
lost, we had to have a different tone and style.
Every message, every button, every process.
We needed to bring the thrill of a live auction
to our platform. We needed a CTA (call-to-ac-
tion) that triggered our bidder’s passion and
encouraged them to outbid each other. Com-
mands like “Learn More” or “More info” are for
offers you can get anytime, anywhere. We
wanted users to feel FOMO (fear of missing
out). Miss out from an activity, miss out from
naming their own price. They had to feel the
urgency; they had to WANT IT.
Thus, I suggested using “LO QUIERO” on our
buttons, which became synonymous with
our platform.
“Lo quiero” (I want
it): a CTA that
knew how to push
buttons
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6. P R O D U C T C O N T E N T
When users came to our platform, they weren’t bidding for a dinner at a
restaurant or a weekend getaway, they were bidding for experiences:
and each auction's content had one goal: selling the experience.
The market was saturated with the same offers, we needed to stand
out and be memorable. Titles, short descriptions, long descriptions,
and any piece of content had to be playful and break with the “tradi-
tional” tone used by our competitors.
To sell the experience, users had to picture themselves enjoying the
activity or plan we were auctioning. To earn their trust and avoid
unhappy customers we also made to zoom in on the small print.
W W W . A L E J A N D R O T O R R . E S S U B A S T A D E O C I O C A S E S T U D Y
Our content: irreverent -
yet informative

7. The content in this section had to put users
“in the driver's seat,” describing the experi-
ence so they feel the joy they could have if
they won the auction, thus generating great-
er interest, engagement, and bidding.
Picture it...
For users to imagine the whole picture, each
auction clearly described the experience:
what's included, additional fees (if any), avail-
ability, blackout dates, and all the informa-
tion they could need to make an informed
decision.
Not so fine(print)
W W W . A L E J A N D R O T O R R . E S S U B A S T A D E O C I O C A S E S T U D Y

8. AUCTIONS
FINAL
BIDS
PRICE
RAISED BY
50%

9. U S E R E N G A G E M E N T A N D T R A F F I C
THE CHALLENGE: motivate registered users to participate in auctions, engage in
bis wars, and ultimately raise total bid prices.
C H A P T E R 0 2
Email Marketing
W W W . A L E J A N D R O T O R R . E S S U B A S T A D E O C I O C A S E S T U D Y

10. Without a doubt, the email that our users
would see most frequently. The email was
triggered when someone had a higher bid
and was on the lead and how they could get
back on top. I wanted users to know they
could win the auction by bidding again. By
users outbidding each other, it would raise
the final bid price for all auctions, giving our
providers a better ROI. A better ROI per
provider would increase their loyalty, provid-
ing better products and conditions or even
exclusive products.
EMAIL SUBJECT: “Someone dared to outbid
you in [auction name]”
CTA: “Will you let this go unpunished? Show
them who's the boss!"
Gamified emails:
You were Outbid
01
After noticing a spike in traffic and bids
before an auction's timer reached zero, I
learned that to increase the odds of winning
and keeping final auction prices low, some
users would wait until the very end of an
auction to make their first bid.
We risked alienating early bidders, who could
believe our platform was rigged, and our
providers if their earnings were low. The solu-
tion? Fifteen minutes before an auction ends,
all bidders would receive a notification to
stay vigilant so they could win.
EMAIL SUBJECT: “It could be yours ; [auction
name] is about to end!”
CTA: Are you going to let them take it? No
way! Act faster than them.
Auction ending soon
02
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11. When an auction ended, all users - except the winner - received an email notifying
them about the auction ending, who the winner was, and when the auction
would be live again. This email increased transparency, helping us build user trust
and sales.
Auction ended - users who didn’t win
03
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12. EMAIL
#1
TRAFFIC
SOURCE

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W E A L S O N E E D E D V A L I D A T I O N
THE CHALLENGE: with rampant distrust by internet users and many
companies scamming people, how could we earn users' trust?
Find Out More
T I M E T O G E T C R E A T I V E
Creativity is more
important than
knowledge
C H A P T E R 0 3
Social Media

14. “People who have nothing to hide, hide nothing. You should be an open book, be trans-
parent.” Phillip C. McGraw
In 2013, internet users in Spain were
wary of trusting online businesses.
Scams were frequent, and to top it all
off: for the spanish market, Subastad-
eOcio's business model was brand
new, untested and different.
Our social media channels were an
asset for building trust. We did these
by sharing three type of publications
on our Fan pages:
Social
Proof
1. SCREENCAPTURE FINISHED AUC-
TIONS WITH AWESOME DEALS
Did someone get an awesome deal
on our platform? We showed it!
Seeing is believing. I shared those
screen captures as posts in our social
media, although, for privacy, I hid
their profile info. Now our followers
could see we were for real and that it
was possible to name your price to
enjoy your favorite activities.
2. CALLING ALL #SUBASTEROS
Curious and cautious followers who
were weary flooded our social media
channel with comments and ques-
tions to our users. They wanted vali-
dation.
We would publicly tag those users in
a public post sharing their queries
with our community and asking
them to share their experiences.
3. USER GENERATED CONTENT
To collect user feedback and improve
our services, we contacted #subaster-
os that had claimed and participated
in leisure activities purchased on our
platform. Most, if not all were positive
feedback, so we asked them for con-
sent to share it on our website and
social media, serving as social proof.
W W W . A L E J A N D R O T O R R . E S S U B A S T A D E O C I O C A S E S T U D Y

15. Content created to share as social proof on our website, newsletter, and social
media channels.
Social
Proof
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16. S
O
C
I
A
L
P
R
O
O
F
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17. W W W . A L E J A N D R O T O R R . E S S U B A S T A D E O C I O C A S E S T U D Y
N O ( K E Y ) W O R D S T O D E S C R I B E U S
THE CHALLENGE: no one was looking for us. Purchasing leisure activities
on live digital auctions was unheard of. Internet users searched for
keywords such as “hotel discountes,” “hotel offers;” those who looked for
“hotel auctions” were looking to buy a hotel, not book a night. Free
organic search seemed an impossible traffic source channel.
Find Out More
T I M E T O G E T C R E A T I V E
Creativity is more
important than
knowledge
C H A P T E R 0 4
SEO - SEM & Online Ads

18. Epic battles, worthy of Games of
Thrones, were fought by competitors
like Groupon, Groupalia, and LetsBo-
nus to be #1 on SERP results using
“offer” as their keyword.
Competitors like Bidduz and Bidaway,
were positioning their content with
“auction” as part of their keywords.
Should we follow suit?
Copying our competitors could have
been an expensive and potentially
destructive mistake.
ERROR 404
Using Google Trends and their key-
word search index tool, I realized that
simply swapping the word “offer” for
“auction” to generate new keywords
(as the others had done) was not
going to work, as internet users didn’t
use these search terms.
Like N’Sync before me, I was now
going to sing “Bye, bye, bye” to plan
an SEO and an SEM strategy.
SHOULD WE JOIN THE COMPETI-
TION?
Our current content and content
guidelines had to be modified to
include: “offers” as a keyword. For
example: leisure offers, hotel offers,
restaurant offers, etc...
The IT team updated our in house
CMS to assist our on-site SEO efforts.
The CMS would use the product title,
product descriptions and image file
name as meta and alt-tags automati-
caly.
Our content manual was updated to
record this process and include the
new "irrerent" style guidelines.

19. Since day one I knew "offers" was only a
temporary keyword. I needed to gener-
ate awareness around "auctions."
The competition was tough, but I wasn’t
going to back down. Competitors had
been in the market for longer, and we
were playing catch-up.
To index more pages, raking with
long-tail keywords we created new
categories and subcategories pages
and included canonical links.
Any and every meta information,
alt-title, or anchor text we already had
was optimized or created.
We used our blog to help us position
our top keywords, generating content
that included them or creating inter-
nal links.
I also did off-site SEO, and participat-
ed in content exchange and
link-building efforts on third-party
websites and directories.
Sure, our content was search-en-
gine-spider bait, but it had to be read-
able to our visitors, so we did use the
keyword “auction” in our website,
content, and meta info.
To do so, I turned to social ad cam-
paigns on Facebook and did media
buying using RTB to generate aware-
ness, focusing on our claim as “hotels
from 1€. You decide the price!"
Once visitors started pouring in and
converting, I started using ”auction”
on our push campaigns.
We analyzed our platform traffic
sources to monitor any changes in
search terms, and a few months in,
we started receiving organic traffic
from users who had used “auction” as
a keyword on their search terms.
When I noticed a spike in traffic from
these sources, I modified our on-site
SEO, exchanging the word “offers” for
“auctions.”
And yes, that was the plan all along.
Competing by
pushing and pulling
W W W . A L E J A N D R O T O R R . E S S U B A S T A D E O C I O C A S E S T U D Y

20. E-Commerce Awards 2014. From left to right:
Alejandro Torres, (Marketing Director), Marc
Zinck (CEO), Ignacio López (Sales Director)
JUNE 2014
D A T A
Biggest Online auction platform
community on social media - beat-
ing eBay Spain.
#1
Registered users
250K
Unique daily visitors
15K
Awarded auctions
200K