Eurail’s eCommerce Connection are the In-house Paid Media Team of the Year

Eurail’s eCommerce Connection is a new team, brought together at the start of 2022, but has already achieved some phenomenal marketing and sales outcomes. We’re delighted to be recognised for this and win In-house Paid Media Team of the Year.

Eurail BV – Travel in 33 countries with 1 rail Pass

Established in 1959, Eurail gives travellers from all over the world the opportunity to experience flexible, borderless train travel across Europe. With a Eurail or Interrail Pass (for non-European and European residents respectively), travellers of all ages can use an expansive network of train and ferry connections to travel sustainably in and between up to 33 countries. Eurail BV, based in Utrecht, the Netherlands, is responsible for the sales, marketing and management of Eurail and Interrail Passes, with 2 official channels: Eurail.com & Interrail.eu.

eCommerce Connection team

Our new team brings together paid channel owners (Social, Display, SEA), in-house creators (Copywriter and Visual Designer), SEO Manager and a Data Analyst. The goal was to create a self-sufficient paid media team, which could collaborate closely and experiment more, turning around campaigns and results faster.

This fast and responsive approach was needed in the unpredictable post-covid travel market. So the team adopted an agile workflow, turning around creative requests in two-week sprints; and a data-led growth mindset, using data to identify easy wins and market opportunities.

Targeting 2.0

eCommerce Connection puts the customer at the centre of everything we do. By adopting a full-funnel approach, we attempted to engage them at every stage, from awareness to conversion, keeping copy and visuals consistent and optimised throughout.

We reached our customers with improved targeting, going beyond demographics. Using two new audience profiles, we increased our understanding of who the personas are – their interests and motivations. This informed the creation of dedicated copy and visuals for each persona per campaign.

We even experienced being a customer, embarking on our own 7-day Interrail trip across Europe, with all its challenges and rewards.

Increased brand awareness and sales

All of this produced phenomenal 2022 results. Aided brand awareness increased by 22%, while online ad recall increased by 186%. Meanwhile, 2022’s sales total of 650k Passes indicated a recovery from the covid-19 crisis (139k Passes in 2021) and even a 120% increase on the pre-covid market (295k Passes in 2019). We are extremely proud and excited because this translates into 650,000 travellers getting on a train to explore Europe in sustainable way.

“Eurail’s eCommerce Connection team goes one step further. They constantly conduct industry research to stay up to date with trends, reviewing results, and experiment to identify new growth opportunities. This all resulted in the biggest commercial success in the history of the company.” – Roel Verhagen, Eurail’s Chief Customer Officer (CCO)

An evolving team

After the success of 2022, the eCommerce Connection team continued to evolve. All members received more opportunities to grow their careers, with new positions or upskilling. The team also grew with new members, including a Digital Marketing Coordinator, to further coordinate and align our paid channels; and a new Web Analyst, to keep us all informed and focused on data.

The team’s success has continued, with a historic sale of over 1 million Passes in 2023. We look forward to further success in 2024.