MSC Cruises embarks into direct online sales and expands its customer base

Growing demand in the cruise industry and a shift in consumers’ purchasing behavior towards digital interactions bring MSC Cruises to move towards a different way to engage and acquire new clients–a combined strategy between offline and online channels.

To overcome the current challenges, the company is continuously looking for innovative advertising media partners that can help it increase its customer base and also provide it with valuable insights of its audiences across multiple markets.

MSC Cruises’ marketing team had a specific need to increase at scale their direct online sales, through eCommerce and their Contact Center, in France, UK, and Italy.

MSC Cruises saw in Quantcast the ideal partner to develop its online display strategy and to boost online sales across those markets.

First, Quantcast identified MSC Cruises’ audiences by analyzing the behaviors of those customers who already bought a cruise. Thanks to its unique, proprietary, first-party data set and its AI-powered platform, Quantcast was able to target users across the web who were showing similar behaviors to the identified audience.

Quantcast used its full-funnel solution to reach new potential customers, who were in-market for booking their next cruise ship holiday, and engage with them effectively. If the prospects didn’t convert at the first site visit, Quantcast addressed them again through well-balanced retargeting and influenced them towards the purchase.

Quantcast proved to be a valid partner for MSC Cruises, helping them to succeed in the everyday challenge of acquiring new customers. Quantcast, through its display activities, was able to drive a return on ad spend (ROAS) of 148% higher than the set goal.

For MSC Cruises, these audience insights were critical to better understand their customers’ problems and behaviors, enabling them to uncover opportunities to reach new potential audiences that they had never considered before. Their use of Quantcast insights was not limited to the optimization of digital strategy; it also helped to inform other marketing activities across the company.