We look back on what has made this partnership a success, and talk to Oliver’s Travels co-founder Oliver Bell for his take

Kinase’s relationship with our longest-standing client Oliver’s Travels has been one of mutual growth and success. That’s why we were thrilled when Oliver’s Travels was crowned “Best Villa Rental Company” in the prestigious 2024 Condé Nast Traveller Readers’ Choice Awards.

Kinase has been a strategic partner to Oliver’s Travels since 2013. We began by focusing on Paid Search campaigns, helping build up the brand’s online presence from scratch, and working on the rebrand from their original name Simply Chateau.

There’s a lot of talk these days about “leveraging first party data” as effective bid and budget management becomes commoditised through tools such as Google’s Smart Bidding – but we’ve been doing it right from early on.

Using bid automation presents a challenge for luxury sector players like Oliver’s Travels – smaller transaction volumes (although high value!) means there are fewer signals to use and it’s easy to waste money and miss growth opportunities.

Kinase and Oliver’s Travels tested and developed a series of effective proxies for purchase intent using signals such as offline CRM data - so we could be (relatively!) sure we were spending on the right keywords and audiences even if the results took time to materialise.

Oliver’s Travels co-founder Oliver Bell said “Data is the foundation to our performance. Yes, it gives us the competitive edge over some, but others are doing the same.

“So for OT it’s about maximising our own performance, using data to better target audiences, show what’s working and what isn’t, enable us to test and learn, as well as using external data alongside our own to help point us in the right direct and take the next steps as we continue to grow.”

Throughout our relationship, Oliver’s Travels has been growing: Adding more properties, in more countries, building up to the nearly 10,000 across 23 countries they have today, while also investing in back end technology and getting favourable press coverage and ever more customers.

This allowed us to become more sophisticated in our measurement and optimisation. In fact, Kinase played a pivotal role in unlocking the value of first-party data for Oliver’s Travels. By integrating offline CRM data and generating customer journey insights, they revolutionized how the company approached Search growth. This allowed them to capitalise on advanced bidding technologies, even with limited data volumes, and adapt to the ever-changing landscape of luxury travel.

Oliver Bell said: “Looking back, I wish I had known the importance of truly understanding our audience from the very beginning. In 2013, we were focused on launching new destinations and just pushing them out into the market, without fully grasping the customer pain points, needs, and desires.

“I wish I had known the importance of truly understanding our audience from the very beginning”

— Oliver Bell, Co-founder of Oliver's Travels

“We’ve since learned that successful marketing isn’t just about having a great product—it’s about connecting with people on a deeper level, aligning our messaging to what our customers value.”

Building on success in Paid Search, the addition of upper funnel channels was a crucial driver of ongoing awareness and consequently sales growth in more recent years.

As a high-consideration and inspiration-driven purchase decision, the Social channel proved especially effective at reaching new customers and Kinase expanded OT’s activity to encompass YouTube, Meta, Pinterest and TikTok.

What’s the best thing about working with Kinase?

“Continuity, knowledge and a genuine, open partnership that has helped drive our phenomenal growth.”