Case Study

SaleCycle and Merlin Entertainments Group UK: Driving sales and lifelong memories

7 steps to declutter your online store and boost conversions

Merlin Entertainments Group UK helps to unlock new memories with over 20 nationwide attractions. From theme parks to aquariums and even chocolate factories (yes, really), there’s truly something for everyone.

It's home to some of the biggest thrill-seeking names in the UK, including both Alton Towers and Thorpe Park. Globally, Merlin Entertainments Group attracts over 60 million annual visitors to its portfolio of 135 attractions.

Since 2021, Merlin UK has been working with SaleCycle to optimise online performance and drive conversions.

No emails required

Merlin Goals

^{Engage users earlier}

in the customer journey

^Target^users

logged-in and anonymous users who had expressed browsing interest

^{Maximise revenue}

during crucial moments by retargeting
top-of-funnel abandoners

The forecast before SaleCycle

Recent research by YouGov shows that only 11% of British people visit a theme park at least once a year. Like anything that we don’t do often, it’s important to ensure that it’s a considered decision.

So it’s hardly surprising that Merlin UK saw a large number of users leaving its website before
completing their ticket purchase.

In addition to lost sales, the high abandonment rate also created other issues that needed to be addressed. As users weren’t completing their booking journey, they also couldn’t be re-targeted with marketing messages. This is due to consent not being collected, so that they could be contacted.

The SaleCycle solution

To address the challenges faced by Merlin UK, SaleCycle implemented tags on all UK ticket and short break pages. This would allow the required consent to be collected in order to re-target users who abandoned the ticket-buying journey.

In addition to this, a two-cycle, bespoke email campaign was introduced. The emails targeted users who had started the checkout journey and not completed it. These messages were triggered one hour after abandonment, followed by a subsequent email 24 hours after.

More recently, Merlin UK also introduced SMS across key sites to create a more omnichannel approach.

‍

The results

20.5%

Click-through Rate

0.9%

Conversion rate

3,293

Conversions

£225,060

Sales uplift

““SaleCycle has always been highly professional and easy to work with. They are always monitoring and analysing our live campaigns and suggesting improvements to increase impressions year-on-year.”“The team works with a variety of contacts within Merlin to ensure any changes (both technical and creative) are complete at the earliest possible opportunity and that results are shared with the local CRM Team.

t is clear that their hard work and dedication to Merlin lead to healthy conversion within the campaigns, as well as ensuring that the customer journey appears seamless to our guests.”

No emails required