As the winter season approaches, ski rental businesses and other winter activities such as transport services are in their golden time to get solid digital marketing strategies and tactical action in place to get early season sales.
With fierce competition in ski resorts and a growing emphasis on online presence, it is vital to adopt a robust digital marketing strategy that drives bookings and enhances visibility. Ideally you want to get bookings before people visit your town or resort, so they have made their mind up before walking past your competitors.
In this article we will explore the key digital marketing tactics tailored specifically for ski and snowboard rental businesses and winter transport, the ones that have allowed us to achieve results for clients like:
- +671% in pre-season sales year on year for a ski rental business
- Every $1 spent on Google Ads resulting in up to $73.04 in sales in a peak holiday month
- A $6,000 increase in ad spend one season, resulting in $74,000 more in sales
- Turning $1 in Facebook spend into up to $12.44 in sales
- Sending emails that bring in $26,850 in a few days, and open rates of up to 49.79%
This is the long read. For how we actually run each channel for a rental store, see our ski and snowboard rental marketing hub.
Start your digital marketing early and know your market
The earlier you start your digital marketing before the winter season, the better a position you will be in. Google will not spend your budget if there are not enough searches to spend it on, and early value-added emails keep you top of mind.
Knowing your market is also key. Here in New Zealand our biggest spenders are Australians, so that is where we expect to get most of our revenue from. We also adjust budgets as the season changes and move marketing spend towards more of the local and domestic market around school holiday periods.
Is your market from a local city, or overseas, and when are their booking periods and average lead time, so you can maximise your visibility? Google Trends shows the obvious pattern between the northern and southern hemispheres: demand is lower before the season, and that also means less competition, earlier eyeballs on your offers and cheaper ad costs.
Google Trends: worldwide interest in "ski rentals" across a year. The dips before each season are when ads are cheaper and inboxes are quieter.
Track everything with Google Analytics and Google Ads
If you are serious about your digital marketing, you need to ensure you are tracking everything. What you do not measure, you cannot improve. Digital marketing analytics is vital, so you can amplify what is working and analyse what is not.
If something appears not to be working, there may be a story behind it. For example, if your Google Ads is driving traffic but you offer a 10% discount for subscribing to emails, then your email will likely claim all the revenue. That is misleading.
All your conversion points for sales and contact should be measured and fed between systems. The key events, as they are known in Google Analytics, are events like:
- Purchases
- Email clicks
- Contact form submissions
- Phone call clicks
To get more accurate data, you should also have native tracking within each platform, like Google Ads conversions, the Meta pixel and TikTok. You can customise Analytics to capture extra data too, like revenue per user. One of our clients had an average value of over $8 for every single visit to the site.
Average revenue per session for one client: $8.73. Once you can see this number, budget decisions stop being guesswork.
Accurate tracking is particularly important if you use a third-party booking system. If your analytics is not configured correctly, more often than not your sales data is misleading, because sales get attributed to the wrong channel. Trust us, we have seen this in hundreds of accounts over the years. Your booking system can quietly break your digital marketing, because booking platforms are notorious for not supporting the full suite of marketing analytics and tracking, especially when you want to track natively on each platform like Google Ads. Over the years we have dealt with dozens of booking systems, and even helped to fix software code on a few.
If you are not using native tracking for the platform, you are likely under-reporting the success of your campaigns. Take the difference between the Google Analytics 4 view of the world, which shows the last non-direct click, and the native Google Ads pixel's view of the same well-configured account over one month. The Google Ads pixel reports the impact of people seeing ads throughout the user journey. If your customers saw a Google Ad first, then came back to book later, but you based results on Google Analytics, which around 90% of businesses do, you would be under-reporting your Google Ads. That can leave you without the confidence to invest more in the right channel. On one account there was a $138,000 difference between the two numbers, and that was on a $5,100 spend bringing in $241,000 in revenue.
The same account, two views. Google Ads counts $241,050 in booking value, GA4's last-click view counts $103,971. That gap is real revenue you could wrongly credit to another channel.
This is exactly why we insist on getting the foundations right. We go deeper into it on our conversion tracking for ski rental page.
Local SEO for ski rentals: your competitive edge
Local search engine optimisation is crucial for ski and snowboard rental businesses. When potential customers search for ski rentals in your area, you want to be at the top of their results. There are a few elements to this. We cover the full picture on our SEO and AI optimisation page, and the essentials are below.
Google Business Profile
Creating and optimising your Google Business Profile is a critical element of local SEO. Ensure your profile is complete with accurate information, including your address, phone number and hours. Use high-quality images showcasing your equipment and services, and make sure your products and services are listed and described.
Do not forget to put posts on your Google Business Profile either. That is a good way of keeping your profile active and up to date, and making deals visible. If there are no Google Ads, Google Business Profile listings appear at the top of Google for most business category searches.
A search with no ads running: the Google Business Profile listings sit right at the top of the page.
You can also track all the referrals from your Google Business Profile so you can see its impact within Google Analytics. It may be significantly more than you think, and if it is not, how can you improve it? Note that this tracking needs to be configured, it is not default behaviour.
Referrals from a Google Business Profile, tracked in GA4: $17,038 in value that most stores never measure at all.
Online reviews matter for ski rental stores
Actively managing your online reputation through customer reviews is essential. It is the modern word of mouth. Responding to reviews, both positive and negative, demonstrates excellent customer service and can influence a potential customer's decision.
Encourage customers to leave reviews via post-visit emails, as positive feedback boosts your credibility and ranking in local search. Do not be afraid of bad reviews. Everyone gets them at times. Just reply politely and move on. Good reviews help get your skis and boards onto more racks on the mountain.
Full racks on the mountain: the goal every rental season.
On-site SEO for ski rentals: enhancing user experience
Optimising your website for search engines will help you rank higher and attract more visitors. A few key strategies:
- Keyword research. Identify relevant keywords that potential customers use, such as "ski rentals [your location]" or "best snowboard rentals in [your location]". Incorporate these naturally throughout your content, including headings and meta descriptions.
- Quality content. Create informative, engaging content that answers common questions about skiing, rentals and transport. This boosts your SEO and establishes your authority in the industry. Do not be afraid to widen your content. People looking for bus timetables are likely looking for ski rentals too, and there may be a way to partner with other local businesses on this.
- Mobile optimisation. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly. Many customers will be searching on their phones while on the go.
Can you offer an alternative to content people look for regularly? I have often wanted a client to write an alternative snow report, so when you know it is a "day for the enthusiasts" it is really "icy as Antarctica with a 185km per hour wind". Obviously you would write that in a way that does not discourage your sales.
Email marketing for ski and snowboard rentals
Email marketing is a powerful tool for engaging past customers and potential leads. I remember one client who was wary of "blasting someone's inbox", but their mind was soon changed when we grew towards sending an email that brought in $27,500. There is much more on our email marketing for ski rental page. Consider these strategies:
- Welcome series. Create an email sequence for new subscribers that introduces your services, highlights promotions and shares useful tips, including how to make the most of the "off days" when they are tired.
- Regular updates. Keep your audience informed about new gear, special offers and seasonal promotions. Use enticing subject lines to boost open rates.
- Email subject lines. Do not be afraid to use simple subject lines like "Are you coming back to [your location] this winter?". A subject line like that got us a 49.79% open rate to a list of 51,257 past customers who were not used to the client emailing them.
- Clean your data. In today's email climate you need to clean your list using a third-party verification service, so old addresses are removed and you do not trigger spam warnings and a high bounce rate. Be aware of your local legislation, be compliant at the point of registration, and always make it easy to unsubscribe.
Database reactivation: re-engaging past ski rental customers
Do not let your previous ski and snowboard customers slip away. It is usually cheaper to sell to a previous customer than a new one. Many stores have regions that bring repeat customers from a local city or overseas. Re-engaging previous customers leads to repeat bookings. Here is how to tackle it with email:
- Personalised campaigns. Use your database to send tailored promotions to previous customers. Offer discounts or exclusive deals to encourage them to book again.
- Surveys and feedback. Reach out to past customers for feedback on their experience. It shows you value their opinion, and it gives you insight into improving your service.
- Bring customers up to speed. You live and breathe your location. What new restaurants or activities have opened up since the previous season? That is a great way to add value.
Google Ads for ski rentals: getting ahead of the competition
With many businesses vying for attention, Google Ads can give you an edge. It is the most direct, intent-based advertising platform, because with search campaigns people are telling you exactly what they are looking for. Outside of a highly engaged email database, it is the platform most likely to bring you the most bang for your buck. Our Google Ads for ski rental page covers how we structure it.
Everyone wants to be "top of Google", but when most people say that, they picture organic results. The reality is that top of Google is usually an advert. If it is not, that could be an opportunity for you. Note that ads are shown on real-time bids based on behaviour and location, so just because you do not see any, it does not mean nobody is running them. For most business category searches you then get several Google Business Profile results, and finally the organic results. In some industries the top organic result could be four scrolls down a mobile screen.
No ads running on this search. That is an open goal for any store willing to run them.
That is where Google Ads comes in. You have to be in it to win it, and the payoff can be big, as long as it is done correctly.
The biggest mistake we see is a business setting up a campaign in-house, following Google's wizards, and ticking the "running Google Ads" box. The downside is that you are likely:
- Targeting keywords that waste budget
- Wasting a large percentage of budget
- Not tracking your results
Here is how to maximise your Google Ad spend for your ski and snowboard hire business:
- Targeted campaigns. Create ads specifically targeting ski rental and transport keywords in your region, and more so the region your customers come from. Use location-based targeting, and consider splitting budgets. If you get more customers and a higher return from Washington than Vancouver, then split the campaigns and allocate budget appropriately.
- Different campaign types. Google is not just search ads. It has video, display and remarketing. Combining these makes you more visible. There are also interest and affinity groups you can target. A favourite of mine is targeting sites that carry local ski reports, and a lot of advertising banners.
- Remarketing. Reach users who visited your site but did not convert. It keeps your brand top of mind as they weigh up their options.
- Be curious, keep testing. Approach your Google Ads like a targeted test, and be willing to spend to test campaign types. If you only chase the highest return on ad spend, you miss out on visibility, and the reverse is true too. Do not be afraid of recording a store walkthrough on your phone for a video ad. It is a great personal touch.
- Spend enough. Many businesses think you can throw a few hundred dollars a month at it and it is the golden ticket. A tiny budget limits the number of campaigns, or spreads a handful of campaigns across a trivial few dollars a day. You cannot pull an ad in a ski magazine for a few hundred dollars, so do not expect to reach the world on less.
The job of an advertising campaign is to get reasonably qualified visitors to your website. It is up to your website and your offer to convert the visitor into a customer. A good ad campaign will not instantly fix your sales if your offer is weak.
Facebook and Meta ads versus Google Ads for ski and snowboard rentals
Are Facebook Ads or Google Ads better for ski and snowboard rental stores? When we talk about Facebook Ads here, we really mean the Meta platform, including Instagram. Both are good, but they are different, and they serve different purposes. Our Meta ads for ski rental page goes into detail.
Many businesses rush to run Facebook Ads because it is perceived as the easiest, but that does not make it the best, and more often than not they are not run by a real marketer. If you want the best value for money, it is not always a good idea to have your ski tech run Facebook Ads, unless they have many talents.
Success comes down to knowing your audience. Google Ads are generally far more intent-based than Facebook Ads. A great starting point on Facebook is remarketing. If a visitor has been to your website, you can get more creatives and messaging in front of people who did not convert. It is one of the cheapest forms of advertising you can run, and often one of the highest returning. Across some Facebook campaigns we have run, remarketing had the higher return, but an outreach sales campaign worked almost as well, because we had great creatives and location and interest targeting. $12.44 for every $1 spent is a great result.
Facebook Purchase ROAS: 12.44x on remarketing, 11.44x on a manual cities-and-interests campaign.
Facebook is also a great way of targeting people already in the area, but bear in mind you cannot target people who are actively looking for ski and snowboard rentals the way you can on Google. On Facebook you can target people who are in Aspen and interested in skiing, but many of them may have their own skis, or may have already booked their rentals. This is why Google usually gives you the most bang for your buck: people are telling you what they are looking for.
Where do your sales come from? A sales attribution warning
When you are running multi-channel marketing, remember that every ad platform is likely to claim its unfair share of the revenue. We have been in a situation before where, if you added up what email, Google Ads and Facebook Ads each claimed, you would have more revenue than was actually taken.
This does not necessarily mean the platforms are lying. They all have different attribution windows, and may well have all contributed to the overall result. In the multi-channel world there is an element of instinct, and experience goes a long way. It would not be unusual for email to attribute a batch of sales to itself, when it was often Google paid ads that brought in that subscriber originally, especially if there is a pop-up offering a discount for signing up. The flow could be Google paid, then email, then the sale. Always think of the story behind the data, and never just look at the black and white numbers.
GA4 showing paid search present in 60.53% of key event paths. It rarely takes the last-click credit, but it is doing a lot of the work.
Conversion rates and ski rental deals
Your website conversion rate, and the clarity of your pricing and deals, is key.
Conversion rates on ski and snowboard rental sites
Do you know the conversion rate of your website? This is the percentage of visitors who turn into buyers, and improving it lifts sales across every channel. Make the path through your website easy, and make it easy to buy. Every improvement across your digital journey improves the overall result. Remember, it is up to your website to secure the sale. The ad campaigns and emails are there to get the potential customer to your website.
Ski and snowboard rental deals
Deals are a great way to entice early-season sales. Make them visible across every platform: Google Search (change your page title tags and re-index), Google Ads, Google Business Profile posts, emails and social. Make your deals easy to understand in a split second. Stay away from deals that make people think, because that makes the deal hard to understand and can introduce confusion or mistrust. Do not say "up to 30% off and 2 extra days" when it is easier to understand as "up to 35% off". Let people know when your deals are ending. That can lead to emails that bring in tens of thousands of dollars. We have sent two emails in a deal-closing week that each brought in over $26,000.
Ski and snowboard digital marketing: the takeaway
This article gives you a kind of blueprint to get started with your digital marketing for the upcoming season. Start your foundations early and get everything in place. You can build and plan a lot in advance, so when the silly season and the powder days arrive, you have already got money in the bank, everything dialled, and you can go and lap the chutes while your team fulfils the rentals.
These are elements we have used repeatedly, over multiple seasons, for ski and snowboard rental and winter transport businesses. Every season has brought clients more confidence and more willingness to test new tactics. We are true believers that the devil is in the detail. The blueprint above is the template. You still need to use the platforms well, and to track everything.
At Fully Charged Media we have a proven track record of driving revenue growth for ski rental businesses and winter transport services. Our tailored strategies have delivered more bookings, better online visibility and higher return on investment, season upon season, with some clients working with us for over eight years. In recent years we have helped pivot a ski rental company towards independent travellers and away from a reliance on inbound tour operators, so their business is more diverse. We have increased pre-season sales to build confidence, and at the end of each season we do a wrap-up to discuss what worked and what to test next.
These results may not be applicable to you. You could be an overnight success, or it may take a few seasons to get things really dialled. It all takes planning, attention to detail, interpreting the results and being prepared to adapt. Be willing to spend your marketing dollars as an investment. If you look at it as a cost, you will always be looking to prune it.
If you would like us to work with you on a strategy for your ski and snowboard rental business, book a Growth Plan Session or explore how we help across every channel a rental store needs. Let us get you the market share you deserve.