Facebook includes Gustazos in global success stories list
Gustazos achieved a click-through rate of 4.7 percent on its El Conquistador offer marketed on Facebook.
Social media giant Facebook recently added Puerto Rican online marketing company Gustazos.com to its list of “success stories,” praising the firm’s use of the platform to further its business.
With the inclusion, Gustazos became the island’s first business to be featured in the prestigious roster that includes a wide range of consumer products and services companies across the globe.
Facebook chose Gustazos for the results it achieved through a recent campaign for a discounted weekend stay at El Conquistador Resort in Fajardo, which sold more than $1 million in three days.
José Carlos Villares, executive director of Gustazos, said through Facebook, the local firm was able to create ad campaigns that achieved higher-than-average interaction levels with customers who were reached.
“Normally, out of every 10,000 people that see an ad on digital media outlets, one person interacts with it. In our case, out of every 100 people we presented the ads to, 28 interacted with it,” Villares said. “The interaction that the Gustazos-Facebook-El Conquistador campaign achieved was so exponential that it reduced our costs while increasing revenues.”
The results were obtained by generating a targeted campaign using the Gustazos database of more than 600,000 email addresses in Puerto Rico, which was segmented by interest using Facebook’s online tools.
That segmentation was key, Facebook officials said on the page highlighting Gustazos’ achievements.
“From March to December 2014, Gustazos used Facebook’s segmentation tools [custom audiences, custom audiences from your website, and lookalike audiences] to reach the right people with its promotional weekend vacations to the Hotel Conquistador and boost conversions,” Facebook said.
“The company’s target audience was made up of men and women from Puerto Rico interested in travel. It ran ads in the right column showing people enjoying vacations at a beautiful hotel with a large swimming pool, sunbathing, and having a relaxing time, which worked well for all Facebook audiences,” the social media platform explained.
José Carlos Villares, executive director of Gustazos. (Credit: © Mauricio Pascual)
The campaign’s return was 34 times over the initial investment, said Bryan Plaza, Gustazos’ media manager, while discussing the relationship that began with Facebook in March 2011.
“Given the relationship that we have created in recent years, we’re the e-commerce business that most uses Facebook in the Caribbean and the results we have obtained using their platform have been extremely powerful for the company,” he added.
Facebook is the main sales medium for Gustazos and with it the company has achieved a cost per acquisition 10 times cheaper than other media, the social media platform confirmed.
“The great achievement here is that a purely Puerto Rican company has just been recognized by the largest global medium as one of the role models in digital marketing,” Villares said. “This makes us very proud, because it shows that we have the local talent needed not only to interact in the global market, but to surpass the achievements of many global agencies in these efforts.”
“These efforts are being used in our other markets, such as the Dominican Republic, Panama, Canary Islands, and Jamaica, where we are already leading our industry using these tools,” Villares said.
