CASE STUDY
From Vendor to Growth Partner: How SOLV Marketing Helped Bavarian Inn Build a Full-Funnel Digital Engine
The Client
Bavarian Inn — home to The Lodge and the newly launched Bavarian Blast Waterpark — is a beloved family destination drawing guests from across the region. With a target audience of families with kids, Bavarian Inn competes in a space where experience, emotion, and timing all drive booking decisions.
The Challenge
When Bavarian Inn first partnered with SOLV Marketing nearly a decade ago, they were working with large corporate media vendors managing their Google Ads campaigns. The results were average — not bad, but not exceptional. More importantly, something was missing.
Bavarian Inn wasn’t looking for another vendor. They wanted a true partner — a team that would be invested in their business, fluent across multiple channels, and capable of guiding their digital strategy as the landscape continued to evolve. They had ambitious expansion plans, a wealth of untapped customer data, and a team hungry for meaningful growth. What they needed was someone who could see the whole picture and help them build toward it.
The SOLV Approach
SOLV stepped in not just as a paid search manager, but as a strategic growth partner. Over the course of the relationship, we transformed Bavarian Inn’s digital presence from a single-channel, bottom-of-funnel operation into a sophisticated, full-funnel marketing engine.
BEFORE SOLV
Path to Conversion Too Narrow
Relied heavily on paid search to capture high-intent traffic at the bottom of the funnel.
Paid Search
High-Intent Searchers Only
Bookings/Conversions
AFTER SOLV
Multiple Paths to Conversion
Expanded into a connected full-funnel strategy that created more ways to attract, engage, and convert guests.
Awareness
Meta Advertising
Creative & Video Production
Waterpark Launch Campaigns
Consideration
SEO & Organic Growth
Content Strategy
Website Rebuild
Conversion
Google Paid Search
Hotel Ads
Performance Max
Brand Defense
Direct Booking Strategy
Optimization
Campaign Reporting
Creative Testing
Channel Expansion
Performance Insights
Google Paid Search
Took over and dramatically expanded existing campaigns, including early beta participation in Hotel Ads and Performance Max
Brand Defense & Direct Booking Strategy
Built a focused branded campaign strategy to protect Bavarian Inn’s name from OTA commission capture and drive guests directly to their own booking funnel
Meta Advertising
Built ROI-driving funnels from the ground up, entering a channel that was completely new territory for the brand
Creative & Video Production
Managed all creative and video assets developed specifically for their paid ad strategy
SEO & Organic Growth
Developed and executed a comprehensive SEO strategy alongside a full website rebuild
Content & Website Strategy
Developed a content strategy and fully rebuilt their website to better serve guests and support conversion
Waterpark Launch
Served as the primary digital marketing partner for the launch of Bavarian Blast, a $90 million waterpark expansion
EACH CHANNEL WAS BUILT TO WORK TOGETHER
Awareness feeding consideration
Consideration feeding conversion
with every dollar tracked back to real business outcomes.
The Results
Paid Media Performance
Return on Ad Spend
CHANNEL
Google Ads (Non-Branded)
30:1
ROAS
CHANNEL
Meta / Facebook Ads
40:1
Attributed ROI
The Results
Brand Defense: Taking Back the Direct Booking
One of the most strategically significant — and often overlooked — wins of this partnership had nothing to do with reach or impressions. It was about protecting revenue that was already being earned.
Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) like Booking.com, Hotels.com, and Travelocity had been purchasing Bavarian Inn’s branded search terms — essentially bidding on the hotel’s own name — and intercepting guests who were already looking specifically for Bavarian Inn. Those guests would book through the OTA, and Bavarian Inn would pay a commission of anywhere from 15–25% per booking for a guest they had already earned.
SOLV built a disciplined branded campaign strategy specifically designed to box out OTAs from the brand’s own search real estate.
The results were significant
Tens of Thousands
OTA commission payouts
ELIMINATED EVERY MONTH
Guests redirected from OTA listings into
Bavarian Inn’s direct booking funnel
(where Bavarian Inn was commoditized alongside dozens of competitors)
Direct bookings moved guests through
SOLV-crafted content & experiences
- Built brand perception
- Communicated value
- Deepened loyalty
BEFORE THEY EVER ARRIVED
Direct bookings mean
Bavarian Inn owns the guest relationship
- Their data
- Their communication preferences
- Their lifetime value
SEO & Organic Growth
Perhaps the most hard-fought wins came in organic search — a channel where Bavarian Inn was going up against established, well-funded competitors with years of domain authority and significantly larger budgets.
Organic Growth
3x Organic Traffic Growth
Within 3 years, SOLV helped Bavarian Inn grow organic traffic 3x through a disciplined SEO and content strategy.
Search Visibility
#1 Rankings After Launch
But the real test came with the launch of Bavarian Blast Waterpark. Within months of the new waterpark opening, SOLV secured #1 rankings for some of the most competitive keywords in Michigan’s travel space.
These aren’t niche long-tail keywords. These are the high-volume, high-intent terms that major regional waterparks — many with substantially larger marketing budgets and years of established online presence — have been competing for.
Claiming the top spot on searches like these, this quickly, is a remarkable achievement and a direct reflection of the strategic groundwork SOLV had been building for years.
The Relationship
What makes this partnership stand out isn’t just the numbers.
It’s the longevity and the depth.
AT A GLANCE
Nearly 10 years of continuous growth
Nearly 10 years of continuous growth, channel expansion, and strategic collaboration. As Bavarian Inn’s ambitions grew, SOLV grew with them — from managing a single ad channel to becoming an embedded part of their marketing operation.
Expanded Across Channels
Strategic Collaboration Over Time
Embedded in the Marketing Operation
What This Means for You
If you're a B2C brand in travel, hospitality, retail, or product and you're looking for a partner who can do more than manage a single channel — a team that will be invested in your growth, fluent across the full funnel, and capable of scaling with your ambitions — this is what that looks like.
SOLV Marketing delivers results that compound.
From Vendor to Growth Partner
How SOLV Marketing Helped Bavarian Inn Build a Full-Funnel Digital Engine
