Travel Media Group multiplies leads and data insights with ON24 audience engagement strategy
-
10-20%
increase in leads
Capabilities
Industry
- Other
Use Cases
- Demand generation ,
- Brand & thought leadership,
- Professional certification ,
- Customer marketing ,
- Partner engagement
Number of Employees
- 0 to 250
Introduction
Travel Media Group helps hotels grow revenue through smarter digital marketing — from social media and review response to reputation management and business insights. For their marketing team, webinars are now a core part of that strategy.
Since adopting ON24, Travel Media Group has transformed webinars into an interactive, high-impact channel that drives real results. With engagement tools built into every session, the team captures valuable audience signals in real time — from poll responses to repeat attendance. That first-party data flows directly into Salesforce, enabling faster sales follow-up and smarter campaign decisions.
Problem
The marketing team at Travel Media Group has been running webinars for more than a decade. They started out their webinar journey using GoToWebinar, but in their opinion, the experience that platform offered was lacking. There were no tools to spark engagement during the sessions, and only limited analytics afterward. Ryan Embree, VP of Marketing at Travel Media Group, said, “It was like a one-way communication. It felt like our customers were behind a curtain and we were just talking at them.”
On top of that, the lack of integration meant attendee data was scattered, making it hard to pass warm leads to sales — and registration-to-attendance conversion rates fell short of expectations.
Beyond the technology gap, the team was missing a cohesive strategy. Webinars were seen as check-the-box events, not as integrated demand-generation plays. They had no easy way to identify attendees who were truly engaged or follow up in a timely, structured way. They knew they needed a platform that would provide a frictionless experience that felt more like a two-way conversation and encouraged engagement, leading to greater insights on their customers and prospects.
Solution
The team signed on with ON24 nearly four years ago. With ON24’s engagement tools, webinars have become interactive experiences rather than one-way broadcasts. Attendees participate in real time, and the team collects meaningful signals that indicate interest and intent. According to Embree, “Before ON24 our webinars were kind of like talking through a phone. ON24 has really brought our customers and prospects into the conversation.”
Thanks to the Salesforce integration, first-party data flows directly into their CRM, enabling faster, smarter follow-up from sales. “Without ON24 data, we were shooting in the dark,” said Embree. “Now we have a guide and playbook to focus on the right audience.”
The team also revisited how they approached webinars — not just from a technology perspective, but as a broader strategy shift. Embree credits small tweaks suggested by Mark Bornstein in the Marketing Best Practices series of webinars for making a big impact. One such suggestion was to add a “not sure” option to polls at the end of webinars to surface leads who might otherwise slip through the cracks.
They also instituted a badge system to highlight high-value attendees — such as those who showed up for every session in a series — and then promoted that engagement on LinkedIn to extend their reach.
Over time, ON24 has helped reshape how the team views webinars and how they measure success. “Now we look at our event strategy completely differently,” explained Embree. “Now we don’t just look at how many leads we get, but also how many new followers we gained or how many people registered for our next webinar. There are so many metrics of success now with the ON24 platform in comparison to just ROI.”
Looking to the near future, Embree is interested in exploring ON24 AI-powered ACE, but he’s especially excited about ON24’s integration with LinkedIn.
“Without ON24 data, we were shooting in the dark. Now we have a guide and playbook to focus on the right audience.”
Ryan Embree, VP, Marketing, Travel Media Group
Results
Over the past few years with ON24, the marketing team at Travel Media Group has seen positive results. Providing a more interactive and engaging experience has led to an increase in attendance, as well as growth in followers and engagement on their corporate Instagram account among their target audience of hoteliers.
The team credits engagement and the use of end-of-webinar polls for the 10-20% increase in leads.
By experimenting with format, content and registration tactics, the team has built a more effective engagement strategy. ON24’s analytics have become central to how they plan, evaluate and improve their programs. Instead of siloed data and slow follow-up, they now work from a unified dashboard that connects marketing activity to sales outcomes.
“Before ON24 our webinars were kind of like talking through a phone. ON24 has really brought our customers and prospects into the conversation.”
Ryan Embree, VP, Marketing, Travel Media Group
