The Grand California Road Trip project brought together exclusive lodging sponsors per overnight spot with trackable packages for each. Each sponsor cross-promoted, creating a natural flow to the dialogue of the article.

We targeted families from out of state and international visitors, providing an accessible and do-able itinerary for a wide range of travelers, focusing on activities for the classic California road trip with kids. For each destination en route, Trekaroo provided detailed attraction review picks straight from our users and Superoos, plus usable maps and travel tips. We also partnered with exclusive vacation planning consultant Ciao Bambino for cross-promotion, where readers were offered a call-to-action to shift their California dreaming to California planning.

Trekaroo and Ciao Bambino promoted the Grand California Road Trip for nine months; as a result, the post appeared as #1 and #2 on Google search results for CA Road Trip. ROI for sponsors ranged from 5-10x.

Road Trip Week has lived on the Trekaroo blog since 2012, and has grown every year. Each year offers families a manageable theme, ranging from specific road trip itineraries to popular road trip destinations such as national parks and historic sites. In 2014, our editorial team put together no fewer than nine Road Trip Week posts, with room for 10+ sponsors.

Road Trip Week 2014 focused on travel tips, featuring a popular gear guide, fun giveaway featuring Jucy rentals, and multiple in-depth articles on useful road tripping products and services families could try immediately. We provided important information on driving safety, ways to stay in contact in service-free zones, and ways to find fun pit stops en route.

Our sponsors were able to include incentives families could take advantage of before the busy summer road trip season, converting website visits to tangible sales. Each sponsor was featured in an article spotlight or in the gear guide, with dedicated social media amplification and inclusion in the popular Road Trip Week Weekly Digest e-newsletter to our subscribers.

Our Road Trip Week Pinterest board took center stage during the week, bursting with content families needed at their fingertips. Each Road Trip Week sponsor received detailed stat reports listing measurable results.

Introducing #ReadytoSki! For our latest take on our annual Ski Week, we tapped into the amplification power of our Trekaroo Influencer Network (TIN) in 2015-16. Each of our four ski resort sponsors was paired with a TIN blogger who also happened to be a newbie skier. Each blogger then learned the ins and outs of planning a ski vacation at ‘their’ particular resort, and wrote their findings on their own blogs in a #ReadytoSki Blog Tour. The result: four specific resort features in four geographical regions of the U.S., aimed at families new to the sport. Trekaroo then rounded up these posts on our #ReadytoSki landing page, added a big giveaway and engaging social media interaction. To reinforce the ‘tutorial’ aspect of our #ReadytoSki incentive, Trekaroo hosted a Facebook chat during which we invited our audience to join our TIN bloggers, ski resorts, and ski experts in a fun-filled Q&A.

By bringing together multiple non-competing sponsors, all with the same goal of driving early-season bookings, Trekaroo was able to offer a sponsorship package at a great deal and facilitated cross-promotion between all the sponsors who helped to promote the series via their own social media channels. By utilizing TIN, Trekaroo furthered each sponsor’s exposure, reached a new audience, and engaged a targeted demographic of new skiing families.

History of Ski Week:

Trekaroo’s annual Ski Week started in 2012 with the One Peak for All Your Peeps ski series, featuring five different REAL families with different needs. The Trekaroo community was encouraged to provide their recommendations on our Facebook Fan Page to drive social sharing of the series. For an entire week, we featured our expert recommendations along with recommendations from our community. In addition, sponsors promoted their products through a ski gear giveaway bundle that got Trekaroo families excited about engaging with the series.

In the years since, Ski Week has grown to become an annual tradition, designed to get families to start ‘thinking snow’ in October, rather than December. Content has covered multigenerational ski trip planning, additional gear guides, an interactive best family ski resorts poll, in which we engaged our readers and encouraged community sharing, and of course, #ReadytoSki.

After Trekaroo reviewed Red Jacket’s properties, we offered them the opportunity to sponsor a feature story on kid-friendly activities in Cape Cod and North Conway. Topics covered in the feature story were popular search terms used by Trekaroo moms while researching trips to the area. As a sponsor, their properties received prominent mention and valuable links in the article – providing long-term marketing value and SEO benefit to Red Jacket Resorts.

Additionally, to drive late summer and fall bookings, Red Jacket also sponsored a giveaway to each property with an exclusive discount only offered to Trekaroo families. Trekaroo marketed the sponsored content through targeted display advertising and promoted the sponsor’s giveaway on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

The result: long-term traffic referrals from Trekaroo and increased late summer and fall bookings for both resorts.

Trekaroo is filled with experienced travel experts writing about major US city attractions and road trip destinations. Shell has a product every family needs in order to hit the road. When we partnered, what resulted was a fun, highly motivational series of Weekend Wanderings posts.

Of course, Trekaroo promoted the series across all social media channels, including Pinterest. Shell also sponsored a $500 Shell gas card giveaway for Trekaroo readers to convert participants to sign up for the Fuel Rewards Network Card. Who doesn’t need a gas card? The giveaway launched at the start of the Weekend Wanderings series to drive traffic, and kept buzz alive well after the initial publication. All Weekend Wanderings posts are highly evergreen, which means Shell is still reaping dividends.

Pinterest promotion of the Shell Weekend Wanderings campaign in Indianapolis.