Challenge
Supporting sustainable growth across multiple European markets
Plopsaland is part of the Plopsa Group, the theme park division of Studio 100, operating family theme parks and water parks across Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany.
In 2025, the group focused on supporting sustainable growth across its parks by combining strong brand visibility with measurable commercial impact. Key objectives included reinforcing performance-driven ticket sales, supporting international growth initiatives, and ensuring that media investments contributed directly to business results across different markets.
In Germany specifically, the opportunity lay in supporting a new market expansion where visibility,
consideration, and conversion needed to grow simultaneously. The focus was on building momentum quickly while keeping media investments accountable and scalable.
Solution
Activating full-funnel performance media to balance reach and efficiency
Plopsaland partnered with Criteo to activate a performance-oriented media strategy that balanced reach and efficiency across display and video channels. Rather than relying on a single tactic, the collaboration focused on leveraging Criteo’s ability to reach relevant audiences across premium environments while maintaining a clear connection to business outcomes.
To scale efficiently, the strategy evolved from broad prospecting and retargeting to a more refined,
commerce-driven audience approach. In Germany, destination audiences of users traveling to Belgium were activated and layered with Amusement & Theme Parks affinity segments and a custom lookalike audience built from highly engaged users. Intent was further strengthened by intersecting these audiences with Family Vacationers behavioral data, increasing relevance while maintaining scale.
Campaign creatives combined adaptive video and image formats to dynamically personalize messaging, while countdown ads were deployed during peak sales moments to reinforce urgency. Continuous creative optimization kept campaigns aligned with seasonal demand.
Retargeting campaigns ran on Conversion Optimizer to maximize conversions, while acquisition campaigns initially leveraged Visit Optimizer to scale new traffic. During peak season, upper-funnel campaigns also shifted to Conversion Optimizer, reinforcing a core Commerce Growth principle: every stage of the funnel should drive measurable outcomes.
Performance was closely monitored and continuously refined to stay aligned with seasonal demand,
maintain efficiency across markets, and steadily improve results through bidding strategy adjustments.
Our focus is on building a scalable performance framework that supports both mature markets
and new growth initiatives. Working with Criteo allows us to combine reach and accountability,
which is essential for a group like Plopsaland operating across multiple European markets.
Results
Driving efficient performance across mature and growth markets
Across 2025, Plopsaland’s campaigns with Criteo contributed to strong qualified traffic growth, conversion-driven outcomes aligned with commercial goals, and stable, efficient performance across both mature and expansion markets.
Rather than focusing on individual metrics in isolation, Plopsaland evaluated success based on overall contribution to business objectives. Criteo campaigns demonstrated a clear year-over-year positive impact across revenue, traffic quality, engagement, and conversion relevance compared to previous approaches.
The strategy delivered measurable efficiency gains, including an 88% year-over-year decrease in cost per qualified visit. Combining destination-based and behavioral audiences in Germany also resulted in a 26% quarter-over-quarter increase in return on ad spend, and a 67% increase in the CVR for new visitors.
Building on these results, Plopsaland plans to continue expanding its performance-driven approach across European markets. The flexible strategy allows campaigns to adapt to different parks, markets, and stages of the customer journey, ensuring that future growth initiatives remain both scalable and accountable.
