Argosy Cruises is a waterfront cruise operator serving the Seattle and Pacific Northwest area with sightseeing, dining, and event cruises. Despite strong brand recognition and a loyal customer base, their digital program was not capturing the full volume of available search demand.
After restructuring paid search, improving organic rankings, and optimizing on-site conversion paths, Argosy achieved a 515% increase in paid conversions over a single 90-day period — while organic clicks grew 68% and total site conversions rose 234%.
The Challenge
Tourism and experiential hospitality businesses have a narrow search window — a visitor who doesn’t find Argosy prominently when searching for a Seattle cruise or dining experience is likely to book elsewhere in that same session. Before the engagement, three gaps were holding back performance:
- Paid search was underscaled. The campaign was generating conversions but well below the volume available in the market.
- Organic rankings averaged position 8.9. Technically on page one, but far enough down to suppress click volume significantly.
- The site converted only ~2% of sessions. With substantial traffic already arriving, a large share of potential bookings was going uncaptured.
The Approach
The engagement ran paid search, organic search, and conversion optimization simultaneously — each reinforcing the others.
Paid Search
Google Ads campaigns were restructured around specific experience types with bidding realigned to conversion volume. As performance held, spend was scaled to capture more available demand. The restructuring maintained — and slightly improved — cost efficiency even as conversion volume grew more than fivefold.
Organic Search
Google Search Console data guided on-page and technical optimizations targeting queries where Argosy had strong impression volume but was not yet ranking high enough to capture proportional clicks. Average organic position improved from 8.9 to 6.1. With nearly 1.7 million impressions per period, a 2.8-position gain translates directly into tens of thousands of additional clicks.
Conversion Rate Optimization
GA4 data was used to identify drop-off points between visitor arrival and booking completion. Friction across key landing pages and the booking flow was reduced. The result: a site-wide conversion rate improvement from ~2.0% to 3.1%, compounding the gains from both channels.
The Results
Comparing the most recent 90-day period to the prior 90-day period:
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paid Conversions | 609 | 3,745 | 515% increase |
| Organic Clicks | 28,392 | 47,637 | 68% increase |
| Organic Impressions | 983,550 | 1,679,631 | 71% increase |
| Avg. Organic Position | 8.9 | 6.1 | Improved 2.8 positions |
| Total Site Conversions | 1,602 | 5,354 | 234% increase |
| Site-Wide Conversion Rate | ~2.0% | 3.1% | Up 1.1 points |
| Website Sessions | 79,040 | 172,598 | 118% increase |
| Website Users | 63,633 | 139,988 | 120% increase |
What This Means
The 234% increase in total site conversions isn’t just a paid media story — it’s the outcome of a site that got better at attracting visitors and better at converting them simultaneously. Argosy Cruises now has a scalable, channel-diverse pipeline for new bookings that performs during the high-demand windows that matter most to a seasonal hospitality business.
Ready to grow your bookings through integrated search? Get in touch with Logic Inbound.
