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Case Study · Riverside Cabin Resort · North Carolina

From OTA-dependent to 86% direct — $1.22M in tracked direct bookings.

Property
Riverside cabin resort
Units
30 cabins
Location
Asheville, North Carolina
Owner
Brett Turner

Starting point: ~40% direct, three distinct guest segments (families, couples, corporate groups), a content library and analytics that weren't being put to work.

Asheville River Cabins's website, ashevillerivercabins.com
Asheville River Cabins's site on a phone

Key results

Tracked direct-booking revenue in 16 months
Tracked direct-booking revenue in 16 months
Direct-booking split (82% by month 8)
Direct-booking split (82% by month 8)
Ad opt-in rate (industry benchmark ~10%)
Ad opt-in rate (industry benchmark ~10%)
Email leads · 40.4K followers · 4M views
Email leads · 40.4K followers · 4M views

The situation

Asheville is one of the most competitive cabin and glamping markets in the country. Brett Turner's property had everything it needed to win there — the river, the cabins, three clear guest segments — but the marketing wasn't built to reach any of them deliberately. Outreach was scattered, results were inconsistent, and 60% of bookings were still paying OTA commission.

The problem wasn't the product. It was that nothing connected the content to a booking.

What we installed

The Resort Discovery Funnel — the same system, installed the same way, on every property.

  1. Reach

    • Cinematic finishing on the existing library and a reel strategy segmented by guest type — families, couples, corporate — so each audience sees the version of the property built for them.
    A cinematic aerial frame of the cabins above the French Broad River, cut for a vertical reel
    An Instagram story of two guests in the barrel sauna, captioned rainy day sauna vibes

  2. Capture

    • Instagram rebuilt as a conversion channel, driving to a landing page with a core offer. 14.9% of Instagram funnel traffic converted to a lead.
    The @asheville.river.cabins Instagram profile — 8,578 followers, a link in bio and five story highlights including Save $50!
    The story card offering $50 off a first stay in exchange for a newsletter signup

  3. Nurture

    • Automated welcome flow plus weekly campaigns: property education, timely offers, and reasons to book direct — on a cadence the team never has to think about.
    The automated welcome email — Claim Your $50 Off, with the WELCOME50 code and a claim button

  4. Convert

    • ROI-driven Meta ads: cold-lead campaigns at $0.59 per lead with a 26.4% opt-in rate, and retargeting campaigns that bring warm visitors back to book. Average ROAS ranged from 13X to 24X with Meta retargeting ads.
    The Meta Ad Library showing the live Asheville River Cabins ad set, running since November 2025

What it did to the business

Tracked business impact

  • $1.22M in tracked direct-booking revenue in 16 months.
  • Direct-booking split from 40% to 82% in eight months, now holding at 86% — nearly half the revenue base moved off OTA commission.
  • Cost per lead of $0.59 and an opt-in rate 2.6× the industry benchmark: the audience grew fast and cheap.

Owned brand assets

  • 14,000 email leads and 40,400 followers across Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
  • 4 million views — consistent visibility in a market where most properties are invisible.

In their words

“The quality of our content seems to be attracting a lot of attention, bookings have been up considerably over last year and we’ve seen a big increase in ROAS on our ad spend, particularly on Meta.”
Brett Turner · Owner, Asheville River Cabins

Why this matters if you're in a saturated market

In a crowded market, search is a knife fight over the same keywords and the OTAs win it. Discovery marketing sidesteps the fight: you reach the traveler before they search, you capture them, and you bring them back direct. Asheville River Cabins didn't outbid anyone. It moved 46 points of its revenue off commission.

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