About CanadaStays
CanadaStays (now part of Vrbo) is an online property rental marketplace that allows users to rent and find vacation homes and cottages with a focus in Canada. CanadaStays is the largest vacation rental marketplace in Canada, with over $24M in bookings reported in 2017.
In addition, CanadaStays offered various resources and products to assist customers on their vacation rental journey.
The Role
Tools Used: Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Mailchimp, Powerpoint, Google Slides,
As Graphic Designer & Email Developer, I created all marketing materials, video content and email templates built in Mailchimp. Below you will see examples of my work. On the left side a Rate Guide for new renters, and on the right a promo poster that was created in partnership with New York Fries.
Vacation Rental Guide eBook
This 17 page eBook was used at CanadaStays to promote and build an email list. In exchange for the free eBook, it was designed to promote and track sign-ups and downloads. This eBook was promoted through email campaigns, social media and also with a dedicated landing page. This eBook was created with PowerPoint.
Email Design
During my time at CanadaStays, I took the initiative to learn more about email design and development. Creating email templates that not only looked modern, but were optimized and responsive. We realized that a significant portion of users were opening emails on mobile phones. While many things could be templated easily using Mailchimp, there was still several custom features that required HTML, and part of my new role as Email Developer required me to learn HTML to develop more robust emails.
Below are some of the successful campaigns that were created that also include animation.
Cyber Week
This email template was created to promote Cyber Week sales. An animated banner highlighting this event was created to add an extra incentive to open and use this promotion. This email had one of the highest CTRs.
Happy Holidays
Using a unique lighting animation, I was able to create a fun email template to send out to renters around the holidays. Creating a short loop animation was important to keep the email size small for quick load times.
Give 50, Get 50
Using simple text animation in the banner, this email was designed to catch the attention of the user. The animation was created in After Effects and exported as transparent .GIF over top of an image to reduce file size.
Instant Book
To promote a new feature called “Instant Book”, this email was designed to showcase what the benefits were, if the user upgraded. A focus on the yellow lightning icon was important as it notified the user of the new feature.
Trade Show Booth
These displays were created to promote CanadaStays booths at several trade shows in the vacation rentals market.
YouTube Winter Video Ad
I was assigned to create short 30 second video ads to promote CanadaStays on YouTube and social media platforms. I created 4 ads were created for each of the seasons. These videos were edited in Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects using mostly stock footage.