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clay knows travel

Work examples and marketing case studies.

Jump to a specific work example:

Podcasting: Travel Insights Pod

During my time as Head of Global Marketing at battleface, I started a first-of-its-kind travel podcast focused on bringing awareness to specific insights derived from anonymized travel data.

It can be challenging to measure brand growth via metrics. But I'm a firm believer in the JFK quote, "a rising tide lifts all boats." And there was no denying or ignoring the uptick in brand search, organic site traffic, and increase in new pipeline created.

Here are a few of my favorite episodes I hosted from 1H 2025.

If you're interested in taking on the challenge of starting a podcast for you brand and need some guidance, let's chat. Unsolicited advice: do not start one if you don't have the bandwidth to commit to it consistently. The rewards can be great. But this is not a "if I build this they will come" type of endeavor!

A COVID-19 Rebound

Picture this: You were just hired as VP of marketing for a large, global travel insurance company. Your first day on the job is February 13, 2020.​You're excited to finally lead and put your proven ideas as an individual contributor to work. ​March rolls around and ... boom, the world shuts down. No one is traveling and revenue nearly flatlines.

What do you do?​

Here's what I did:

  • Reduced all digital advertising down to minimum viable to not erode profitability further.

  • Focused on customer communications and sentimental messaging without trying to sell anything.

  • Kept some evergreen brand assets in market for awareness and recall for when travel did return.

  • Late in 2020, partnered with a brand and product agency to begin a floor to ceiling rebrand and rename of our company.

  • Launched rebrand and rename in April 2021 with the tagline, "There's a world of trips out there."

  • Launched a new product in May 2021 specific to the U.S. market.

  • Managed to get DTC revenue up to near pre-pandemic MRR by end of 2021.

  • 2022, nearly doubled DTC revenue compared to 2019.

​

Main takeaway? Focusing on brand and product during down times helped make us more relevant when travel began to return enabling us to accelerate revenue growth. 

"The right way to travel"

My first role in travel insurance was in April 2015 as a digital analyst tasked with understanding and reporting on website performance and product analysis. After being promoted to lead strategist and going through an internal leadership development program, I decided to abandon ship to help my parents run their Pizza Hut franchise. 

​I lasted two years at their company before deciding to return to travel insurance at the same company in an increased capacity as marketing program manager in the summer of 2018. 

We needed a fresh idea to build on as we were planning for 2019. As a team, we collectively agreed to re-establish ourselves in the consumer market using the foundational slogan, "The Right Way to Travel."

​This was a defining moment (at the time) for the brand as they looked to me to accelerate DTC channel growth in the upcoming year. ​

Midway through 2019, the results were decent but I felt like they could be better. ​

I wanted more ownership of paid media, so me and my boss worked together to terminate our agency and convince the C-Suite to 3X our monthly budget. ​

The rest, as they say, is history. I took over managing all paid media and our programmatic vendor and by the end of 2019, ROAS for the year across all channels was over 400% and the DTC channel had its highest year on record. 

I then made the decision in February 2020 to take on my first senior leadership role for another travel insurance company (see "COVID-19 Rebound" from above). ​

Main takeaway? One or two decisions can make or break a year. Had we decided to not pivot our brand message in 2018 and retain our agency in 2019, it's very possible we could not have achieved the success we did. Take risks!

"Build us a 3-year plan"

Imagine you work for a Series-B scale up and you are awarded an RFP from a multi-billion dollar, publicly traded, and global travel company.

You just went head-to-head with the largest travel insurance companies in the world and won the RFP ... huge.​

This is a true story and a recent one at that. But in 2024, after winning the RFP,  this company came to us and requested a deck outlining a 3-year plan to help grow its ancillary revenue channel via travel insurance. ​

As the head of marketing, I obviously created the deck... but I can't take all the credit for the ideas we proposed.

However, here are the ones influenced the most and pitched to them in-person in a boardroom at their U.S. HQ:​

  • Multi-tiered travel services structure offered to loyalty members with varying levels/limits to benefits and services depending on status.

  • Fully integrated travel insurance experience built within the platform to avoid traveler confusion and site bouncing.

  • Build your own policy framework and save preferences in loyalty account profile for ease of opt-in on a per-trip basis.

​There's one more but it's a real "golden ticket" opportunity that I'm going to keep to myself for now.

But let's just say it piqued their interest the most. ​

Main takeaway? When a company of this size asks you help them plan 3-years in advance, you deliver and you deliver with boldness and innovation. Never miss an opportunity to go big!

their words, not mine

Former boss #1

Clay was the best marketing hire I ever made.

Former boss #2

I don't know exactly what he does or how he does it, I just know whatever it is he's really, really good at it.

Large OTA Partner

We love the creativeness, innovative thinking, responsiveness, and professionalism brought to the partnership.

info you should know

How long has Clay worked in travel marketing?

Clay started his travel marketing career in April 2015 as a digital analyst for Carmel, Indiana-based Seven Corners. Fast forward to February 2020, he became Vice President of Marketing and E-commerce at WorldTrips, a Tokio Marine Group Company. Most recently, he served as Head of Global Marketing for battleface and Robin Assist and continues contract with both companies.

What is Clay Knows Travel?

Clay Knows Travel was originally started in November 2024 as side project and creative outlet. As of May 2025, its officially in business as a soloprenurship led by travel marketing industry expert, Clay Coomer. After spending nearly 10 years serving in multiple full-time employment roles for three different travel brands, Clay is now building a portfolio career working with several travel companies asynchronously in a fractional capacity for each.

What services does Clay Knows Travel provide?

While the list could be long, Clay is narrowing the focus to work with travel brands to provide his in-depth marketing and brand expertise to smaller sized companies looking to build out a more robust and efficient DTC book of business. He is helping brands address specific needs around brand and product positioning, strategic messaging and content creation, website cleanup and optimization, e-commerce purchase path design, UX and UI, paid media strategy, audience segmentation analysis, and ideal customer profile ideation and creation.

How much of what Clay does is AI-dependent?

AI is making marketers wildly more efficient and helping speed along the creative process by leaps and bounds. Clay leverages AI in his day-to-day by helping him automate more time intensive and tedious tasks, break down data and analysis more efficiently with visual aides, and first drafts for content creation inspiration on an as needed basis.

What are a few pain points Clay is solving for that most travel brands are facing?

Smaller travel brands who compete against massive organizations are at a disadvantage. And most have to get incredibly creative to stand out and get noticed. It's not easy to do, but it is definitely possible. Clay helps travel brands identify specific characteristics that make them unique and crafts messaging and positioning concepts to communicate and distribute to build brand awareness to capture demand from market segments with the highest probability of conversion. At the end of the day, travel brands want to acquire new customers efficiently and retain them as a customer for life. Clay can support to help you achieve this.

How much does it cost to partner with Clay Knows Travel?

Much less compared to the cost of hiring a full-time employee and the cost to partner with an agency. Both options should be considered, because it is a big decision on who to work with when building a sustainable brand in the travel industry. Partnering with Clay will afford you (pun intended) the option of flexibility and highly specialized expertise for areas critical to the growth of your DTC channel. Pricing options vary based on specific needs, RE: flexibility. Clay's standard independent contractor agreement starts at 10-hours per week and $80 per hour on a month-to-month basis. Fixed monthly retainers and one-off project based Master Services Agreements are also available. Each agreement will come with a tailored SOW (Scope of Work) and supplemental mutual NDA (Nondisclosure Agreement) for confidentiality.