Case Studies

When selling your company, every dime must drive value for buyers. 

Wyndham Vacation Rentals CEO Mary-Lynn Clark was building up to a career-defining moment. A successful sale would be her springboard into the next chapter of executive leadership. 

She knew she couldn’t spend her way to better numbers. Big campaigns or flashy rebrands were off the table. 

So, she partnered with technical marketing experts Smart Panda Labs to squeeze more value out of what the business already had: its website, database, and existing traffic. 

The result? A leaner, more profitable company that sold in 2019. Plus $8 million in additional revenue. 

Wyndham Vacation Rentals (WVR) was a leading provider of professionally managed vacation properties across North America. With thousands of rentals in popular destinations, the company offered travelers the comforts of home with the reliability of a trusted brand. 

As a division of Wyndham Destinations, it focused on delivering exceptional guest experiences while driving strong returns for property owners and stakeholders. 

Preparing the company for sale meant proving efficient operations and healthy margins. For CEO Mary-Lynn, that meant increasing profitability without extra spend. 

A Herculean task, thanks to: 

All the while, WVR faced mounting competition from digital-first players like Airbnb and a tight timeline before the business hit the market. 

Mary-Lynn didn’t have the option of a bigger budget. She needed a way to turn the wider Wyndham group’s existing resources into measurable, margin-boosting results. 

That’s where she brought in Smart Panda Labs. 

“Working with Smart Panda Labs was a game-changer. They delivered exactly what I needed, often before I even had to ask. The team’s partnership, responsiveness, and clarity made all the difference. I always felt supported, informed, and confident knowing they had our back. Simply put, they kicked butt.” 

Mary-Lynn needed a clear plan that didn’t add cost or complexity. Using our technical knowledge, she could turn WVR’s marketing into an engine that drove itself. 

By automating and maximizing existing resources, Mary-Lynn boosted profitability and helped future buyers envision sustainable growth. 

She started by asking:

The answers became a three-pronged strategy: 

Mary-Lynn knew WVR’s biggest untapped asset was its existing customer database. But the challenge was activating it without drowning teams in manual work or annoying customers with too many messages. 

She began with reviewing a deep audit that helped her understand:

Identifying these high-value audiences allowed Mary-Lynn to allow us to build templated, region-specific journeys (e.g., a thoughtful Tennessee welcome series) that felt personal, not mass-produced. 

She also supported setting clear communication rules to respect subscribers’ preferences and ensure tight governance across Wyndham’s many business units. 

New automated journeys warmed leads, drove repeat bookings, and freed Mary-Lynn’s team to focus on preparing the rest of the business for sale. 

A complete redesign would’ve eaten up time and budget. Instead, Mary-Lynn wanted more from the site Wyndham already had. 

By using Optimizely—a powerful optimization tool her team was paying for but not making the most of—she freed us to run focused A/B tests to identify friction points and understand user behavior. 

Crucially, Mary-Lynn prioritized technical fixes based on ROI potential. She allowed us to specifically focus on changes that would move the needle (e.g., simplifying multi-step forms or fixing slow-loading pages). 

From streamlining booking flows to tightening behind-the-scenes tech, Mary-Lynn quietly boosted conversions without the cost or complexity of a full rebuild. 

With no room to increase ad spend, Mary-Lynn needed more value from every visitor who clicked through to the site. 

So, she asked us to focus on post-click experiences—everything a customer sees and does after clicking an ad. Because this crucial stretch of the journey can make or break conversions (and companies often overlook it). 

Early on, we ran a CTA button test that was a dramatic loss. 

It was a facepalm moment, but one that highlighted just how powerful this touchpoint was. The next tweak (adding micro-copy underneath) drove hugely positive results. Plus, Mary-Lynn proved the value of experimentation and learning. Win-win. 

By fine-tuning landing pages to better match visitor intent and reduce drop-offs, she used the findings to turn more paid traffic into bookings.  

These small, high-impact adjustments allowed her to prove profitability without added cost. 

Sample results from one successful experimentation campaign 

With our help, Mary-Lynn gained the tools to quantify her success. A people-first and data-driven strategy turned into clear, measurable results. 

Instead of costly campaigns or site rebuilds, using existing assets more intentionally drove tangible business impact. 

Some highlights: 

All this added up to more than $8 million in additional annual revenue—achieved by getting more out of what Wyndham already had. 

Mary-Lynn built a leaner business and created a valuation story that attracted buyers and closed the sale. 

She’s since been hired to do the same for a new organization. And continues to work with Smart Panda Labs today to drive its growth.