Agoda email campaign: allocating a scarce discount pool shared with rival OTAs

You are a product manager at Agoda planning an email marketing campaign. The subscriber list holds 40 million people, and you also have 10 million unique searches to work with. You can attach discounts to the campaign, but only 100,000 exist, and that pool is shared with other online travel agencies, so competitors draw on the same supply. How would you optimize the campaign? Explain what you would optimize for, who should receive the discounts, how you would time and run the send, and how you would measure whether it worked. ```hint Find the binding constraint Compare the three numbers in the prompt and work out which resource actually runs out first. Let that answer decide who gets what, and think about what it means that rivals can use up the same resource. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Were the 10 million unique searches made by subscribers we can email, and over what period? - What does sharing the pool with other online travel agencies mean in practice: first come, first served across all of them, or a fixed share for each? - Are the discounts tied to particular properties, destinations or dates, and who funds them? - Is the campaign judged on bookings, revenue, margin or long-term customer value? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A clear objective (incremental bookings or margin, not opens) and recognition of which resource is the binding constraint. - A targeting approach that puts discounts where they change a booking decision, using search intent and matching discounted inventory to what people searched for. - Handling of a pool that competitors are draining at the same time: timing, send waves, live availability and how many offers to send per available discount. - A measurement plan with holdout groups that isolates the campaign's incremental effect. - Guardrails for deliverability, unsubscribes, margin, and the experience of people who click after the discounts are gone. ### Follow-up Questions - Rivals exhaust the pool within hours of your send. How would you redesign the next campaign? - Would you rather spread the discounts across as many bookings as possible or concentrate them on fewer, higher-value stays? How would you decide? - What do subscribers who get no discount receive, and why?