23% Year-over-Year Lift in Brochure Requests

8,500+ Brochure Requests from Exit Pop-Ups (April 2025)

3.55% CTR on Exit Pop-Ups (vs. 2% goal)

Region-Specific Campaigns Rolled Out Across Cruise Destinations

American Cruise Lines Case Study

American Cruise Lines (ACL) is America’s largest cruise line and the only 100% American-owned and operated cruise line. They offer small ship cruises across U.S. rivers and coastal waterways, combining local culture, immersive history, and personalized exploration with five-star amenities and comfort. With an emphasis on quality and experience, ACL attracts guests who want to see the country from a new perspective — comfortably and up close.

The Challenge

American Cruise Lines came to Zero Gravity Marketing ready to elevate their digital performance. With opportunities to improve search rankings, boost user engagement, and increase brochure requests, the focus was on creating a site experience that better captured and converted interest.

Rather than jumping straight into acquisition campaigns, our team made a strategic decision to focus first on the visitors already coming to the site. We needed to capture interest and convert those sessions into meaningful actions — specifically, brochure requests, which ACL identified as one of the most important touchpoints in their booking funnel. The challenge was clear: we had to improve key on-site interactions, reduce drop-offs, and get users to raise their hands — all without disrupting the existing user experience.

Outcome

We started with data. Analyzing ACL’s website behavior patterns, we honed in on visitors showing intent — like browsing cruise-specific pages or starting (but not finishing) the brochure form. These users were halfway there. Our goal was to nudge them over the finish line.

The biggest opportunity? Exit Intent pop-ups.

We deployed pop-ups that targeted users as they were about to leave the site, encouraging them to complete the brochure request. Messaging highlighted that the process was fast, easy, and free — three magic words for mobile users wary of long forms.

We didn’t just push for more actions — we made them feel worth doing.

After early testing in January 2025, we applied insights and launched more refined pop-ups across key cruise pages. By February 2025, brochure requests from pop-ups skyrocketed — an almost 23% increase year over year and a massive win.

In April, we saw the biggest spike yet. Brochure requests topped 20,416, with over 8,506 attributed directly to Exit Intent pop-ups we spearheaded. The rest came from the entry pop-up campaign we rebuilt in OptinMonster, which gave us greater control over display behavior and helped us preempt a technical issue in the client’s original setup.

April also marked the launch of region-specific pop-ups across every cruise destination ACL serves, creating timely, hyper-relevant moments that boosted engagement and helped keep form completions climbing.

This effort wasn’t about chasing more users — it was about doing more with the audience ACL already had.