Introducing Retain: 4 New Tools to Help Hotels Increase Direct Bookings

February 11, 2025

At CartStack, we’re always looking for new ways to help our hotels increase their direct revenue and reduce reliance on OTAs. That’s why we’re thrilled to introduce Retain—a powerful suite of four new tools designed to complement our existing Recover campaigns and take your direct booking strategy to the next level.

With Recover, our clients have successfully re-engaged & captured visitors who abandoned their bookings or browsed their property without completing a reservation. Now, with Retain, we’re giving hotels even more tools to keep potential guests engaged before they ever leave your site.

Here’s what’s new:

1. Exit Intent & Welcome Offers – Capture More Visitors Before They Leave

A well-timed incentive can make all the difference in converting lookers into bookers. Offers allow hotels to create on-site exit intent offers and welcome messages to encourage visitors to leave their email in exchange for a special deal or incentive. By collecting more emails upfront, hotels can significantly increase the reach of their Recover campaigns, turning more abandoned visits into future bookings.

2. Send My Stay – Keep Your Property Top of Mind

Inspired by the success of “Send My Cart” in eCommerce, Send My Stay helps hotels capture visitor contact information before they abandon a reservation. When a guest begins the booking process but signals an intent to leave, an exit intent popup appears, offering to send their stay details—including property name, selected dates, number of guests, and pricing—to their email. You’ll then have the ability to add these users to a re-engagement & recovery email campaign! This keeps your property in their inbox and makes it easy for them to return and complete their booking when they’re ready.

3. Conversion Nudges – Guide Visitors to Booking Confidence

Sometimes, visitors just need a little extra reassurance before booking. Conversion Nudges are on-page, clickable messages that provide valuable insights, such as guest reviews, direct booking benefits, and limited-time perks. By keeping key decision-making factors front and center, hotels can increase booking confidence and improve conversion rates.

4. Tab Abandonment – Bring Visitors Back in Real Time

If a visitor opens a new tab mid-booking, they may be losing focus—or worse, comparing prices on an OTA. Tab Abandonment is designed to recapture their attention with dynamic tab notifications or messaging that encourages them to return and complete their reservation. This subtle yet effective feature helps reduce distractions and keep more guests engaged on your direct booking site.

The Power of Retain + Recover

Our Retain features work hand-in-hand with Recover, making your abandoned cart and browse abandonment email campaigns even more effective. Offers and Send My Stay help collect more visitor contact information upfront, ensuring that more potential guests can be re-engaged later. Conversion Nudges and Tab Abandonment keep users engaged during their browsing journey, reducing the likelihood of abandonment in the first place.

On average, Retain customers are seeing:

48% Lift in Leads Captured
25% Increase in Recovered Bookings
25% Increase in Recovered Revenue
48X Average ROI for Retain Campaigns alone!

By integrating Retain with your existing Recover campaigns, your hotel can create a seamless, data-driven strategy to drive more direct revenue, improve guest engagement, and reduce OTA dependency.

Are you a current customer ready to put Retain to work for your property? Log into your account, navigate to the new “Retain” menu & select “Try for 30 Days”.

Not a CartStack customer yet? Get started here!