Sandman Hotels: Business Intelligence, Loyalty & Advertising Lift
Building a smarter hospitality brand across Canada and beyond
Sandman Hotels, part of Northland Properties, is a Canadian-born hotel group spanning multiple brands, including Sandman Inns, Sandman Hotel & Suites and Sandman Signature Hotels & Resorts. With 47+ properties across Canada and a recent expansion into the UK and the U.S., Sandman is on a growth trajectory.
The Brief
Provide Sandman Hotels with advanced business intelligence, loyalty-insights and performance-reporting capabilities that connect digital, media and operational data sources.
The Objective
Enable real-time decision-making for revenue, guest loyalty and advertising effectiveness across dozens of hotels.
Key goals:
- Build “living dashboards” that combine diverse data streams (web analytics, OTA/TravelClick, social, email, advertising) into actionable insights.
- Enhance loyalty programme insight (behavioral & tier migration) across properties.
- Generate ad-lift measurement and revenue modelling so media decisions can tie directly to guest behavior and value.
- Empower operations, marketing and C-suite teams with the right data to steer pricing, promotion and guest experience.
Technologies Used
Analytics platforms: Google Analytics for web behavior, integration with ad platforms.
Data warehouse & dashboard tools: Microsoft Power BI and Looker Studio for live dashboards.
OTAs/booking plug-ins: data feeds from TravelClick and other channel management systems.
Media and remarketing platforms: digital ad accounts, social and email tracking for user journey analysis.
Our Approach
We structured the initiative around three strategic pillars:
1. Data Architecture & Dashboarding
Aggregated multiple data sources (e.g., OTAs, TravelClick, ad accounts, website analytics, email subscriber flows) into unified dashboards.
Designed living, up-to-minute dashboards for revenue modelling, campaign performance, guest-funnel migration and remarketing-opportunity identification.
Delivered insights that link guest behavior, loyalty migration, regional performance and promotional levers so decision-making could be based on data, not guesswork.
2. Loyalty & Guest Behavior Analytics
Developed tracking of loyalty programme user behavior: tier migration, engagement metrics, lifetime value per guest, by property.
Filtered insights at the property-level and brand-level so management could compare performance across hotels, markets and guest segments.
Integrated social, email subscriber metrics to feed into the analytics engine and tie loyalty input to marketing output.
3. Advertising Performance & Revenue Lift
Used dashboards to measure media spend, ad-buy performance (national & local), guest count lift and revenue impact.
Supported operations in adjusting localised campaigns, pricing models and offers based on real-time performance data.
Automated reports for C-suite presentations and eliminated manual Excel-based workflows, freeing teams to act rather than assemble.
Impact & Key Outcomes
- Sandman Hotels moved from fragmented data and manual reporting to an integrated analytics engine, enabling dynamic, data-driven decision-making.
- Loyalty programme insights escalated in granularity: management could assess which guest segments were migrating tiers, and how that behavior correlated with revenue.
- Advertising budgets could be deployed with measurable guest-count and revenue-lift objectives rather than just reach or impressions.
- Operational and marketing teams benefitted from efficiency gains, C-suite reports were automated, and manual Excel work was replaced by dashboard insights.
- As reported, after digital transformation efforts, e-commerce conversion rates improved, and revenue increases of over 100% in specific periods were achieved.
FAQ
What services did Simple Simple provide for Sandman Hotels?
Simple Simple provided advanced business intelligence and analytics infrastructure: creation of live dashboards combining web, OTA, ad-account, social and email data; loyalty analytics modelling; media performance tracking and revenue-lift measurement; automation of reporting and decision-making workflows.
Where are Sandman Hotels located?
Sandman Hotels is a Canadian hotel chain operating over 47 properties across Canada under the brands Sandman Inns, Sandman Hotel & Suites and Sandman Signature Hotels & Resorts. The group also has properties in the UK (Newcastle, Aberdeen, London Gatwick) and the U.S. (e.g., Fort Worth, Texas).
Why is real-time data and reporting important for a hotel group like Sandman?
In hospitality, guest behavior, bookings, revenue, and media performance can shift rapidly. Real-time dashboards allow marketing, operations and revenue teams to identify trends, adjust promotions, pricing, and media buys instantly, rather than waiting for end-of-month reports. This agility improves conversion, guest satisfaction and profitability.
What are “living dashboards” in the context of Sandman Hotels?
A “living dashboard” is a dynamic, continuously updated interface that integrates multiple data sources (booking systems, web analytics, ad accounts, email, social), allowing teams to monitor real-time performance across revenue, loyalty, guest behavior and media. These dashboards are used by their operations, marketing and C-suite teams to understand which levers are positively (or negatively) affecting all sides of their business.
How does the analytics platform impact guest loyalty and tier migration?
The analytics platform enables tracking of loyalty programme behaviors, such as how many guests move from standard to premium tiers, how often they stay, how much they spend, and how media and promotions influence that movement. For a multi-brand group like Sandman, this helps tailor offers per guest segment and property.
What role does advertising-performance measurement play for Sandman Hotels?
Advertising-performance measurement links media spend (national or local) to measurable outputs: guest count lift, incremental revenue, and guest value increase. Thus, media budgets can be allocated to channels or properties with proven lift, rather than purely by reach.
How would other hotel chains or multi-unit hospitality brands benefit from Simple Simple’s way of handling Sandman Hotels?
If you are a hotel group or franchise system with multiple properties, markets, revenue streams and guest segments, Simple Simple’s work for Sandman Hotel demonstrates how to build a unified analytics infrastructure, integrate loyalty and guest behavior, optimize media spend with measurable lift, and generate operational agility via real-time dashboards.
