Case Study
Montana Home Vacations
Bookings, brand, and a clean acquisition path for a 24-property portfolio
A premium rental operator in Montana’s Flathead Valley needed to say who the houses were for, get found faster, and see which ads produced bookings. We rebuilt the site, ran paid and organic together, roughly doubled Instagram, and put lead capture into a CRM. Eight months in, the company was acquired by Stay Montana.
Proof at a glance
The numbers that mattered
- ~$254Kattributable bookings8 mo. platform export
- 39new clientsindividuals and booking partners
- 1,164 → 2,399Instagram followersacross 96 posts
- ~38%site engagement growth
- ~42%organic traffic growth
Client context
Who they are and what they needed
Montana Home Vacations is a family-owned operator in Montana’s Flathead Valley managing 24 premium rental properties. In 2024 they partnered with Busic Digital to grow bookings and build a presence that would hold up in a crowded vacation rental market. The company was later acquired by Stay Montana, and the 24 properties continue as the Montana Home Vacations Collection.
The challenge
What was holding growth back
The specific problems you may recognize from your own business.
The website undersold the houses
The site and the social accounts did not look like the properties they were selling, and they were not producing bookings.
Competitive destination market
Flathead Valley tourism meant the brand had to earn attention from picky travelers.
Social had stalled
About 1,164 Instagram followers and almost no engagement, which made paid social cost more.
Nobody could say which bookings came from where
Without that, planning the next quarter was guesswork.
The strategy
What we focused on
Three things we set out to do, and why each one mattered here.
Brand clarity, then build
What we didGuest-centered copy and imagery across site, ads, and social.
Why it matteredPremium travelers decide on trust and quality cues before they ever book.
Get found, then get booked
What we didA site rebuild, SEO for the phrases guests search, and paid search.
Why it matteredMost sessions came from phones, so phone-first was not optional.
Systems behind the bookings
What we didCRM, analytics, and lead routing.
Why it matteredAn inquiry that sits unread for a day is a booking somebody else takes.
What we changed
What we actually changed
Each one pairs the change with the reason it mattered.
Site redesign
Rebuilt montanahomevacations.com around the property photography, a menu people could follow, and an obvious way to book. Premium guests should not have to click four times.
SEO for what guests search
Targeted phrases like Flathead Valley rentals, Montana vacation homes, and Glacier National Park area stays. The words guests actually type.
Built for phones
Most people find these houses on a phone. A premium brand on a slow phone stops feeling premium.
Google Ads and remarketing
Searches from people ready to book, premium positioning, and bookings we could trace back to spend. Remarketing brought back people who had already looked.
Instagram on a schedule
Steady posting, including Stories and Reels. Affluent travelers check Instagram before they book.
CRM and analytics
Lead capture feeds follow-up automatically, and the source of each lead gets recorded. Doing that by hand breaks down as inquiries grow.
One shared place for inquiries
Guest inquiries and email in a cloud workspace instead of scattered inboxes. Fewer dropped threads when someone is off.
Comparison
Before and after
What changed, side by side.
1,164 Instagram followers, low engagement
2,399 followers, higher engagement across 96 posts
Inquiries passed along by hand
Lead capture routed through a CRM, with the source recorded
Generic listings on premium houses
Guest-centered photography and copy across the site
Outcomes
Outcomes after launch
Headline numbers from the eight-month program. Organic traffic grew about 42% in the same window. Montana Home Vacations was then acquired by Stay Montana, and the 24 properties continue as the Montana Home Vacations Collection.
- ~$254Kattributable bookings8 mo. platform export
- 39new clients
- 1,164 → 2,399Instagram followersacross 96 posts
- ~38%site engagement growth
Proof note
Eight months of bookings we could trace back to ads and search. 39 new clients across individuals and booking partners. Instagram roughly doubled. The company was then acquired by Stay Montana, and the 24 properties continue as the Montana Home Vacations Collection.
Takeaways
What this project shows
Premium needs proof
The photography, the writing, and how fast someone replies all hold up the price. One weak link and the price stops making sense.
Doing all of it beats doing one thing
Photography, site, follow-up, and ads together beat any one of them on its own.
Clean records make a business easier to buy
A company that can show where its bookings came from is far easier for a buyer to evaluate.
Want to find the same kinds of gaps in your website?
We’ll look at your homepage, the path a visitor takes, and what happens after someone gets in touch. You get a short video and a written list of fixes, free.