How Adani built the largest and most ambitious "Adani Travel Super-App" through a content-led growth engine

When Anirudh Singla, Pepper Content's Founder and CEO met Nitin Sethi, Chief Digital Officer of Adani Digital Labs for the first time, never before had the Pepper team seen such an order of magnitude in terms of thinking about a content-led growth approach to scaling one's business. And the content was the centerpiece in the strategy of such a prominent business leader. We weren't talking about 100 pages or 1000 pages. The magnitude was in 100,000s of pages - and unlike the low-quality bar that was set in the travel ecosystem - the quality of the content was of paramount importance. How does one build a scalable content flywheel that involves building an on-demand team of 800+ travel subject matter experts?

Mapping the travel ecosystem needed deep expertise and experience in this domain and at the same time, the flair for travel writing and important aspects of factual accuracy were important parameters to success.

From Himalayan peaks to sun-kissed beaches, Indians are on the quest for unique travel experiences. Travel, for the Great Indian Traveler, is a quest to embrace unity in diversity, taste varied cuisines, and forge unforgettable connections. Here are some core insights that reflect how the Indian Traveller's experiences are evolving fast -

1. 45% of travelers prefer booking a trip from start to finish from a single website that presents options for flights, accommodations, etc.

2. 40% of leisure travelers (a fast-growing segment) say they now invest more time and effort in planning trips

3. A vast majority of travelers – 78% - believe that personalized content helps them decide on their destination and activities

4. 40% of all travel searches are with destination names

With the constantly changing environment, growing expectations from an audience who wanted to travel far and wide after the lifting of the COVID restrictions, and growing competition in the travel and tourism sector underpinned the need for a dynamic content strategy that drove trends, rather than following them. One can also see the demand for both Domestic and International passenger traffic data in India below -

Adani One's Northstar

Their primary objective was to educate customers and spread their message far and wide, reaching a wide audience.

Within a year of engaging with Pepper, Adani One has scaled to over 4.2 Million Visits a Month, and organic traffic has risen from 0 to touching 100,000 organic visits a month. This excellent performance is further emphasized by the website's successful ranking on more than 37,000 keywords within the Top 50 search results.


One can see a sharp expansion in organic keywords ranking and indexing, especially in the last 6 months with high-quality content indexing and driving strong strong organic growth.


And the best part? The growth isn't slowing down; it's still soaring high. Read below on how Pepper Content helped them solve the problem by defining the challenges and helping Adani One build a massive travel content ecosystem.

The app provided flight booking and information pages with information about locations in multiple cities that were on the bucket list of travelers. Pepper first diagnosed and identified the user and search intent of the audience across the entire buyer funnel - Learning and awareness, Consideration, Brand and Research,

Pepper Content along with the Adani Digital Labs SEO and Content team put together a total of more than 20,000 domestic and international flight pages with detailed information to help travelers plan their itineraries properly and smoothly. The pages were built with extensive research so that they are comprehensive enough for a user to find everything they need on the same platform.

A comprehensive gap analysis was done in terms of the right keywords that other platforms were ranking on - and where there was a stronger opportunity to expand and build upon organic presence quickly.

Adani One decided to partner with Pepper Content to align its content strategy with the evolving demands of the travel industry. The goal was very clear:

Simplifying Travel for India

Using this goal as the starting point, Pepper Content worked with the Adani One team to streamline and build the largest editorial arsenal for the travel domain. Pepper Content deployed its expert talent network and built one of the largest on-demand content teams in its own lifetime so far.

Pepper developed three content pillars to present Adani One as a reliable source for accurate and exciting travel experiences. These were:

1. Authentic experiences: Travelers value authentic experiences and look for content that provides genuine and honest perspectives on travel destinations and services. Pepper’s content approach used actual traveler experiences to highlight various attractions
   
   Speciality Content - With a Focus on Expertise and Narrative

2. Personalization: Travelers appreciate personalized content that caters to their specific interests and preferences in travel. Want a customized tea garden experience in the foothills of Assam? Adani One can give it! Want to take in the Trevi Fountain in Rome at midnight? Plan it with Adani One!
   
   
   Ease of navigation: Travel, and the planning thereof, can be quite stressful. Travelers prefer user-friendly platforms and websites that make it easy to find relevant travel information. Pepper’s content flow makes it very easy for travelers to get out of their armchairs and onto a plane seat!
   
   

Pepper Content and Adani One worked together to develop content that unlocked effortless travel. Here’s how:

1. Develop informational content through Travel Experts and Experiential Bloggers

   Pepper worked with Adani One to curate a collection of 7000 listicles, providing users with comprehensive information about flights and things to do in the surrounding regions. These informative articles laid the foundation for their content-driven approach.

   
   

2. Experiential content

   Travel is not just locomotion from one place to another! It is an amalgamation of fun journeys, comradeship, new sights, sounds, and smells.

   Adani One introduced captivating "Travelogues" that get into the heart of travel experiences, covering transport, food, and hotels with in-depth and engaging content. Each piece of content is meticulously crafted to provide users with valuable insights and immerse them in the travel journey.
   
   

3. Integrating Custom CMS Capabilities that Reduced 100s of Man-hours Daily on Content Uploads

4. Use Pepper Content's Idea Lab to Generate and Build Relevant Content Themes

   The Pepper team identified high-volume keywords relevant to the travel industry. These were converted to topics that were enhanced by the writers. This ensured that the content hit the right target audience at the right time and location of their search

Adani One's content-driven approach yielded remarkable results, with an impressive 31.47% month-on-month growth and a 1.4x increase in traffic over a short span of 3 months


Top-performing travelogues such as “Food Festivals in Karnataka” and “The Lost Legacy of Kashmir” are getting significant visibility and an ever-growing audience.

Adani One's huge growth can be attributed to a winning formula: smart content design. By harnessing the power of digital content delivery at scale with Pepper Content, Adani One managed to provide travelers with authentic and detailed information, giving more than just basic travel information and conventional travel experiences.

Adani One's journey from inception to success exemplifies how innovative content design, in synergy with seamless navigation, can truly give wings to growth in the bustling Indian travel industry. As they continue to soar, they set a remarkable precedent for others to follow in the pursuit of travel excellence.