How Lyria optimizes its marketing and sales with Ekimetrics’ data science

How can you optimize marketing activation in a highly competitive environment where customer behaviours vary according to season, country, or reason for traveling? This is the question Lyria sought to answer by developing a data-driven management strategy designed specifically for the railroad industry. Thanks to a close collaboration with Ekimetrics, this Franco-Swiss transport leader deployed advanced Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) to measure, test, steer, and develop its marketing initiatives. The benefits are clear: more informed decision-making, rapidly increasing ROI, and better coordination across communications, promotions, pricing, and train occupancy rates.

Lyria’s 5 marketing and business challenges

A binational company led by the SNCF on the French side and the Chemins de Fer Fédéraux suisses (CFF) on the Swiss side, Lyria has experienced steady growth for several years, in a highly competitive and seasonal environment. In this context, five major challenges shape its marketing and business strategy:

1. Measuring the impact of channels in a unified way: Objectively comparing the effectiveness of different marketing levers and identifying those that actually contribute to sales.
2. Maximizing media ROI in an ultra-competitive market (rail, aviation, carpooling), where every euro invested makes a difference.
3. Aligning key sales events and communications: Coordinating ticket sales openings, promotions, and communication campaigns within a complex schedule.
4. Isolating the actual impact of marketing activations from exogenous contingencies: Distinguishing natural demand from ad hoc effects (strikes, construction, exceptional events) to assess campaign performance accurately.
5. Adapting targeting to different traveler profiles: Addressing the leisure, business, and premium segments effectively with the right content at the right time, and the right media.

“It was difficult to isolate and measure the impact of each lever in an ecosystem as dynamic as that of international trains. Thanks to Ekimetrics, we’ve gained in accuracy, agility, and above all in performance.” - Marie-Hélène Bazaine, France Europe Overseas Market Manager, TGV Lyria

Why is MMM revolutionary in the railroad industry?

1. Unified marketing orchestration with MMM has enabled Lyria to connect promotions, media communication, and ticket sales opening in an integrated management system, whereas these levers were previously managed separately.
2. ROI is amplified: The return on investment of marketing activities has risen from 1.2 to more than 3, demonstrating the direct impact on sales and brand image.
3. Understanding customer behaviour (professional customers vs. leisure customers, purchase intent, seasonality) has enabled optimization of the service and investments, with actionable business insights that are unprecedented in the industry.

4 key steps to develop a marketing strategy in the railroad industry

The collaboration between Lyria’s marketing team and Ekimetrics was built around an iterative approach, structured and firmly grounded in real business needs. Here are the 4 key milestones:

1. Scoping and business alignment phase: Essential preliminary work made it possible to accurately define the objectives and standardize data sources, while developing a shared base of understanding around the marketing and business levers to model. From 2017, Lyria laid the foundation for a culture of data-driven management as part of MMM.
2. Co-validation of the first models to measure: From 2019, the first Marketing Mix Modeling model was rolled out for the French market. Working closely with Lydia’s marketing team, Ekimetrics developed a customized analytical framework incorporating the rail sector’s market characteristics: seasonality, promotions, and media channel management.
3. Quarterly strategic reporting: Twice a year, Ekimetrics analyzes and presents the results in a process that aims to inform marketing decision-making. This format allows Lyria to develop its activation plans according to changes in market or mobility trends and to adjust its campaigns according to key moments. This regularity creates a scheduled marketing orchestration, while ensuring well-informed management in a seasonal environment.
4. Expansion of the model to Switzerland: Given the success of the French pilot, the model was extended to the Swiss market at the start of 2025. This expansion took into account the cultural and economic characteristics of both zones and provides a consolidated view of cross-border performance.

The power of holistic Marketing Mix Modeling: Which tests were performed?

The project’s core is based on a double model: Turnover on one side, ticket volume on the other. A cross-attentional intersection essential to address rail industry issues, notably to link marketing performance with the constraints of occupancy rates and the profitability of marketing initiatives.

What the model makes it possible to analyze:

• Sales trends: Distinguish the impact of natural demand, construction, strikes, exceptional events (such as the Olympic Games), and marketing activations.
• Marketing profitability: Introduce a unified KPI, ROI, which measures the global performance of marketing investments in order to steer budgets and adapt them each semester according to the market and its competitors.
• Effectiveness of communication initiatives: Identify the messages that work best, the most suitable channels, and the goals achieved (brand awareness, conversion, occupancy rates).
• Promotional mechanisms: Understand the role of sales periods, anticipation between a purchase and a trip, and “bargains” vs. key brand awareness moments, and differences between premium and standard classes.
• Marketing plan optimization: Integrate seasonality, the competition's developments, and characteristics specific to each country and line.

An example of synergy identified thanks to Marketing Mix Modeling: our analyses highlighted the best way to orchestrate ticket sales opening periods, brand awareness campaigns, and promotions. This optimal orchestration allows Lyria to encourage decision-making, notably for the most indecisive customers, and refine the steering of its marketing strategy.

A powerful platform: Eki.Decisions dedicated to dynamic recommendations

Ekimetrics relies on its proprietary platform Eki.Decisions to centralize the data, coordinate the models, and produce performance scores for the different activations. What Eki.Decisions enables Lyria to do:

• Visualize the contribution of past marketing activations
• Access reports on the effectiveness of media campaigns and promotions
• Simulate and optimize marketing activations, taking into account business constraints (capacity, seasonality, scheduling with parent companies)
• Test new media mix scenarios with a high degree of flexibility regarding activation periods and investments

Results: A platform that transforms MMM into concrete and actionable marketing recommendations, directly integrated into Lyria’s strategic management.

“Before, we moved forward blindly with our campaigns. Now, each euro invested is guided by concrete data. What we’ve learned is how to transform simple marketing activations into growth levers.” - Marie-Hélène Bazaine, France Europe Overseas Market Manager, TGV Lyria

Far from a simple analytical exercise, this collaboration has made it possible for Lyria to transform complex data into marketing decisions that are concrete, effective, and tailored to its business and rail industry challenges. A real use case for the rail sector, it shows how a personalized approach to data science can redefine marketing management, even in a competitive environment subject to economic and seasonal uncertainties.

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