Nodal Marketing · AI Platforms
An Introduction
to Nodal
Who we are, how we work, and why we're built for hospitality.
Nodal is a global marketing and AI technology company built specifically for the hospitality industry. We exist to help hotels and hospitality groups make more from their data, waste less on inefficient marketing, and connect the dots between media, revenue, and operations.
Why We Exist
Hospitality is drowning in data, starving for insight.
0%
of the average workday is spent on things that have little to no value.
The world has changed rapidly, and the network agencies have failed to keep up. Hospitality businesses are drowning in data but starving for insight. Marketing budgets get spent without clear line of sight to revenue. Teams waste hours on manual reporting instead of driving strategy. We built Nodal to fix this, by harnessing the full power of AI to connect marketing performance to business outcomes.
What We Do
Two connected disciplines, one growth engine.
Nodal operates across two connected disciplines that work together to drive growth for hospitality businesses.
Nodal Marketing
A full-service marketing capability built for hospitality. We plan, buy, and optimise media across paid search, paid social, organic search, marketplaces, and more, all powered by AI models that feed real business data into every decision.
- ▸Paid Media (Google, Meta, LinkedIn, DV360)
- ▸Organic Search & SEO
- ▸Analytics & Measurement
- ▸Content Marketing
- ▸CRO & UX
- ▸Website Development
- ▸Strategy & Planning
- ▸Consultancy
Nodal AI
We build internal AI sales and marketing platforms tailored to your business. Your data, your systems, your KPIs, connected into a single intelligence layer that gives every team the answers they need, in real time.
- ▸Unified data layer connecting PMS, CRS, CRM, media, and revenue systems
- ▸AI-powered insights, anomaly detection, and recommendations
- ▸Role-based dashboards for group, regional, and property teams
- ▸Occupancy and ADR optimisation models
- ▸Direct vs. OTA channel mix analysis
- ▸Need period detection and demand stimulation
- ▸Forecasting and media planning
Connect · The Platform Architecture
The Founders
Built by practitioners, not theorists.
Nodal was founded by Tim Durgan and Daniel Gibson, who built their careers together at Assembly Global, the Stagwell-backed omnichannel media network formerly known as ForwardPMX.
Tim Durgan
Growth & StrategyTim ran display, led data science, and rose to APAC Head of Strategy through three promotions, working with hospitality leaders including Aman and Marina Bay Sands. As the industry's centre of gravity shifted to data and AI, he expanded his skillset to stay ahead of it, completing the London School of Economics' Data Analytics Career Accelerator. At Nodal, he leads growth and strategy.
Daniel Gibson
OperationsDaniel joined as the third employee of the original Forward Group and spent 18 years with the agency, growing up alongside it as it evolved from Forward to ForwardPMX to Assembly under Stagwell. He ran and grew the Hilton paid media account for 12 years, delivered work for brands including Virgin Holidays, and left as Global Head of Media Operations. At Nodal, he runs operations and the day to day of the business.
Early Traction
The traction speaks for itself: within three weeks of founding, Nodal won the Ovolo Hotel Group account.
Nodal exists on a simple conviction: hospitality businesses don't need more dashboards, they need intelligence that connects the dots between marketing, revenue and operations.
How We Work
The connected approach.
We don't operate in silos. Our four connected departments work together to ensure the entire ecosystem is connected globally.
Insights
Leading the market through research analysis, powered by AI integrations with market data for advanced analysis.
Interaction
Taking clients along the technical maturity curve through MarTech development and AI consulting.
Ignition
Making every media dollar more effective through AI optimization and reporting.
Impact
Uncovering growth opportunities through machine learning models to deliver advanced analytics at scale.
Built for Hospitality
AI in action, hospitality-specific use cases.
Our AI models are trained specifically on hospitality data and business challenges. Here's what that looks like in practice.
Live Customer Scoring
AI models that score each variable to predict booking likelihood and optimise plans against it.
Occupancy Rate Optimisation
Feed occupancy data into the framework to optimise media to occupancy, not just clicks.
Cohort Modelling
AI-powered cohort identification to inform targeted marketing and retention strategies.
TGV Optimisation
Optimise to total guest value, increasing overall revenue from each guest stay.
Outcome Influence Testing
Measure the true incremental impact of marketing efforts for maximum ROI.
Media Impact Testing
Precisely evaluate campaign effectiveness to enhance decision-making.
Proven in Production
Impact Analyser, a hospitality case study.
The Challenge
A hospitality client relied heavily on brand paid search, but soaring CPCs (up 88% YoY) were eating budget with no clear view of incremental impact.
Our Approach
We designed a controlled experiment using regional traffic splits, then built advanced statistical models to isolate the true incremental value of paid search.
+0%
incremental conversions, without increasing overall marketing budget.
57% of brand paid search visits were not driving incremental conversions. Budgets were reallocated to paid social, digital video, influencer, and DOOH, driving raised brand awareness and sustainable growth.
Proof in the market
What AI-managed media looks like in practice.
For an Australian boutique hotel group we partner with, web direct revenue had been declining through 2024, with over 88% of bookings still tied to a single, saturating domestic market. We rebuilt their paid media programme on Connect, our proprietary AI marketing intelligence platform, shifting budget away from low incrementality brand search and toward higher value international demand.
Results, Q4 2025 vs Q4 2024
Before vs after, Q4 2024 vs Q4 2025
ROAS improved from 16.4 to 20.4, and international bookings share rose from 10.7% to 18.3% of the total.
Paid search revenue
on just a 13.5% increase in spend, three times faster than the investment behind it
Spend increase
the investment behind +40.6% paid search revenue growth
Paid social bookings
from paid social alone in the final quarter, while spend fell 6.0% and cost per engaged session fell 31.1%
This is not a one off. It is what happens when a hospitality brand lets AI find the incremental revenue a manual review cycle is too slow to catch.
Partnership Principles
How we work with you, across marketing and AI.
Intelligence before spend.
Every recommendation starts with your data, your market and your guests, not with a media plan template. We connect the dots before we commit a dollar.
One team, two disciplines.
The people shaping your media are the same people building your AI capability. Marketing and AI shouldn't be separate conversations, so they never are with us.
Evidence over opinion.
If we can't measure it, we don't claim it. Our AI platforms exist to make every decision testable, traceable and defensible in front of your CFO.
Your systems, your data.
We build inside your environment, not a black box. Your data stays yours, your team learns as we go, and you keep the capability if we ever part ways.
Practical pace.
We favour quick wins that fund the bigger build. Every phase is scoped to show value before the next one starts, so momentum never depends on blind trust.
Want to see it in action?
Your La Vie Living portal includes the opportunity audit and the front door plan. The Nodal AI platform is live and ready to connect your data.