Sojern Finds the Ticket To Becoming a Self-Service SaaS Platform with DocuSign CLM

In a post-pandemic world, consumers worldwide are eager to make up for years of missed travel experiences. For travel providers, connecting with these potential customers at the right moment is critical. That’s where travel marketing company Sojern comes in. 

Founded in 2007, Sojern initially focused on placing advertisements on printed airline boarding passes. It’s since evolved into a sophisticated digital travel marketing platform used by hotels, airlines, attractions and tourism boards. “We aim to be that one-stop shop where all of our customers can run multi-channel campaigns,” said Senior Product Manager Simon Zelman.

As Sojern transitioned from being an advertising services provider to more of a travel marketing technology company, it needed a powerful, automated contracting solution that could seamlessly integrate with its new custom-built technology platform. That’s when the company turned to DocuSign. 

Simplifying contract generation using dynamic templates

Onboarding a new client requires a number of contracts to be generated, reviewed and signed. Previously, this process involved a lot of back-and-forth emailing between Sojern’s legal, finance and commercial teams. The many disparate paths these contracts took meant that they frequently contained nonstandard language.

DocuSign CLM not only helps reduce risk but also simplifies the contract generation process. “We’re able to allow internal users to give us some inputs in the Sojern platform, and then CLM takes care of the rest,” said Zelman. 

Sojern's commercial team has an easy starting point with templates in CLM. Conditional logic ensures the right template and fields are selected based on region, customer segment and contract type.

Having a single, consistent process ensures contracts adhere to Sojern’s preferred structure and language. The standardization of agreements also eliminates the need for approvals from legal and finance teams. After agreements are drafted and signed, CLM gives Sojern a centralized place to keep track of them. 

“The employee reaction has been overwhelmingly positive,” said Zelman. “As a product manager, it's been really rewarding to see the time savings that we're driving with CLM and eSignature.”

Accelerating client onboarding to kickstart campaign processes

When rolling out CLM, the company opted for a phased approach, beginning with a small subset of clients using its new digital marketing platform. Early results have been very promising. “The biggest impact we’ve seen so far is around the speed in which we’re able to generate and turn around contracts,” said Zelman. 

By streamlining the end-to-end contract process, DocuSign has played a role in helping Sojern onboard customers and launch campaigns 78% faster. “​​From an operations perspective, our overall process has gone down from 70 minutes to less than 15,” said Zelman. “The DocuSign CLM integration is a major part of that.” 

Positioning Sojern for future evolution and growth

As Sojern expands its CLM footprint beyond North America, DocuSign's support for EU privacy and security regulations simplifies compliance. “We've had great support from the DocuSign team in teaching us about the additional security protocols, and it was a seamless transition to include the required add-ons to our CLM instance,” said Zelman.

On its quest to become the world’s top travel marking platform, the automation afforded by CLM will be a critical component to achieving the kind of scale and sophistication the company has targeted. Zelman’s team plans to implement DocuSign Click Agreements, enabling a seamless self-service sign-on for independent properties. And for enterprise-level clients, the ability to redline contracts will be a major value add.

“DocuSign is an invaluable tool for Sojern, especially with the additional services that’ll allow us to roll out our travel marketing platform to enterprise clients and truly become a SaaS platform company,” said Zelman.