How To Get The Most Out Of Paid
Search For Travel
Josh Colbeck

Google Travel-
Vertical Insights
Best Practice
Tactics
Strategic
Considerations
➢ What data is available
➢ UK travel vertical insights
Future
Developments
Agenda
➢ Google betas
➢ Industry trends
➢ Defining KPIs
➢ Attribution
➢ Channel crossover
➢ Retargeting & audiences
➢ Bid model testing
➢ Call tracking
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Google Travel-Vertical Insights

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What data Is available
Google travel-vertical insights
Queries: Searches by users on Google Search (indexed to 100)
Impressions: Ads shown against search queries on Google Search (indexed to 100)
Clicks: Clicks on ads shown against search queries on Google Search (indexed to 100)
CPC: Cost per Click (Cost ÷ Clicks) in USD
Ad CTR: Click-through Rate (Clicks ÷ Impressions) in percent
Ad Depth: No. of ads shown whenever a search showed ads (Impressions ÷ Queries with ads)

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UK travel vertical insights
Google travel-vertical insights
Queries are up from previous years with impressions down slightly versus 2017 peak. This suggests top of
funnel and customer service searches may have driven query growth.

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UK travel vertical insights
Google travel-vertical insights
Ad clicks are on the up with CPC remaining static.

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UK travel vertical insights
Google travel-vertical insights
Ad depth continues to increase showing more competitors are using paid search vs. previous years.

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UK travel vertical insights
Google travel-vertical insights
Mobile accounts for 59% of searches and continues to provide
the vertical growth while other devices decline.

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UK travel vertical insights
Google travel-vertical insights
Despite this, mobile is still providing the growth for the travel vertical.
Queries Impr. Clicks Ad CTR CPC
Ad
Depth
Mobile 21% 28% 16% -9% 1% 12%
Tablet -5% -8% -10% -2% 1% 2%
Computer -8% -8% -4% 4% 2% 8%
As a result mobile is becoming increasingly competitive.

Strategic Considerations

Defining KPIs
Strategic considerations
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A primary KPI should be agreed. You should
then track any action on your website
which increases the likelihood of a user
converting to your primary KPI metric.
In this example there are 5 touchpoints
that should be tracked.
Bookings and revenue can also be tracked
and tied back to the touchpoint.

Travel vertical often feature complex research
intensive user journeys. This is due to travel
being a high consideration purchase.
Current tracking capability shortfalls means
the true user journey is likely to be even
longer and complex.
Attribution
Strategic considerations
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Attribution
Strategic considerations
This often results in a significant conversion time
lag.
A conversion time lag report will show you the
number of days from the first tracked session to
the eventual conversion completion.
38% of our travel client’s non brand bookings
took 12+ days to convert.
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c
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Last Click
First Click
Second Click
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Attribution
Strategic considerations
There isn’t a right or a wrong answer to attribution but just
using last or first click will skew what is deemed as a success.
We recommend you utilise the position based model if you
are using a default model.

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Attribution
Strategic considerations
It is relatively easy to setup a custom attribution
model.
Before you commit to a model, you should
examine how this model compares to your
existing models
Your end goal should always be to drive greater
overall returns. Use this to judge the success of
your attribution model.

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Channel Overlap
Strategic considerations
We’ve already seen there is a lot of channel overlap in the user journey. Your strategy should consider
how other channels overlap with paid search to produce synergies.

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Channel Overlap
Strategic considerations
Spot matching and bidding on branded CTAs can have sizeable impacts on paid search performance.
Offline Media

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Channel Overlap
Strategic considerations
Brand bidding scripts, paid & organic reports and A/B landing pages can be used to maximise visibility
and conversion rate for both channels.
Organic Search

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Channel Overlap
Strategic considerations
Email shots and CRM data can be used for retargeting.
CRM Activity

Best Practice Tactics

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Retargeting & Audiences
Best practice tactics
Retargeting is critical to travel paid search. With significant conversion lags, it’s vital you remain visible
to potential customers who you’ve paid to arrive to your site at the start of their user journey.
“holiday
inspiration”
£1.50 CPC
“European
holidays”
£2 CPC
“holiday to
Italy”
£2.75 CPC
“Amalfi cost
holiday”
£3 CPC
“Sorrento
holiday”
£3.25 CPC
“Sorrento
all inclusive
holiday”
£3.75 CPC
“TUI all
inclusive
Sorrento”
Booking
completed
Non brand keyword cost = £16.25

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Retargeting & Audiences
Best practice tactics
Retargeting should target any audience who has shown an increased likelihood to convert. Your bid
adjustments should be set based on the level of the increased conversion rate.
Google Analytics advanced segments is the best way of calculating the increase in conversion rate and
the appropriate bid adjustment to set.

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Retargeting & Audiences
Best practice tactics
Retargeting settings can be set to “target” to allow for specific ad copy and landing pages to tailor the
user journey and CTA based on the user’s intent and likelihood to convert.
This greatly improves conversion rates and CTRs but there needs to be a minimum of 1k cookies per
retargeting audience.

Retargeting & Audiences
Best practice tactics
In this example, the brand ad directs the user to the homepage when the user has a specific interest in a product.
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Retargeting & Audiences
Best practice tactics
Serving an ad and directing the user would be the ideal user journey. This is because the user will be familiar with
landing page content and removes the need for them to navigate to the content.

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Bid Model Testing
Best practice tactics
Google Ads offer bid models which use hundreds
of signals to optimise max CPC bids to achieve the
desired goal.
There are a variety of bid models which can
optimise towards clicks, conversion value, CPA
and more.

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Bid Model Testing
Best Practice Tactics
Performance varies significantly and despite what Google say, they often don’t outperform manual bidding!
To test if Smart Bidding is the right tactic for your paid search, use one of the below testing methodologies:
Drafts &
Experiments
Pre/Post Metric
Analysis
Target Metric
Comparison
Recommended Not RecommendedIntermediate

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Call Tracking
Best Practice Tactics
Although consumers are increasingly converting through online channels, phone calls continue to form an
important part of the user journey.
Paid search is hugely effective in driving phone calls. Tracking calls and including them in your
attribution model is vital.
65%
35%
James Villa Revenue % By Channel
Website
Inbound Contact Centre

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Call Tracking
Best Practice Tactics
We recommend Responsetap as a call tracking solution. However, there are free call tracking solutions which
you can use to understand whether investment in a full tracking solution is needed:
Google Ads Website Call Tracking Google Analytics Event Tracking

Future Developments

Betas & Trends
Future developments
Increasingly Monetised SERPs Branded Inspiration Through
Image Search Ads
AI Optimisation
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Thank You!
Any Questions?
SEO . Content Marketing . PR & Outreach . Paid Search . Data Insights & CRO