As search mar­keters, we can gain valu­able insight into these sea­sonal trends by employ­ing geo­graphic report­ing and search vol­ume tools, such as Google Insights for Search. As this year’s un-winter passes and sum­mer lurks just around the cor­ner, now is the time for travel-industry mar­keters to max­i­mize PPC (pay per click) efforts for the sum­mer season.

>The Sea­sonal Search Trend

Search vol­umes for par­tic­u­lar des­ti­na­tions often depend on prox­im­ity to des­ti­na­tion. For exam­ple, search vol­ume for the key­word phrase “BC hol­i­days” tends to increase in nearby Wash­ing­ton, but does not see the same level of increase in Cal­i­for­nia. Sim­i­larly, search vol­ume for “Mex­ico vaca­tions” may increase on the West Coast, while “Cuba vaca­tions” sees an increase on the East Coast.

Let’s take a closer look at how a sum­mer travel pro­mo­tion might unfold.

>The PPC Campaign

BC Sum­mer Cam­paign – the tar­get audi­ence is com­prised of peo­ple plan­ning their sum­mer vaca­tion to British Columbia.

>The PPC Objective

To adver­tise BC as a vaca­tion des­ti­na­tion using paid ads, the goal is to engage long-haul trav­ellers resid­ing in Alberta and East­ern Canada. By serv­ing up use­ful BC-related con­tent and travel plan­ning tools, we moti­vate and guide users along the pur­chase path.

>The Travel Marketer’s PPC Strategy

Imple­ment the fol­low­ing tac­tics to reach the searcher at a vari­ety of touch-points through­out their trip-planning research, ulti­mately ensur­ing that the cam­paign objec­tives are met.

• Cap­ti­vate the user’s emo­tion with descrip­tive power words, such as “sun-kissed,” “white sandy beaches,” or “snow-capped moun­tains.” These key­words will help you tar­get the type of vaca­tion users are seeking.
• Cre­ate cus­tomized land­ing pages offer­ing help­ful infor­ma­tion such as rec­om­mended itin­er­aries, activ­i­ties, and spe­cial offers on accommodation.
• AdWords exper­i­ments allow you to test dif­fer­ent land­ing pages and adjust the cam­paign as needed.
• Use a remar­ket­ing strat­egy to pro­mote hotel deals and car rentals.
• Ban­ner ads and con­tent net­work text ads are used to max­i­mize visibility.
• Click-to-call mobile cam­paign is used to gen­er­ate calls to an infor­ma­tion centre.

>The Results

• Strong user engage­ment met­rics, such as the length of time spent on the site and num­ber of pages per visit.
• Pos­i­tive goal con­ver­sion rates in the form of accom­mo­da­tion book­ings, con­test entries, down­loads, and newslet­ter sign-ups.
• Land­ing page test­ing returns key infor­ma­tion. Putting a test­ing frame­work in place at the launch of your cam­paign can help you gain more insight into the types of offers and inter­ac­tions that appeal to your tar­get audi­ence, which will ulti­mately drive more vis­i­tor conversions.

>Key Take­aways

Do your research to gain a solid under­stand­ing of your best per­form­ing geo­graphic mar­kets. Seg­ment each cam­paign and tai­lor key­word buys accord­ingly. Cre­ate dis­tinct ad copy using care­fully selected key­word phrases that speak to the dif­fer­ent user behav­iours across var­i­ous markets.

Ensure you always have an end goal in mind for your PPC cam­paigns. Attract­ing more vis­i­tors into your lead gen­er­a­tion fun­nel will help you main­tain an ongo­ing con­ver­sa­tion with trav­ellers. It will also pro­vide an oppor­tu­nity to remar­ket to them through­out peak travel seasons.

Get more tips on max­i­miz­ing your pay per click strat­egy with Mediative’s cheat sheets.


Author: Marie Fitzgibbon
http://www.mediative.ca