Top PPC tips for the travel industry

The world of digital marketing is forever changing, and the way people travel and book their trips has changed beyond recognition in the last couple of decades. Paid search plays a big part in gaining customers and the travel industry is one of the biggest spenders when it comes to PPC. To ensure you're getting what you need from your PPC strategy read our top tips below:

Mobile Vs Desktop

Mobile is not the next big thing, it’s already here making itself comfortable and it’s still growing. The growth of mobile, has led to Google coin the phrase micro-moments, which the company defines as intent-driven moments of decision-making and preference-shaping that occurs throughout the entire consumer journey. This means mobile cannot be ignored, especially during the research phase. However, when it comes to booking a holiday desktop is still king.

When creating a PPC campaign for a travel company, it's best to base your keyword bidding at device level. For example, you may choose to use different wording in your ad copy and bid on different keywords for desktop vs mobile.

Remarketing

Booking a trip or holiday can be a drawn-out process, it's not usually an impulse purchase. Many people spend time researching destinations and prices, so it makes sense to remarket to online users. According to coverted.co.uk, a user is 70% more likely to convert when they return to your website if they have been remarketed to using display ads. To make the most of remarketing here are some ideas.

• Offer based remarketing: offer your online customers a deal with a unique discount code and free add-ons to entice them to book with you.
• Split your campaign between cart abandonment and website non-converters. The former are more engaged with your website and are more likely to convert with a personalised message.
• Target existing customers: you can use remarketing to encourage your existing customers to book again with you. This might be more effective at certain times of the year.

Seasonality

The travel season is all about seasonality, so ensure you plan your campaigns accordingly. If you're marketing a ski holiday brand, you might want to start an AdWords campaign in August and September, while it might be more effective for a mountain biking holiday company to target relevant keywords in January and February. Of course, use the data that you have available to determine when certain destinations sell online the most.

Scheduling Ads and Bid Adjustments

Learning when is best to schedule your ads can lead to higher and potentially cheaper conversion rates. In AdWords, you can schedule ads right down to the hour of the day. Of course, there isn't a perfect formula for this – much of it will be trial and error, as well as learning from the data AdWords produce.

Once you’ve figured out when it is best to schedule your ads you can then adjust your bid accordingly. There may be a time when you do not want to pause your ad but instead decrease the bid and other times when you may want to increase the bid during known peak conversion times.