PAID SEARCH IN THE TRAVEL SECTOR JIM BANKS GLOBAL HEAD OF BIDDABLE MEDIA CHEAPFLIGHTS

” “ 3 Golden Rules for travel paid search

@jimbanks #FOS16

IF YOU RISK NOTHING.. Always be testing hypothesis Always seek out new betas Don’t be afraid to make #FOS16

BE A NINJA Don’t be obvious – Don’t name your Campaigns – “Top 10 keywords” unless you are throwing your competition a curve ball Use the human factor – Man will win over machine, every #FOS16

ZIG VS. ZAG Don’t do something just because Google or Bing says so (NSS) Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) can be great… or horrible Use dedicated PPC landing pages – Strip it down Don’t just import Google to Bing and think you are #FOS16

THE ANOMALIES OF PAID SEARCH FOR TRAVEL The biggest competitor for travel advertisers is Google Typical best practise techniques for paid search don’t apply The value of the “head” terms is huge Most advertisers lose money – so having strong SEO is vital Brand bidding is a pandemic The halo effect of organic and paid together is greater in travel than other #FOS16

HOW TRAVEL SEARCH USED TO BE….. I want to go somewhere Book tickets

TRAVEL SEARCH IN 2016…. DesireResearchBookExperienceDepression

SO WHICH OF THOSE 419 ARE THE MOMENTS THAT MATTER #FOS16

B2C OR B2B B2C typically 2-3 vacations a year B2B typically 2-3 vacations a year & a number of business trips Both increasingly involve mobile as facilitators in the decision making #FOS16

NUMBER 1 AIM OF ALL TRAVEL ADVERTISERS Reduce dependency on #FOS16

WHAT WORKS Cross promotion – Flights to hotels, flights to car rental App promotion – Universal App campaigns Day-parting – 168 hours a week Weather Device modifiers Location targeting Form Factors – iPhone 4 vs. iPhone 6S Value Track Parameters #FOS16

WHAT DOESN’T WORK Review extensions Bid management tools Extensions #FOS16

WHAT MIGHT WORK Comprehensive sitelinks The human factor Local knowledge Campaign based #FOS16

THE TROJAN HORSE

MOBILE / APP STRATEGY More than average number of visits via mobile Less friction to get to search results Personalisation Track activity cross-device - UID NO dependency on #FOS16

COOL THINGS Ad customizers DSA Facebook to Google & Google to Facebook Bing Remarketing Custom Audiences from List Behavioral #FOS16

AD #FOS16

DSA (DYNAMIC SEARCH #FOS16

CUSTOM LOOKALIKE AUDIENCES (TIERED OF #FOS16

SUMMARY Paid search in travel turns best practice on it’s head It’s almost entirely moving towards apps and mobile web It’s becoming almost entirely pay to #FOS16

THANKS