Savvy search engine marketers are launching their travel campaigns now, and our Yahoo! Bing Network experts share tips on how to optimize them
With winter in full force, online consumers are not just dreaming about vacation escapes, they’re busily researching and booking their dream trips.
Now’s the time for travel marketers and retailers to connect with travel-minded consumers, who use search as their number-one means of online vacation research and planning.*
Our Yahoo! Bing Network experts have blended up some search insights as potent as Pina coladas to help you reach these shoppers as they flock to the Web to satisfy their wanderlust.
The early ad gets the sale
Winter-bound consumers are planning ahead for their escapes in the warmer months—long weekends, spring break, and summer trips. Our search traffic patterns show that there’s a time lapse between booking trips and actually taking them—and this is the booking season.
Last year, search impressions on the Yahoo! Bing Network picked up in January and continued to grow through summer. This year, click volume is expected to increase in Q1 as we head into travel’s busy season, so make sure to increase your search budgets to handle upcoming growth.
Tips for compelling ad copy
How can I write ad titles and copy that really speaks to travelers’ wants and desires? We knew you’d ask that, so we analyzed all ads on the Yahoo! Bing Network with at least five impressions serving on non-brand keywords in the travel market over a 30-day period. Here are tips from what we’ve learned:
Sharpen your ads with keywords or params: Common tactics with ads include using keywords or params in ad copy, mentioning rates, describing an offering as “cheap,” or encouraging users to compare deals. Of these tactics, “compare” messages perform the worst, while using params is the most effective. Additionally, if you’re going to use dynamic keyword insertion, it’s most effective in the ad title.
Mention price points in the ad title: While not the most common practice, this one reaps the highest performance. For the most bang for your buck, try using a combination of a price point and a “% off” message in the title and description.
Succeed with Sitelinks: On average, ads with Sitelinks had significantly better ad quality than those without these deep links.
Tune up travel copy with these combos: We’ve also analyzed the top-performing ad copy message combinations for the major travel business types, which are outlined in the chart below:
Exact match helps your campaigns excel
Overall, our research shows that impressions are evenly distributed among all match types---Exact, Phrase and Broad. But when it comes to travel, exact match is a clear winner, scoring the highest CTR and the lowest average CPC of all match types (see chart below).
Take advantage of this trend by regularly expanding your keyword lists to maximize exact match coverage. Use these tips on how to do this based on your current search queries, or ask your Yahoo! account team for help.
