The travel industry has had a harder time than most over the past couple of years but recovery is finally on its way. Demand for domestic and international trips are both on the up and restrictions in the UK are more relaxed than they’ve ever been since being introduced in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Here are some travel PPC tips from our team to help you capture as much of the increased interest as possible.
What PPC strategies are we looking at today?
- Take advantage phone number database of online shift
- Ease travellers’ Covid concerns
- Cater for last-minute, flexible bookings
- Create a sense of urgency in your remarketing ads
- Go the extra mile to win positive reviews
- Target leads, not only bookings
- Keep on top of search data
You can apply many of these strategies to your broader marketing strategy (SEO, content marketing, etc.) but, in this article, we’re specifically looking at how you can apply these to your PPC campaigns.
#1: Take advantage of the online shift
Recently, we published an article entitled austria business phone list 5 ways shopping behaviour is changing in the UK, exploring data published by Google and UK research consultants Trinity McQueen. The joint study suggests the “seismic shift towards online” driven by Covid-19 is here to stay and retailers that also (or predominantly) sell offline have to adapt to this permanent transition.
This applies to travel companies that used to taking bookings offline prior to the pandemic, especially if these involved in-store or agency visits.
This has to be reflected in marketing budgets with more funds dedicated to online channels – namely, search marketing. Search is where the online booking process begins and PPC gets you to the front of the queue when travellers are looking to make a booking. By targeting high-intent keywords like “flight to Italy,” you can secure bookings on the spot but you’ll be competing with some heavy brands for the top positions.
If you don’t have the budget to compete for more competitive keywords, you can target long-tail queries, such as “flexible return flights to Venice”.
You can also target long-tail organic searches, such as “winter holidays no quarantine for UK travellers” and target page visitors with remarketing ads as they continue to browse the web.
#2: Ease travellers’ Covid concerns
According to a survey carried out by austria business directory VisitBritain, 80% of travellers asked in August 2021 would consider an international leisure trip in the next 12 months with 50% saying they would “definitely” consider travelling.
However, travellers still have concerns about travelling during the pandemic and companies have to address these. The same study cites money-back guarantees as the biggest influence on travel bookings, given all of the uncertainty travellers have faced over the past two years.
The second biggest concern for travellers is Covid-19 cases in the destinations of their choice, followed by the removal of quarantine measures, hygiene and safety protocols, high vaccination rates and the travel requirements returning back to the UK (these have eased significantly since early October).
