Travel agency advertisement

Due to the very intensive development of tourism, there are more and more travel agencies competing for vacationers. Tourist companies are competing in both the number and quality of travel offers, and at the same time are looking for new opportunities to reach potential customers. Available tours not only present in the form of printouts stuck to the office windows or cavernous catalogs full of beautiful pictures of hotels, palm trees and laughing tourists, but – just like other service providers – they are promoted to the internet. On the Internet, they can reach a huge number of potential customers who are actively looking for available options, loosely browse travel-related websites, or some time ago have already visited the website of a given office and browsed some specific destinations on it.

The possibilities of advertising a travel agency on the web are many, and in this post I will show you how you can do it with Google Ads – using 3 basic types of campaigns in this case.

Google Ads is the most popular advertising system that allows the promotion of products and services on the web using text, product, graphic and video ads. As part of Google Ads, various types of ads are displayed in Google search results, on the Display Network, on YouTube, in Gmail, and in mobile applications.

Thanks to the wide possibilities offered by Google Ads, promotion of a travel agency on the Internet is a very effective move, because with ads you can reach a huge number of Internet users regardless of whether they are already at the search stage or will plan them only after some time.

So how do you choose the right type of promotion and prepare effective online travel agency advertising?

As always, the best answer to this question is: “It depends.” Well, everything will depend, among others on the budget, campaign coverage and marketing goal. With all Google Ads assets available, the following types of ads can be used:

Text ads on the Search Network:

Text ads are displayed in response to keywords entered in the search engine. In this way, a travel agency can advertise its offer based on:

– chosen destination, e.g. vacation in Greece, vacation in Japan, trip to Brazil,
– type of vacation, e.g. Italy all-inclusive vacation, Spain vacation by plane,
– vacation / purchase time, e.g. Portugal last minute, Philippines summer 2020,
– preferred activity / facilities, e.g. Dubai vacation hotel with pool,
– specific travel agency

There are many options for choosing keywords. It all depends on the preferences, offer and budget of the advertiser. When using text ads, it should be remembered that both the keywords and the content of the ads should always be up-to-date – you should avoid displaying outdated offers at all costs, e.g. already started stays or seasonal options that have expired.

Due to the fact that ads on the search network are displayed to people who are actively looking for specific options, it is necessary to present in their content the most important advantages of the offer. In the case of offices with a wide range of trips, this may require a lot of work and very frequent content updates, and regular keyword substitution, but it is worth ensuring the highest quality of the campaign, as any and general slogans may not bring the expected effect.

Display ads on the Display Network:

Image ads are displayed to Internet users who spend their time outside the search engine, i.e. browse other websites. Thanks to the wide possibilities of targeting banner ads, travel agencies have the opportunity to present their offer not only to those who search for specific search terms, but also to Internet users who visit, for example, holiday and travel websites (associated in the Google advertising network). In this way, beautiful and encouraging banners to visit a given destination can be targeted, among others to people:

– of a certain gender and age group, e.g. women aged 35-54, if it turns out that they most often use SPA holiday offers,
– which browse specific sites where they are looking for promotions on flights and hotels,
– who visit sites related to tourism in the broad sense, e.g. accommodation, diving, amusement parks and even car rental,
– of which (thanks to their online behavior) it is known that they are interested in travel, e.g. they like traveling with family or are beach lovers, etc.

As part of the advertising network, you can also use remarketing. Remarketing is an option that allows displaying image ads to those who have already visited the advertiser’s website some time ago and viewed the holiday offer, e.g. for the previous year.

As far as technically possible, remarketing also allows you to return with advertising to people who have already used the offer of a travel agency, e.g. made online reservations, as well as to those who started this process but did not finalize it. Properly prepared banners, especially those offering a small discount or other convenience, can effectively encourage Internet users to re-purchase or finalize it.

Advertising banners, just like in the case of text ads, should be regularly updated and ensure that the prices / dates / destinations presented on them are always up to date.

YouTube video ads:

More and more Internet users are looking not only for textual opinions about places they go to and travel agencies they use, but as part of research, they are just using YouTube and videos placed in its depths. The video has it in itself that it reveals slightly more details than a photo that has probably been properly processed. What’s more, recently popular vloggers and other travelers are happy to share tips on places worth visiting, present the best pubs in a given location, or advise you on what to take with you wherever you go.

That is why travel agencies are increasingly appearing on YouTube.

They run their own channels there, on which they regularly insert new, juicy advertising spots and use the most popular ad formats available there, namely:

– True View in Stream – short advertising films displayed before, during or after the movies watched by Internet users. Clicking on such a spot allows you to go to the advertiser’s channel or website to obtain detailed information about the offer,
– True View Discovery – advertising banners displayed above the suggestions of subsequent videos or in Youtube search results. Clicking on such a banner allows you to display an advertising movie.

Video ads on YouTube are displayed to Internet users in almost the same way as banners are targeted on the Display Network – based on demographic data, audience interests, topic of films or URLs of specific channels or videos. They usually complement the search engine campaign or the one from the Display Network. They are great as remarketing ads, so that people who were already behind the office’s website, encourage them to book their vacation not only with the content of the advertisement, but also a real example of what a vacation might look like in a given place.

Travel agency advertisement – summary

Of course, the three types of campaigns described above are not the only way to promote a travel agency on the Internet – there are plenty of options, and Facebook ads are suitable for separate entries in this context.