Search CTR, Montenegro
The Montenegro search campaign drew the most clicks in both seasons.
TRAVEL PPC CASE STUDY
PPC for a Tour Agency: Search CTR More Than Doubled
TradeVoyage | Travel | Summer 2012 and summer 2013
TradeVoyage wanted more relevant traffic at the lowest possible click price, current tour information in its ads, and fast promotion of last-minute deals. Two summer seasons of daily account work more than doubled search CTR and made clicks cheaper.
2.2x
Search CTR, Montenegro
2.7x
Search CTR, Italy
-33%
Cost per click, Montenegro
What a tour agency needs from paid search
Tour offers change quickly, so the ads had to keep up with them.
A tour operator since 2002
TradeVoyage sells tours to Montenegro, Italy, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, and other destinations.
Relevant traffic at a low click price
The first goal was more relevant visitors to the site with the cost per click kept to a minimum.
Current offers in every ad
Ads had to carry up-to-date tour information and promote last-minute deals widely as soon as they appeared.
How the account was run
Separate campaigns for each destination, updated daily through the season.
Keywords
Keywords were analyzed and selected, then refined to raise CTR and attract better-qualified traffic.
Ads by destination
Unique ads were written for each destination and updated quickly as discounts and last-minute tours appeared.
Search and display
Separate search and display campaigns ran for Montenegro, Croatia, Bulgaria, and Italy.
Display targeting
Display ad groups were targeted by themes, interests, placements, and keywords.
Bids
Bids were managed on the performance data of each keyword.
MEASURED RESULTS
Summer 2012 vs. summer 2013
Google Ads reports, June to August of each year. The first rows show single search campaigns, the last three the averages and account totals charted in the original case.
Search CTR, Italy
The Italy search campaign grew even faster in relative terms.
Average cost per click, Montenegro
The average click became a third cheaper.
Average search CTR, Montenegro and Italy
The mean of the two search campaigns that ran in both seasons.
Average cost per click, overall
Account-level figure across all campaigns, as charted in the original case.
Average ad position, overall
Lower is better: the ads moved closer to the top spot.
Figures come from the Google Ads reports in the original case. Bulgaria was added in 2013, so it has no 2012 baseline: its search campaign reached a 23.34% CTR in its first summer. The average search CTR is the mean of the Montenegro and Italy search campaigns. The overall cost per click and average position cover the whole account, so the overall cost per click ($0.06 to $0.03) differs from the Montenegro search campaign alone ($0.06 to $0.04).
The reports behind the numbers
We worked on travel agency ads campaign in the summer of 2012 for tours to Montenegro and Italy. In summer 2013 the company added Bulgaria.
Report for June–August 2012
| Campaign | Clicks | Impressions | CTR | Avg. CPC | Avg. position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Montenegro_Search | 2,583 | 23,453 | 11.01% | $0.06 | 2.3 |
| Italy_Search | 1,181 | 16,496 | 7.16% | $0.06 | 2.4 |
| Montenegro_Content | 2,505 | 462,792 | 0.54% | $0.05 | 2.7 |
| Italy_Content | 1,075 | 505,470 | 0.21% | $0.06 | 2.6 |
Report for June–August 2013
| Campaign | Clicks | Impressions | CTR | Avg. CPC | Avg. position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Montenegro Search | 1,601 | 6,525 | 24.54% | $0.04 | 1.9 |
| Bulgaria Search | 1,576 | 6,751 | 23.34% | $0.06 | 1.5 |
| Italy Search | 1,018 | 5,307 | 19.18% | $0.05 | 2.2 |
| Montenegro display network | 830 | 160,521 | 0.52% | $0.04 | 2.1 |
| Bulgaria display network | 1,463 | 311,032 | 0.47% | $0.03 | 2.2 |
| Italy display network | 165 | 68,533 | 0.24% | $0.05 | 2.6 |
During the time when Alconost worked on travel agency ads, search network CTR more than doubled (the average of the Montenegro and Italy search campaigns rose from 9.09% to 21.85%), the average ad position across the account improved from 2.5 to 1.8, and the overall average CPC fell from $0.06 to $0.03.
We were able to achieve these results thanks to continuous daily account optimization measures. We developed a list of keywords, optimised travel agency ads and managed rates based on data about the effectiveness of each keyword.
Summary
Several popular queries show that the price-per-click for the campaigns is lower than the average price in the campaign region.
Data from Google AdWords Traffic Estimator (estimates per day; original Russian queries in brackets)
| Keyword | Clicks | Impressions | Avg. position | Cost | CTR | Avg. CPC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Italy from Minsk" ("италия из минска") | 1.86 | 12.33 | 1.77 | $0.20 | 15.0% | $0.11 |
| "holiday in Italy from Minsk" ("отдых в италии из минска") | 0.54 | 5.15 | 2.61 | $0.10 | 10.4% | $0.19 |
| "holiday in Montenegro" ("отдых в черногории") | 4.33 | 83.22 | 2.76 | $0.91 | 5.2% | $0.21 |
| Montenegro tour (тур черногория) | 1.33 | 26.07 | 1.83 | $0.20 | 5.1% | $0.15 |
| "tours to Italy" ("туры в италию") | 1.3 | 16.86 | 2.42 | $0.20 | 7.7% | $0.15 |
| "tours to Montenegro" ("туры в черногорию") | 0.92 | 20.77 | 2.41 | $0.12 | 4.5% | $0.13 |
| "Montenegro from Minsk" ("черногория из минска") | 3.6 | 35.6 | 1.95 | $0.43 | 10.1% | $0.12 |
The estimator puts the average click for these queries at $0.11–0.21, while the campaigns paid $0.03–0.06 per click.
We were able to achieve these results thanks to the opportunity to collaborate with the customer on a long-term basis, the fact that our managers have been able to learn a lot about the tourism industry, and the close cooperation between the employees at Alconost and TradeVoyage.
Such tools as banner ads, special landing pages, and advanced Google Analytics were not used at the customer's request.
What the client said
"We really like working with Alconost. It is worth mentioning the quick response time of managers to our proposals. The tourism industry is very dynamic, and Alconost is an advertising agency that is able to effectively advertise these types of services. Our long partnership is proof of this!"
Tatiana Shamatenko
Director of the TradeVoyage Tour Agency
Originally published on the Alconost Digital blog. Onlinuum is run by the former Alconost Digital team.
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