The Big Wave Blog

Paid search marketing is expanding beyond Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask. Today, discount travel sites, such as Expedia and Kayak/SideStep, are getting into the pay-per-click marketing game, offering their own paid search advertising models. These websites offer a more targeted advertising option and better consumer demographics for marketers looking to promote seasonal deals and packages.

Discount travel sites offer the user a 1-stop shop for booking hotels, flights, cars and packages. Now, with the addition of pay-per-click ads on the search results page, they will allow advertisers to post ad descriptions with different messaging, promotions and rates, as well as land users directly on the advertiser’s official site, rather than having them shop and purchase from the discount travel site.

Discount Travel Sites Offering a Paid Search Model
Expedia and Kayak/SideStep are two of the biggest discount travel sites, bringing in over 15,000,000 unique visitors per month.

Kayak, who just acquired SideStep for $196 million, now offers their own pay per click marketing platform. The same platform displays ads on both Kayak and SideStep. You can create your campaign, and then upload it using a custom bulk upload sheet, targeting local, national or international searchers. The system is very user-friendly, operating like bigger paid search models from Google, Yahoo and MSN.

The ads are shown along the right-hand side of the search results page on Kayak and SideStep:

Click on image for expanded view.

Expedia did offer its own paid search model. It displayed ads at the top and bottom of its search results.  I have not seen these results very consistently, but I will be on the lookout for these ads to reappear.

Sites Not Offering a Paid Search Model
TripAdvisor and MapQuest currently offer paid search listings at the top and right side of each search results page. These listings are served on every page of both sites, using results from Google AdWords.

Yahoo Travel currently offers a prominent search bar on every page displaying results powered by Yahoo Search Marketing. The ads are prominently displayed in 2 sections along with the standard travel deals and reviews.

Orbitz, Priceline, and Travelocity do not currently offer a paid search marketing model, but they might quickly follow suit.

Currently, Marriott, Westin, Hilton, and discount travel sites are the only brands taking advantage of paid search on Kayak and SideStep. But, this is an area of search marketing that holds great opportunity for the travel industry and independent travel companies. User behavior on these sites is much different than on search engines. A greater number of site users are in the conversion stage of the buying cycle, rather than the shopping stage. Lower CPCs, less competition, and a targeted, conversion-minded audience are some of the benefits of starting a paid search marketing campaign on either Kayak/SideStep or Expedia.