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.

Recently, Google began optimizing AdWords campaigns for advertisers. After much curiosity, I called my Google Account Manager and asked about this service. I decided to give it a try. I figured, it is Google and they know more about paid search than anybody, right?? So, she began asking me the basic search marketing questions:

• What are my campaign goals? Lower CTR%? Lower CPA? Increase Traffic?
• Does she have permission to change my ad descriptions?

After a few days my campaign optimization was complete. Suggestions were made based on a review of my website and historical analysis of my campaign stats. Before implementing the changes to any account, Google makes each client review the keyword list, bid changes, new ad descriptions. I reviewed everything thoroughly, and uploaded the changes. They told me to let it run for at least 10 days before making any adjustments.

Naturally, things started slowly for the first few days, conversions were minimal, and CTR% was lower. After 5 days I was beginning to worry, but I refrained from making any changes, still hoping stats would improve. After 12 days my conversion was in the basement, with the door locked shut:

• Conversion had dropped by 54%
• Cost-Per-Conversion had increased by 57%

This is definitely not what I was expecting. I reverted back to my original ad descriptions and adjusted my bids.

Now, I am sure that Campaign Optimizer will improve many campaigns that are being managed by smaller businesses and advertisers. But, this definitely shows the importance of interacting with your client, and really getting to know their business and industry. Minimal client interaction will bring minimal results.

Typically, offline marketing has been used to drive online traffic. But, with all the detailed analytics it offers, online marketing should really be used to increase offline conversions.

How? By using split A/B testing of pay per click ad descriptions online, advertisers can find out which promotions, offers, or calls to action bring in the most traffic and highest conversion rates. This is valuable information for the creation of both offline and online marketing campaigns.

Here’s how it’s done. A/B testing in the search engines allows an advertiser to write multiple ad descriptions for a targeted group of keywords. Each ad description should contain a different promotion, offer, or call to action. These ads will be rotated on the SERPs page when your keywords are queried by searchers. PPC tracking and good website analytics can track which ads produced the highest click thru rate (CTR%), the most conversions and the lowest cost per acquisition.

These ad descriptions should run in a test group for at least 2 months. There needs to be enough data to make a decision as to which ad description had the greatest impact. These findings should then be used to create offline marketing campaigns, incorporating the strongest elements from the best performing ads.

Online and offline marketing teams need to work together. A common mistake made by many companies is their failure to integrate online and offline efforts.

Moral of this blogpost: Don’t forget to consult your Ecommerce Manager when running an offline marketing campaign!