Western & Oriental

Luxury Holidays and Experiences

Brief

How to improve search engine marketing performance.

Challenge

We know from our analysis of holiday planning search behaviour that people make around 30 searches, becoming more and more specific as they get closer to booking. Therefore, whilst some search terms offer high volumes, others which are more closely related to specific destinations, holidays or brands often deliver a higher rate of conversion. What combination of terms with what bidding strategy would represent the optimum performance?

Solution

With Conrad’s best practice search principles in mind, we conducted a free audit of Western & Oriental Travel’s Google Pay Per Click search marketing campaigns and identified three areas for potential improvement; 1) use of a long tail strategy and removal of inefficient match types; 2) adjustment to an effective bid management strategy; 3) introduction of a day-part activity strategy that was in-step with sales floor opening hours.

Satisfied with the analysis, the client then asked us to implement changes to the Google advertising accounts to achieve these results. This required restructuring around destination and holiday types, with a new focus on relevance and not just purchasing power. We also introduced an alternative positioning strategy geared towards improved Return On Investment, which paved the way for reinvestment in additional profitable keyword phrases.

Results

Conrad Advertising has now fully implemented this new and more effective strategy. The overall cost per enquiry has decreased 25%, which has lead to more enquiries for similar budgets. Ongoing optimisations aim to continue to reduce this figure.