Google Ads for Travel Companies: Stop Burning Budget on the Wrong Clicks

The average cost-per-click for travel keywords is $1.53. For competitive terms like “luxury hotel” or “all-inclusive resort,” you’re looking at $4-8 per click.

Now multiply that by the 97% of clicks that don’t convert. That’s the reality of travel PPC for most companies: expensive traffic that browses and bounces.

It doesn’t have to be this way. But fixing it requires abandoning how most agencies structure travel ad campaigns.

Why Most Travel PPC Campaigns Fail

The standard agency playbook for travel Google Ads looks like this:

Create campaigns around broad destination keywords
Write generic ad copy (“Book Your Dream Holiday Today!”)
Send traffic to the homepage or a generic landing page
Wait for conversions
Blame “the market” when CPA is through the roof

The problem isn’t Google Ads. The problem is treating travel like every other industry.

Travel has a longer consideration cycle than almost any other purchase. The average traveller visits 38 sites before booking. They search, compare, save tabs, come back a week later, compare again, ask their partner, and then finally book — often on a completely different device.

A single click-to-conversion funnel doesn’t account for any of this.

Structuring Campaigns Around the Booking Funnel

Travel PPC needs to mirror how people actually plan trips. That means separate campaigns for each stage:

Stage 1: Research (Capture Demand)

Keywords: “best time to visit [destination],” “is [destination] safe,” “[destination] vs [destination]”

Goal: Not direct bookings — brand awareness and list building. These searchers are 4-8 weeks from booking.

Strategy: Lower bids, broader match types. Drive to content pages (guides, comparisons) with soft conversion goals — email signup, itinerary download, wishlist save.

Why this matters: You’re paying $0.30-0.80 per click instead of $4+ for booking terms. And you’re building an audience you can remarket to when they’re ready.

Stage 2: Comparison (Build Preference)

Keywords: “[your brand] vs [competitor],” “best [type] hotel in [destination],” “[destination] reviews”

Goal: Position as the best option. These searchers have narrowed their choices.

Strategy: Medium bids, phrase match. Landing pages that directly address comparisons — what makes you different, social proof, best-price guarantees.

Ad extensions that matter here: Review extensions, price extensions, structured snippets showing amenities/features.

Stage 3: Booking (Capture Revenue)

Keywords: “[your brand] book,” “[specific property] availability,” “book [experience] [destination]”

Goal: Direct conversion. These people have decided — make it easy.

Strategy: Maximum bids, exact match. Landing pages with minimal friction — availability checker visible above the fold, no distractions, trust signals prominent.

Critical detail: Your booking page needs to load in under 2 seconds. Every additional second costs you 7% in conversions. For a travel site doing $50K/month in PPC-driven bookings, that’s $3,500 per second of load time.

The Remarketing Layer

Here’s where travel PPC actually gets profitable. Someone who searched for “Bali surf retreats,” read your blog post, and left without booking is not a lost cause. They’re a warm lead.

Build remarketing audiences by behaviour:

Blog readers (visited content, didn’t view products) → Show them specific packages
Product viewers (looked at specific properties/tours) → Show them the exact thing they viewed, plus social proof
Cart/booking abandoners (started booking, didn’t finish) → Urgency messaging: “Only 3 spots left” or “Complete your booking”
Past customers (booked before) → Cross-sell and repeat visit campaigns

Remarketing CPCs are typically 50-70% lower than prospecting CPCs, and conversion rates are 3-5x higher. For travel specifically, the consideration window is long enough that remarketing across 30-60 days is appropriate — don’t cut audiences off after 7 days like you might for e-commerce.

Budget Allocation That Actually Works

Most travel companies spread budget evenly across campaigns. That’s wrong.

Here’s a better allocation model:

Campaign Type	Budget %	Expected CPA	Purpose
Brand terms	10%	Lowest	Defend against competitors bidding on your name
Booking intent	40%	Low-medium	Direct revenue
Comparison/consideration	20%	Medium	Pipeline building
Remarketing	20%	Lowest	Converting warm leads
Research/prospecting	10%	Highest	Audience building

The common mistake: spending 60%+ on research and prospecting terms because they have the highest volume. Volume means nothing if it doesn’t convert.

Seasonality Bidding

Travel demand is cyclical, but most agencies keep bids static year-round. You’re either overspending in low season or under-bidding when demand peaks.

Automated bidding strategies (Target CPA or Target ROAS) handle some of this, but they need guardrails:

Set bid adjustments by month based on historical booking data
Increase budgets 4-6 weeks before peak search periods, not during them
During off-peak: shift budget to content/remarketing campaigns that build pipeline for next season
Use auction insights to spot when competitors pull back — that’s when your CPCs drop and efficiency improves

Landing Page Mistakes Killing Your Conversions

Your ad is only half the equation. The landing page is where money is made or lost.

Common travel landing page problems:

Too many choices. Showing 200 properties when someone searched for a specific type. The paradox of choice kills conversions.
No availability visible. Making someone fill in dates before they can see if you even have what they want. Show calendars with availability upfront.
Missing social proof. No reviews, no ratings, no guest photos. Travel is high-trust — people need reassurance.
Slow load times. Hero images at 4MB. Booking widgets that take 6 seconds to initialise. Every second matters.
No mobile optimisation. 60%+ of travel searches happen on mobile. If your booking flow requires pinching and zooming, you’ve lost.

When SEO Makes More Sense Than PPC

Not every travel keyword deserves ad spend. Here’s the decision framework:

Use PPC for:

Brand defence (competitors bidding on your name)
Booking-intent keywords where you don’t rank organically yet
New destinations or experiences you’re launching
Seasonal pushes where you need immediate visibility
Remarketing to site visitors

Use SEO instead for:

Informational and research queries (invest in content)
Long-tail destination keywords (too many to bid on individually)
Queries where organic results dominate the click share
Ongoing destination and activity pages that should rank permanently

The best strategy uses both: SEO for the long game, PPC for immediate revenue and filling gaps while organic rankings build.

Measuring What Matters

Stop measuring clicks and CTR. For travel PPC, the metrics that matter are:

Cost per booking (not cost per click)
Return on ad spend (revenue generated per dollar spent)
Assisted conversions (campaigns that contributed to bookings without being the last click)
Booking value (optimise toward higher-value bookings, not just more bookings)
Customer acquisition cost vs. lifetime value (repeat travellers make PPC profitable even at higher CPAs)

If your agency reports on impressions and clicks but can’t tell you cost per booking, you have a reporting problem that’s hiding a performance problem.

Getting Started

If your travel PPC is haemorrhaging money — or if you’re not running ads because you’ve been burned before — the starting point is the same: understand your booking funnel, match your campaigns to it, and stop paying for clicks that can’t convert.

Want a clear picture of where your paid search budget is being wasted? Get a free damage report — we’ll audit your current campaigns and show you exactly where the leaks are.