Launch of Performance Max Ads For Travel Goals

The wait is finally over for hoteliers.

Google Ads has officially launched Performance Max For Travel Goals, the new AI-powered campaign which aims to reach more travellers across all 7 Google channels. 

As the name suggests, Google’s Performance Max Campaign type, first unveiled in November 2021, was designed to maximise campaigns by using a powerful algorithm that serves ads across all Google surfaces.

On 7th March 2023, Google announced the launch of Performance Max for Travel Goals. The new Performance Max expansion aims to specifically help hotels to increase direct bookings at a similar Cost Per Acquisition (CPA).

Key benefits:

1. Allows advertisers to easily create property-specific asset groups.

2. Leverages Google’s hotel data to automatically service your ads when people search for your property.

3. Google suggests key messages, images, URLs, amenities and features from your property to increase bookings.

4. Simple to maintain and update.

5. Works on all seven Google channels: Discover, Gmail, YouTube, Display, Maps, Search and Hotel Ads.

Insights:

Since its launch, we have executed various Performance Max campaigns for our clients. To get the most out of your Performance Max for Travel Goals campaigns, we can provide the following insights into best practice recommendations:

• Budget

The minimum budget for your new Performance Max for Travel Goals campaigns should be 5x more than your daily CPA in order to maximise machine learning.

• Assets

Use a large variety of assets so Google can decipher a concrete conclusion on which assets are best performing, and which are not.

• Activity

Pause any current Performance Max campaigns before launching your new Performance Max for Travel Goals. You do not want two campaigns competing for the same objective, as it delays the learning period.

• Campaign Settings

If you manage more than 100 hotels or prefer to split your campaigns into more specific targeting segments, then we recommend that your campaigns have significantly different features to ensure no overlap. This could be language or location (which is edited in campaign settings).

• Optimisation

We recommend that you give Performance Max campaigns six weeks in order to perform most efficiently.  After this learning period, you can optimise the campaign by reviewing the Adset and Asset Performance Report, and replace any less-performing assets with assets similar to the assets performing well.

The general strategy for optimising a Performance Max for Travel Goals campaign is giving the campaign as much data as possible through audience signals.

What's next for Performance Max?

2023 is proving to be a revolutionary year for hoteliers and digital marketing agencies with the launch of Performance Max for Travel Goals, however like any new paid media campaign type, it is predicted to continuously evolve and be improved throughout the rest of the year.

Google has announced that Performance Max for Travel Goals is expanding to hotel-specific placements in the upcoming months and releasing new features in the insights report for further reporting. We look forward to testing these new features and sharing our findings on our blog.

How Click2Convert can help:

At Click2Convert, we have executed standard Performance Max to deliver great results, and we have recently launched Performance Max for Travel Goals for select clients.

We use our expertise to ensure our client’s digital strategies keep up with the ever-changing industry. Our team of proactive PPC experts implement profitable paid marketing strategies, drive incremental revenue and increase leads, whilst also supporting other marketing activities.

If you’d like to discuss how Click2Convert can help with your paid media activity, discover our PPC services and get in touch today!