As a Google Premier Partner, we’re delighted to be the first Premier Partner to have integrated Google Performance Max for Travel Goals into our digital ads management platform! This means you’ll be able to manage even more campaigns from a single environment.
The goal of Performance Max for Travel Goals campaigns is to help you increase your visibility across all Google advertising channels and inventory.
Let’s take a closer look at how this solution, integrated with our digital ads management platform, can help you easily increase your hotel’s visibility and direct bookings.
What is Google Performance Max for Travel Goals?
In November 2021, Google introduced Performance Max (Pmax), a versatile advertising option that optimizes your campaigns across various Google properties leveraging machine learning algorithms to automatically allocate your budget to the platforms and placements where your ads are most likely to perform well. This option caters to a wide range of businesses with diverse marketing goals, not limited to the travel industry.
In March 2023, Google unveiled Google Performance Max for Travel Goals (Pmax for Travel Goals), a specialized offering exclusively tailored for the travel sector. This includes a focus on hotel bookings, destination searches, and travel-related queries and also considers seasonality and travel-specific trends to fine-tune campaign performance.
This ad campaign format leverages Google’s powerful algorithm to deliver your ads across all Google channels: Discover, Gmail, YouTube, Display, Maps, Search and Hotels Ads (coming soon).
As the process of planning a trip becomes increasingly complex and time consuming, the goal of Google solutions, and PMax for Travel Goals in particular, is to simplify the work for everyone involved. It aims to streamline the journey for both hoteliers and travelers by increasing the number of touchpoints with Internet users during their search, consideration, and purchase phases. This simplification not only benefits the hospitality industry by optimizing their advertising efforts but also enhances the user experience, making travel planning more efficient and enjoyable for travelers.
PMax for Travel Goals campaigns compliment your keyword-based campaigns and increase conversions across all Google affiliate websites. This saves time and optimizes campaign budgets. Additionally, you can simultaneously create, manage, and optimize your multi-channel presence from a single environment.
What are the benefits of Google Performance Max for Travel Goals for your hotel?
One of the main advantages of PMax for Travel Goals is that it lets you capitalize on Google’s machine learning and artificial intelligence to increase your visibility and reach a qualified audience for better conversion rates.
Increased performance and automation
PMax for Travel Goals campaigns help you boost performance across the entire Google inventory. You can maximize your visibility to more travelers and generate more conversions that align with your goals.
This type of campaign allows you to rapidly gain media coverage and increase your visibility on all Google platforms, in addition to your other automated or manual campaigns.
Some of the benefits for your hotel include:
- Increase conversions and value: Automation optimizes your budget and bidding methods across all channels, so you can seize new conversion opportunities in real time. This means more traffic to your direct booking channel.
- Discover new customers: You can target new audience segments by leveraging Google’s real-time insights into user intent, behavior and context. So, you appear at the right time with relevant ads. This means new visitors to your direct booking channel.
- Access to enriched information: PMax for Travel Goals campaigns are now included on the Insights page, offering new ways to improve your campaign so optimization tips are just a click away.
- Work with automation: Upload high-quality creative assets and allow the system to intelligently manage the delivery to the audiences most likely to convert.
Tracking results and simplicity of use
Campaigns in PMax for Travel Goals are quick and easy to run. Integrated with Cendyn’s digital ads management platform, you’ll be able to promote your hotel and all it has to offer, attract new customers, and track your performance intuitively without wasting time.
You’ll also be able to track your conversion goals, such as impression rates, number of calls, number of itinerary requests, number of hotel restaurant bookings, and so on.
In short, thanks to machine learning, multiple ad formats and channels, and advanced reporting, this powerful solution helps you achieve your direct booking goals.
How to maximize your performance with Performance Max for Travel Goals?Combine Search and PMax for Travel Goals
Combining Search and PMax for Travel Goals, when powered by AI (Artificial Intelligence), can help maximize your conversions. Optimize your search campaigns by combining broad query keywords with Smart Bidding.
PMax for Travel Goals enables you to generate additional conversions across all Google advertising channels, including Search. Using enhanced, keyword-free AI technology, PMax for Travel Goals analyzes your landing page content, resources, and product feed (if you have one) to find new queries and generate relevant text ads that match user intent.
These are additional search opportunities, on top of the additional performance achieved on YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail, and Maps.
Account-level negative keywords let you exclude specific queries on which you don’t want to run ads, and block traffic from misspellings and foreign-language brand searches.
Create videos more easily in Performance Max for Travel Goals
All types of creative assets, including video, are a key ingredient in PMax for Travel Goals’ success.
To facilitate the creation of high-quality video ads, video creation tools are now integrated directly into the configuration and editing workflows of PMax for Travel Goals campaigns.
Improve asset groups and budget allocation
With all these new ways to optimize your campaigns, new reports and information will also help you understand and assess your results.
You can see conversions, conversion value, cost, and a full range of other indicators at asset group level. This data will enable you to adjust your creative strategy and improve your campaigns.
Information on budget rhythm will help you uncover opportunities to optimize your budget and performance. See how much your campaigns have and should spend, as well as your current and forecasted conversion performance.
Get personalized recommendations for optimizing your budget and see if it can be modified or redistributed to increase conversions.
When combined with your expertise and data, Google’s AI and PMax for Travel Goals can help maximize your ROI and optimize your budget across all channels in real time while adapting to changing consumer trends.
How can I launch Performance Max for Travel Goals?
PMax for Travel Goals campaign activation is available from our digital ads management platform and
- Enter your website information (URL)
- Set your acquisition cost goals and budget. There are two bidding options available: target CPA and target ROAS. The target CPA sets bids to help get as many conversions as possible at or below the target cost per action (CPA) you set. The target ROAS is the average conversion value that you would like to get for each pound you spend on ads.
- Let Google’s artificial intelligence automatically create all text, call-to-action, image, and video ads for you, to cover all available surfaces. You can also modify these ad recommendations manually if you want to.
- Note that you can only choose to run your campaign on all Google platforms, or not at all.
Google also retrieves data from your Google Business Profile. So, it’s important to keep the content of your hotel website and Google Business Profile up to date.
Thanks to these features, you can launch your PMax for Travel Goals advertising campaign very quickly.
How can you run successful Performance Max for Travel Goals campaigns?
Follow Google’s best practices for launching effective PMax for Travel Goals campaigns:
- Select conversion goals that have an impact on your business and assign values to these conversions.
- Choose the right budget and bidding method for your specific needs and business.
- Keep the final URL extension activated to generate more conversions linked to relevant search queries.
- Import different creative elements (texts, images, videos) into your asset groups to improve automation and discover optimal combinations between these assets.
Conclusion
Google Performance Max for Travel Goals is an excellent resource for hotels seeking to enhance their outreach to potential new customers. By deploying these campaigns, you can significantly boost the effectiveness of your advertisements and maintain a competitive edge in the dynamic hospitality industry.
As a trusted Google Premier Partner, we are the first Premier Partner to seamlessly integrate the Google Performance Max for Travel Goals solution into our digital ads management platform, streamlining campaign management and allowing you to effortlessly oversee all your campaigns from a single, user-friendly environment.
Whether you choose to manage your campaigns independently or prefer our expert guidance, this powerful tool empowers you to maximize your hotel’s online presence and drive results.
Let Cendyn help you increase your direct bookings thanks to our metasearch technology and our digital hotel solutions. Contact us today!