Travel is one of the more mature industries in terms of search marketing adoption. There is a tacit hypothesis within the travel industry that search helps a travel brand online. The question is – does that hypothesis hold good? Or is it just rumours and marketing hype?

Recently Google released the following video about the results of their survey entitled: The Brand Value of Search for the Travel Industry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR2Fq8ehBDs

Background: OTX research did the survey for Google to look at the relationship between brand and search, specifically in the travel industry. 

• They explored what else search could do for a travel brand, besides driving traffic
• And looked at whether travel marketers could use search to maintain and build a travel brand

Watch the video for more insights. If 40 minutes is too long for you to wade through I’ve summarised some of the highlights for the video below:

See 3:21 to 7:45 for the background and methodology of OTX’s research.

Impact of paid search on brand awareness & recall

• There is a dramatic increase in top-of-mind awareness for travel brands doing paid search
• When paid search is layered with top organic (SEO/natural) position SERP – the increased top-of-mind brand awareness was even more dramatic than with just paid search alone
• Overall awareness was also increased by Paid Search – not just top-of-mind awareness

Interestingly – positive paid search awareness of one brand has a negative impact on top-of-mind awareness for its competitor brands i.e  paid search reduces consumer mindshare of competitor brands and allows the brand to stand out in the SERPs compared to other brands.

Impact of paid search on behaviour towards the brand

• Paid search (and top natural results) maintain or increase the consideration of the brand i.e. keeps the brand fresh in the mind of the consumer, when making travel decisions
• Consumers clicked more frequently on adverts that promised to provide more information (as opposed to adverts that focused on price).
• Paid search maintains (or increases) brand favourability and likelihood to recommend the brand to others.
• Having top natural/SEO search results in addition to paid search enhanced this perception of brand favourability and consideration.
• The combination of Paid search and high-ranking natural (SEO) results on the same page seems to produce the best results for most categories.
• Paid search is not just a short term issue: top sponsored paid search has a longer lasting impact on brand ideals – by influencing positive perceptions of the brand. This has a potential to form positive brand perceptions in the longer term.

Conclusions: (incorporating my own wording and insights)

• People are doing more time researching their travel plans online (read: doing more Search), so it’s increasingly important to have a search presence for travel brands
• Travellers will travel less due to the economy – but are researching (as much or more)
• Brand presence on search results positively impacts key brand metrics, in addition to driving traffic to the site
• Paid search positively impacts brand awareness and that has a longer term potential to impact the brand
• Paid search can be used as a branding vehicle (in addition to driving traffic and ROI)

1. It drives top of mind awareness and recall of a brand.
2. It negatively impacts competitor awareness in your competitive set – grabs consumer mindshare away from your competitors.
3. CPC provides free brand “lift” without the CPC investment, where brands have a good natural search position as well.

• The total traffic results from paid search results are augmented by having good natural (or SEO) listings alongside, i.e. when combined, top level paid and organic search results give the best traffic results
• Good search results (paid and natural) helps you own mindshare and can have a negative impact on consumer awareness of your competitors

I think generally these results and conclusions are interesting. Since travel is a mature industry from a search perspective – any short term paid search arbitrage in the industry would have been ironed out. These results provide a good argument for the brand benefits of paid search; as well as the benefits of augmenting the benefits of SEO work with paid search campaigns. They’re also interesting to consider when looking at the brand benefits for industries that aren’t as mature from a search perspective as the travel industry.

Check out the other articles in this series (part 4 will be up shortly):

Part 1: Business travellers
How they gather online information and make travel decisions.

Part 2: Leisure and Affluent travellers
How they gather online information and make travel decisions.

Part 3: The Brand Value of Search for the Travel industry

Part 4: Online Video and Travel Search