Google Ads Case Study

Caradonna Adventures is a small travel wholesaler headquartered in Longwood, Florida. They specialize in scuba diving vacations and utilize co-op advertising partnerships to market their offerings. 

Divi Resorts is a longtime co-op partner of Caradonna and a Caribbean hospitality group. They span eight different properties on five different Caribbean islands. Each resort offers a unique experience and Caradonna sells packages for the five that offer scuba diving experiences as they align with their consumer base.

The Challenge

All marketing programs come with their unique host of challenges. Some have elaborate business objectives and others have generic goals such as maximizing conversions. The key to a successful campaign is to narrow your scope and identity a KPI that reflects the goal you want to accomplish. 

Every co-op marketing plan Caradonna brings onboard contains numerous strategies and tactics tied directly to KPIs to ensure we meet objectives and produce sales. We were given a small budget of $1,000 for Google Ads and tasked with increasing brand awareness. While Divi is known in the world of leisure travel, they want to expand the awareness of their scuba diving packages.

Our campaign goal:

• Maximize our marketing budget

Our campaign objectives:

• Primary Objective: Generate website traffic to specialized landing pages
• KPIs: Page Views/Time on Page/Sessions
• Secondary Objective: Grow quantity and quality of leads
• KPIs: Number of Quote Requests

The Strategic Approach

With our primary objective centered around traffic, and Google Display Network (GDN) having over 2 million websites, videos, and apps where our banners ads can appear, it seemed like the perfect fit. The network determines where each ad gets placed by matching your target demographics and interests and each ad is subjected to a bidding process that relies on your ad rank score.

Through a comprehensive analysis of our current database we were able to:

• Select an in-market audience that paralleled our target
• Target segments related to Caribbean vacation seekers
• Use Similar Audiences to find valuable consumers

The Solution 

With a refined audience segmentation plan and an overarching goal to maximize our marketing budget, responsive display ads were the optimal solution. Responsive display ads allowed us to upload multiple image assets, headlines, and descriptions to create the best UX for our target audience. Google determines what combination of assets receive the best results by using machine learning and that takes the pressure off campaign management.  As it continually optimizes based on performance history it serves up ads that have received the most engagement.

Our campaign creative was tailored to our audience and invoked action.

The Results

We utilized Google’s best practices for managing responsive display ads we were able to maximize our budget and generate quality leads through quotes.

According to CPC research conducted by WordStream, the travel and hospitality industry has an average CTR of .47%, an average CPC of 44 cents, and an average conversion rate of .51%. Our results on a 14-day flight we yielded 1.7 million impressions, received over 23k clicks and earned over 15k conversions. From those 15k folks we further converted nearly 2% into leads and we further able to remarket the rest with a social retargeting campaign. 

Ad campaign monitoring was pivotal in ensuring our performance and ultimately surpassed industry benchmarks. I monitored our ad campaign using AdHawk. While Google Ads and Google Analytics are a must when it comes to campaign monitoring, AdHawk's easy to navigate UI makes monitoring and reporting easier to digest. What's nice about AdHawk, is while also monitoring this particular display campaign, I was also able to monitor our social media and paid search campaign on the same platform.

The Takeaways

Google Display Network is a prime choice for low budget campaigns that require big budget results. With proper audience research and segmentation, responsive display ads can earn your campaign a successful result with little stress.