Want to increase awareness of your travel destination, specifically targeting people who are actively searching for vacation ideas? With Google Ads, you’re able to reach people at the beginning of their vacation exploration, using top of the funnel keywords.
What Are Top of the Funnel Keywords?
If someone knows they want to take a vacation, but doesn’t know where they want to go, they’re in the awareness stage of their customer journey. You can learn about all four stages of a traveler’s customer journey here.
How do we know when a traveler is in this stage? By how they communicate to Google through their search queries.
For example, if someone searches for “the best hotels in NYC,” they’re clearly in the consideration stage of their customer journey because they already know exactly where they want to travel to. However, if they search for “best places to vacation in the fall,” they’re indicating that they’re still at the beginning stages of their research, scouring the internet for inspiration.
Why Bid on Top of the Funnel Keywords?
There are three big reasons why you should consider incorporating top of the funnel keywords in your Google Ads strategy.
First, top of the funnel keywords generally have a lower cost-per-click (CPC), because there’s usually a lot less competition.
Second, with top of the funnel keywords, you have a chance to engage with your target audience sooner, by moving them from awareness to consideration of your brand. If your ad is relevant to a traveler searching for inspiration and they click on your ad and visit your website, you can start building a relationship with them through helpful resources and retargeting ads.
Third, by aligning your brand with their research, you’re investing in brand credibility and thought leadership by helping the traveler correlate your brand with the vacation they’re beginning to plan. Instead of being just a hotel, or an experience, you’re positioning your brand as an authority and advisor of that destination.
5 Top of the Funnel Keyword Ideas
Ready to get started? Develop a top of the funnel Google Ads strategy with these five keyword suggestions.
1) Where To Go On Vacation
The beautiful thing about a keyword like “where to go on vacation,” is that you’re able to reach people who are actively longing to plan and book a trip.
To help make this keyword your own, you can add words that might be even more relevant to your audience or location, such as “where to go on vacation in the caribbean.” If your destination’s audience is typically local or a driving crowd, consider also targeting people who are researching on a tighter timeline, for example “where to go this weekend near me.”
2) Bucket List Destinations
Top of the funnel keywords like “bucket list destinations” not only indicate the awareness stage of the journey, but also give you a bit more information about the type of person who is searching. If someone is looking for must-see types of destinations or experiences, copy around FOMO might work best to promote your travel destination.
3) The Most Beautiful Places in the World
In the U.S. alone “the most beautiful places in the world” is seeing an average of 10,000-100,000 searches per month. While these variations are receiving 1,000-10,000 searches per month:
Depending on your destination or site content, consider targeting the keyword variations that will lead to the strongest click-through rate.
4) Best Family Vacation Spots
In the U.S. 70% of families are planning to take a vacation within the next year. If your visitors are primarily families, consider bidding on a keyword like “best family vacation spots,” which receives 10,000 to 100,000 global searches per month.
Maybe your audience primarily consists of solo travelers? Consider targeting “best solo travel destinations.” You get the idea 🙂 Whatever your audience niche is, there are plenty of top of the funnel search terms that your audience is using to research, plan and book their next great getaway.
5) How To Plan a Vacation
The keyword “how to plan a vacation” is a great opportunity for travel destinations to provide users with helpful resources to guide them through their initial research.
When using keywords related to this theme, consider how you can incorporate other relevant terms to target your most viable audience. For example, if you’re marketing a resort in Mexico, “how to plan a vacation to mexico,” would have stronger results.
Are you currently targeting top of the funnel keywords in your Google Ad strategy? Please share your learnings in the comments below. Not sure how to start your Google Ads strategy? Let’s brainstorm together.
