What PPC marketing trends do we expect to see in the new year?
PPC is one of the faster-moving channels in digital marketing — and for travel advertisers, staying current with how paid search and paid social are evolving makes a real difference to campaign performance. Here are the trends that matter most for tour operators and travel brands heading into 2024.
The rise of PPC automation
Automation has become the dominant direction of Google Ads, and for travel advertisers the question is no longer whether to use it but how to use it well. Smart Bidding, Performance Max, and automated asset generation all require the right inputs — accurate conversion tracking, meaningful conversion goals, well-structured campaigns — to deliver strong results. In our experience, travel advertisers who embrace automation with proper guardrails consistently outperform those using purely manual approaches, but those who adopt it uncritically often see budget efficiency decline. The key is maintaining strategic human oversight while letting automation handle the tactical execution.
Responsive Search Ads
RSAs are now the standard search ad format, and getting the most from them requires a different approach to ad writing than expanded text ads did. Rather than writing three finished ads, you’re providing assets — headlines, descriptions — that Google will combine and test. For travel campaigns, this means writing headlines that cover the full range of angles your audience responds to: destination specificity, trip type, experience quality, booking confidence, and direct-booking benefits. What we’ve found is that the quality of individual asset writing matters as much as the quantity — 10 distinct, well-crafted headlines consistently outperform 15 variations of the same message.
Match types and negative keywords
With broad match becoming the default in many Smart Bidding setups, negative keyword management has become more important than ever for travel advertisers. A broad match keyword strategy without disciplined negative keywords will generate significant irrelevant traffic in travel — where many high-volume terms attract informational searchers, price-checkers, and OTA traffic that has no intention of booking direct. Clients often ask us how to improve campaign efficiency without reducing budgets, and tightening match type strategy and expanding negative keyword lists is almost always part of the answer.
The use of artificial intelligence in PPC
AI-generated ad assets, automated campaign recommendations, and AI-driven audience targeting are all now embedded in Google Ads and Meta Ads. For travel advertisers, the most practical implication is that AI can assist with asset generation at scale — writing headline variations, creating image assets, expanding keyword lists — but the quality and travel-specificity of the outputs still requires human review and editing. We tend to treat AI-generated content in PPC the same way we treat automation generally: useful as a starting point and time-saver, but requiring informed oversight to ensure it meets the standard your brand and audience expect.
More PPC opportunity on Instagram
Instagram continues to grow as an advertising platform for travel brands, and the expansion of shopping and booking integrations creates new opportunities beyond awareness campaigns. For tour operators and activity providers, Instagram Reels ads in particular offer a format that suits travel content naturally — short-form video of destinations, activities, and tour experiences performs strongly in a feed that’s already highly visual and travel-adjacent. We tend to see strong top-of-funnel results from Instagram for operators willing to invest in consistent, high-quality creative.
Voice search for PPC
Voice search queries tend to be longer, more conversational, and often more locally specific than typed searches. For travel PPC, this means that long-tail, natural language keyword coverage becomes more important as voice search adoption grows. Questions like “what’s the best guided tour company for Morocco” or “which small group operators run trips to Patagonia” are the kind of voice queries that could land on your content or ads — if you’ve built out the right long-tail keyword architecture to capture them.
Let’s take a look at how you can optimise for voice search in more detail:
Focus on question-based keywords that mirror how people actually speak when searching. Build FAQ content around the specific questions prospective travellers ask before booking. Ensure your Google Business Profile is complete and accurate, as voice searches often surface local business information directly. And make sure your site loads quickly on mobile — voice searches happen predominantly on mobile devices, and slow load times mean your pages are less likely to be selected as voice search results. In our experience, the travel brands best positioned for voice search are those who’ve invested in detailed, question-answering content that reflects real customer language rather than SEO-only keyword optimisation.