What is Digital Marketing?
From PPC and SEO to paid social and CRO – understanding which channels work for travel brands and how to combine them effectively.
PPC – pay per click – puts your brand in front of people who are actively searching for what you sell. For travel businesses, this means appearing when someone types “holiday to Barbados”, “luxury safari Africa” or “family ski holiday France” into Google. These are high-intent searches from people already in the market – and PPC gives you immediate visibility at the top of those results.
What makes PPC so powerful for travel is the control it offers. You can target by destination, travel type, dates, device and audience. You only pay when someone clicks, and you can set exactly how much you’re willing to spend. A well-managed PPC account consistently delivers one of the strongest ROI of any digital marketing channel for travel brands.
Search ads can increase brand awareness by 80 percent
SEO – search engine optimisation – is the process of improving your organic rankings so your site appears in the right searches without paying for every click. For travel brands, organic search can be transformative: destination pages, itinerary guides, travel advice content and FAQ pages all have the potential to rank and drive consistent traffic over time.
The travel booking journey involves many searches across weeks or months of research. Brands with strong SEO can be present at every stage – from early inspiration through to the decision to book. Unlike PPC, organic traffic doesn’t stop the moment you pause your budget, making SEO a highly cost-effective channel when built up properly.
51 percent of all website traffic comes from organic search and over 40 percent of revenue is captured by organic traffic
Travel and social media are a natural fit. Destinations, experiences and aspirational moments generate the kind of visual content that performs well across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Travel brands can build engaged audiences, create genuine inspiration and use paid social to reach people at the right point in their booking journey.
Paid social is particularly effective for driving awareness of new products or destinations, retargeting people who’ve visited your site, and converting warm audiences who’ve engaged with your content. When organic and paid social work together, social becomes one of the most versatile channels in a travel brand’s marketing mix.
Online adults aged 18-34 are most likely follow a brand via social networking (95%)
Display and programmatic advertising keeps your brand in front of potential customers as they research, compare and browse across the web. For travel brands, where the consideration period can last weeks or months, display is an important tool for maintaining visibility and staying top of mind.
Programmatic platforms use data to find and target the right audiences at scale – reaching people based on their travel interests, recent search behaviour, and the types of content they consume. Combined with remarketing, it’s an effective way of re-engaging visitors who have already shown interest in what you offer.
programmatic is synonymous with increased efficiency, greater effectiveness, access to the spectrum of digital advertising formats and an ability to bring data into buys
Content marketing in travel is about creating genuinely useful, engaging content that answers the questions your customers are already asking. Destination guides, packing lists, itinerary inspiration, traveller stories and expert advice all attract organic traffic and build trust with your audience long before they’re ready to book.
Beyond traffic, strong travel content builds brand authority. When your site is consistently useful and informative, it becomes the kind of resource people return to and recommend. That reputation has real commercial value – it reduces the reliance on paid channels, improves SEO through backlinks and engagement, and creates a warmer audience for your wider marketing activity.
Marketers who prioritise blogging efforts are 13x more likely to see positive ROI
CRO – conversion rate optimisation – is about making sure the traffic you’re generating actually converts. In travel, with high basket abandonment rates and complex booking journeys, CRO is often the area with the greatest untapped potential.
Even a modest improvement in conversion rate has a disproportionate impact on revenue. If you’re already investing in PPC, SEO and social, improving the efficiency of your website means every pound of that marketing spend works harder. CRO uses data, testing and user research to identify why visitors aren’t converting – and fix it.
According to 59% of company respondents, CRO is crucial to their overall digital marketing strategy
Summon specialises in digital marketing for the travel industry. If you would like to find out how your travel business can make the most of PPC, SEO, content marketing, paid social and CRO, get in touch with our team.
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