By Travolution

Google’s new Remarketing Lists for Search Ads is already starting to have an impact on marketing budgets, according to a leading agency working in travel.Speaking at last week’s Travolution editorial advisory board meeting, Nishma Robb, iProspect chief client officer, predicted this will be one of the key trends for 2014.

She said the agency is already seeing clients increase budgets for next year but are looking at how search is interwoven with display.

Robb said the remarketing capability currently being rolled out by Google was already seeing firms focus on optimisation.

“It’s encouraging businesses to get smarter about analytics and conversion. We will now be able to prove [the effectiveness of campaigns] through technology.”

This is what Google says about Remarketing Lists for Search Ads:

“[It] provides yet another opportunity to optimise your search campaigns by letting you tailor your keyword bids and ad text for your highest value prospects – people who have visited your website in the past – when they’re searching for what you sell.”

Google estimates that conversions online run at between 2% to 4% of visits, and in travel where customers visit in excess of 20 sites before committing that figure is usually a lot lower.

A Google Think Insights post said: “In standard search campaigns, your bids, ads and keywords are the same for every search and every searcher.

“But if you knew which searchers represented higher value prospects, you might want to bid higher, show on broader keywords or present different ads to these customers to improve your results.

“Remarketing lists for search ads lets you do just that. You can use your existing remarketing lists to more effectively reach past site visitors so you can get more conversions and potentially better ROI.”

Robin Frewer, Google director of travel and finance, said the functionality will enable travel advertisers to target certain customers according to particular insight into aspects of product they have shown an interest in.

He said Customer Parameters will be “really powerful for remarketing to customers with a specific interest in specific destinations, dates or product types” and will help travel firms increase the accuracy and therefore the profitability of their advertising.

Frewer predicted that there will be a shift to measurable, performance-based marketing activity and that this has already seen more focus on brand building online, which is becoming increasingly more accountable.

Another area the board picked out to dominate in 2014 was metasearch, with this sector expected to make big in-roads into the traditional beach market.

Kayak and, increasingly Tripadvisor, are expected to have a major impact in this area the former having already launched package price comparison and started offering its own packages under a deal with On Holiday Group.

Former Traveltainment UK managing director, Andrew Nicholson, said: “There is still a lot of brand equity in the meta play.

“Players in meta dominate flights, are very aggressive in hotels and beach will be the big market they tackle next. Definitely volumes are going through the roof.”

Ian Brooks, Puregenie managing director, said he could see travel metasearch sites coming to dominate as they do in other sectors like financial services.