Citalia

We didn't want to launch on a hunch, so we started with what the data already told us. Performance Max was first tested against the destinations that were showing genuine signs of success in their Search equivalents. We picked the top performers, added one growth destination into the mix, and used those as the launchpad.

From there it was about pointing the campaigns in the right direction. We fed keyword themes, quality audiences and in-market signals into the targeting to guide Performance Max towards the audiences we actually wanted. Content was built bespoke to each destination and its sub-destinations at asset group level, written specifically to bring in new users rather than recycle existing demand.

The early campaigns went through a two-week learning period on average, though the ones that were quick to convert showed their hand fastest. That conversion data became the engine, propelling and refining the targeting so we captured better quality searches and audiences over time.

Refining the quality of search traffic was the constant thread running through all of it. We worked closely with our Google partners to implement negative targeting until the feature became available for in-account optimisation, all while keeping a close eye on the quality of conversions per destination as we scaled spend.