About Australia

Hummingbird digital: Our results

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The Challenge

About Australia is one of the UK’s most experienced travel specialists, designing bespoke, once-in-a-lifetime holidays to Australia. With over 20 years in the industry, their name carried trust and heritage — but in 2025, that wasn’t enough.

The travel search landscape had evolved dramatically. Aggregators and price-comparison sites were dominating Google results with aggressive bidding strategies and automated ad copy, while independent specialists like About Australia struggled to compete on cost and visibility.

Despite a strong brand reputation and a loyal base of repeat customers, paid search performance was declining. Cost-per-lead had risen 42% year-on-year, while conversion rates stagnated. The PPC account had grown unwieldy — too many overlapping campaigns, limited audience segmentation, and outdated creative that failed to differentiate the brand’s bespoke, high-touch service.

Our mission was clear:

Rebuild About Australia’s PPC strategy from the ground up — improving lead quality, reducing acquisition cost, and positioning the brand as the premium alternative to mass-market travel aggregators.

Year

2024

Channels

PPC

Industry

Travel

Our Approach

We began with a comprehensive audit of About Australia’s existing Google Ads ecosystem — spanning campaign structure, search term reports, and attribution flow. What we found was typical of legacy accounts: a patchwork of campaigns built over years, inconsistent match types, and limited bid automation.

We needed to rebuild everything — cleanly, strategically, and purposefully.

Our approach focused on segmentation, storytelling, and performance discipline.

1. Account Rebuild: Structure for Intent and Scale

We restructured the PPC account around traveller type and destination cluster, creating a system that reflected real-world booking behaviour rather than internal categories.

For example, rather than one “Australia Holidays” campaign, we built:

• Luxury Traveller – highlighting exclusive resorts, private tours, and tailor-made itineraries.
• Family Adventures – focusing on kid-friendly experiences and multi-destination packages.
• Explorer & Adventure – targeting self-drivers, backpackers, and off-the-beaten-path explorers.

Each campaign had unique ad copy, extensions, and landing pages aligned to intent. By doing this, we improved Quality Scores across the account and gave Google clearer signals about user relevance — critical to lowering CPCs.

This structure also laid the foundation for scale, making it easier to test new products and regional campaigns as demand evolved.

2. Ad Copy Optimisation: Storytelling That Converts

Next, we overhauled the ad messaging.

Where previous ads were generic — “Tailor-Made Trips to Australia” — our new approach infused emotion and authority.

We introduced dynamic ad copy testing using responsive search ads, with messaging variations centred around the campaign narrative:

“Your Australia. Your Way.”

Every line was built to connect with a different motivation:

• “Design your dream trip with real Australian experts.”
• “From Sydney icons to Outback skies — see it your way.”
• “Tailor-made itineraries for luxury, family, and adventure travellers.”

We also refined ad extensions — sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets — to reflect specific experiences: Great Barrier Reef, Kangaroo Island, luxury lodges, and road-trip routes. The refreshed copy didn’t just attract more clicks — it qualified them. Users self-selected based on what they cared about, leading to a higher ratio of relevant enquiries and a stronger conversion rate.

3. Landing Page Alignment: From Click to Conversion

Performance improvements don’t stop at the click.

We collaborated closely with About Australia’s internal team on conversion rate optimisation (CRO) — building intent-based landing page variations that matched each ad group’s messaging and traveller segment.

• Luxury users landed on sleek, visually rich pages emphasising exclusivity and concierge-level planning.
• Family travellers saw itineraries and testimonials from other families, easing decision anxiety.
• Adventure seekers found bold imagery, map routes, and clear “Request a Quote” CTAs.

By aligning page experience to ad promise, we eliminated friction and improved the relevance score. This alone contributed to an 82% lift in conversion rate across all PPC traffic.

4. Ongoing Optimisation: Continuous Refinement

Once live, we shifted to a weekly optimisation rhythm.

This included:

• Negative keyword pruning to remove wasteful spend on aggregator and DIY-travel terms.
• Bid strategy testing, balancing manual CPC control with automated Smart Bidding for high-intent segments.
• Performance segmentation, tracking conversion quality by enquiry type and average trip value.

The key was discipline — small, data-driven adjustments compounded over time.

The Results

Within six months, About Australia had completely transformed its paid performance.

Key Highlights:
✈️ +127% increase in qualified leads
💰 46% reduction in cost per enquiry (CPA)
📊 +82% growth in conversion rate
🌏 +33% increase in average trip value

Lead quality improved dramatically — fewer unqualified enquiries, more serious planners. Sales teams reported shorter closing cycles and stronger intent across inbound traffic.

Even more importantly, the campaign became a blueprint for global scale, forming the foundation for About Australia’s expansion into New Zealand and wider Asia-Pacific markets.

The account now runs as a living system — automated where it counts, manual where it matters — continuously learning, testing, and evolving.

The outcome: a premium travel brand rediscovered its digital edge — competing not on price, but on personalisation.