Important information about how to use paid search advertising (e.g. Google Ads)
Paid search is a type of advertising in which you pay search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) to place your ads on top of the relevant search results pages. The main objective is to drive more traffic to your websites.
In simple words, when a user enters Google to find information related to a certain subject, paid search advertisements pop up right above the search results prompting the user to follow the links to the advertiser’s website.
Paid search advertisements are usually created through advertising platforms like Google Ads, Media.net, etc. In the ad setups advertisers can add keywords, they can be related to a service (e.g. airplane tickets) or to a brand’s name (e.g. wayaway, booking.com). Advertising platforms help scan the search query for keywords and return advertisements to the webpage based on those keywords.
Most programs in Travelpayouts don't allow paid search.
How to find rules for the use of paid search
1. Open the Programs tab.
2. In the list of programs find the one that interests you and open the description by clicking on the program’s card directly or the Details button.
3. The About tab will be launched by default. Scroll the page down till you see the Allowed types of promotion section.
There are three possible approaches to paid search among the programs in Travelpayouts:
Paid search is allowed
In this case, you can use paid search ads without any limitations and include the brand’s name and logo in the text of your ad. There are only a few programs in Travelpayouts that allow paid search. The following information will be shown in the program’s details:
Only paid search ads without the brand’s name or logo are allowed
This means that you can create paid search ads with the following conditions:
- The link in the ad can lead directly to the brand’s website unless otherwise mentioned in the terms and conditions of the program. Carefully read all the information provided on the About tab.
- Your ads don’t include the name of this specific travel brand or any other relevant wordings associated with this brand. You need to add all negative keywords in your ad’s settings,
- Your ad doesn't include the logo of this brand.
The following information will be shown in the program’s details:
If you use the brand’s name or logo in your paid search ads in this type of programs, the brand won't reward you for the sales from these ads.
Paid search is not allowed
Most programs in Travelpayouts don't allow paid search ads.
If this is the rule of the program, you can use paid search ads only to drive traffic to your own website or your White Label with certain limitations:
- The link in the ad must lead to your website or a landing page without an auto-redirect to any other domains (for example wayaway/booking.com/travelpayouts etc).
- Your ads don't include the travel brand's names or any other relevant wordings associated with these brands. You need to add all negative keywords in your ad’s settings.
- Your ads don't include the travel brand’s logos.
- Your ads don’t pop up for searches with the travel brand's keywords, including the brand’s names and other relevant wordings associated with these brands.
For example:
- You can create an ad: "Search for Cheap Flights" with a link to your website.
- You can't create an ad: "Search for cheap tickets on WayAway" with a link to your website.
- You can't create an ad: "Search for cheap airline tickets" with a link to wayaway.io.
In case the program doesn’t allow paid search you will see the following information:
Any click-throughs to brand websites from paid search ads in this type of programs are not counted in the statistics. Sales from such ads won’t be rewarded.
What are negative keywords?
Negative keywords are a set of words and phrases that should be specified in the advertising campaign settings so that ads are not displayed for any search containing those keywords. For example, for the WayAway program, the list looks like this:
- wayaway
- way away
- wayawa
- wwayaway, etc
Some programs provide a list of all negative keywords on the About tab in the program’s description. If you can’t find this information, you can create a list of relevant words by yourself. Make sure to include all possible brand name variations, misspellings, and abbreviations, as well as common derivatives.
What will happen if the rules are not followed?
Accounts of the partners violating programs’ rules will be blocked without the possibility of receiving earnings.