Top Charts from MobileAction Dashboard
We all have a passion for exploring new places, especially now, as the summer season is getting closer. Travel apps make it easier to plan our trips and manage our budgets for that dream vacation.
With thousands of apps available, it’s easy to miss out on some of the most fantastic travel apps. Even if you have the most incredible and most useful travel app on the market, without a well-designed strategy, your app may not receive the attention it deserves and could get lost in the crowded app market.
That’s why we’re here to examine the user acquisition strategies of the Travel category and discover what could work for your app. Having a clear understanding of the category you’re competing in can be a game-changing advantage. Let’s uncover what could make your app stand out among the thousands of others.
Join us as we uncover the secrets to success in the travel app world.
Keywords to Success: Trophy Keyword of Travel
Share of Voice Data from MobileAction Dashboard
While planning the dream vacation first things to come in mind are plane tickets and somewhere to stay. That is why these are some of the most important keywords of this genre. The combination of high popularity scores and a significant number of app impressions associated with these keywords makes them crucial for travel apps in the category. That’s precisely why we label them as “trophy keywords.” Obtaining an impression from any of these keywords is akin to winning a race and earning a prestigious trophy.
It is also important to see that these keywords are not seasonal ones. Regardless of summer or winter, these keywords remain their popularity. So they do not require risk-taking. They are safe shots so why not trying it?
Popularity History Data from MobileAction Dashboard
On the other hand, there are opposite examples that you use for your own advantage. Since people tend to travel more in summer times hotel discounts have a trend of getting popular seasonally. It is not too late to use this keyword and turn this into a boost for your app’s impressions.
Some of the apps are clearly dominating this genre. Some for the organic side, some for the paid side, and some for both sides. Expedia: Hotels, Flights & Car and Booking.com: Hotels & Travel are active on both sides. Especially Booking.com: Hotels & Travel dominates the paid side by itself.
When we look at the “Share of Voice Data from MobileAction Dashboard” above, we can see that Booking.com: Hotels & Travel dominates the competition when it comes to paid impressions. They’re determined not to lose any potential users to their competitors, highlighting the importance of these keywords in the travel category once again.
Users often rely on the app that appears first when searching for specific features rather than a particular app, influencing their decision to download. To increase your downloads, it’s crucial to use eye-catching creatives and secure a top position. If you’re not getting impressions from trophy keywords, it’s time to strengthen your ASO efforts and optimize your Apple Search Ads campaigns to gain visibility.
Another interesting point is, although Booking.com: Hotels & Travel is dominating the trophy keywords, it still does not appear in the Top Charts. Booking.com takes the lead in paid impressions, allocating significant investments in popular keywords. On the other hand, Expedia focuses more on ASO, especially when it comes to optimizing creatives.
A Real Game Changer: The Power of Advertising and Unique Creatives
Top Creatives Data from MobileAction Dashboard
Here is where Expedia: Hotels, Flights & Car made its difference because it dominates almost all of the top 10 charts and gets the most in terms of creatives. Durations are also long, meaning they are being shown for a really long time and still get the impression.
Top Advertisers Data from MobileAction Dashboard
Unleashing the Power of Paid User Acquisition: Maximizing App Growth
Let’s dive deeper into the world of trophy keywords and uncover their significance in the realm of paid user acquisition. As we’ve previously highlighted the importance of these keywords, examining the apps that gain paid impressions provides valuable insights into the competitive landscape and the overall standing of the category.
Search Results Ads
According to the benchmarks from SearchAds.com’s dashboard, in the United States, the Travel app’s TTR and CR are both higher than the average. According to last month’s data, the TTR is 12.05% while the average is 9.81%. Similar to TTR, the CR rate is 65.13% while the average is 63.93%.
Search Results Impression Share Data fromMobileAction Dashboard
Here we see the competition between Expedia: Hotels, Flights & Car and Booking.com: Hotels & Travel for the keyword “flight” for the last three months. Looking at the paid side, we can see a direct competition between Expedia: Hotels, Flights & Car and Booking.com: Hotels & Travel at the beginning but at the end Expedia: Hotels, Flights & Car witnessed a deep decrease and gave its spot to Priceline – Hotel, Car, Flight.
Search Results Impression Share Data from MobileAction Dashboard
Once again Booking.com: Hotels & Travel is in the competition for another trophy keyword, “hotel”, in the paid side. Here we see that in only three months they increased their impression share up to 53.09% from 1.92%. They take no risks and dominate all the trophy keywords’ impressions.
Today Tab
Today Tab Impression Share Data from MobileAction Dashboard
SIXT rent, share, ride & plus is the only Travel oriented app that runs a Today tab campaign. Imagine entering a shopping mall. If you don’t have something specific in mind, you’d probably begin by checking out or shopping at the prominent stores right at the front before you delve into the inner corridors of the mall. What’s likely to grab your attention first are the display windows of the initial stores you come across upon entering the mall. If the store’s window display is appealing, you might decide to step inside and start shopping.
Similarly, in the same manner, the App Store resembles a vast shopping mall, and the Today tab acts as the very element that will catch your attention, just as shown in the example above. With a captivating and effective Today tab, you can effortlessly attract the interest of potential buyers who enter the store and seamlessly introduce them to your application.
Take Your App To the Next Level: Custom Product Pages
Custom Product Pages by Category Data from MobileAction Dashboard
As you can see here, Travel apps use custom product pages, which once again shows us that it is a good strategy for this category. This could be the reason, Travel apps tend to have multiple features: delivery, flight tickets, hotel discounts, translation, flight tracking, and many more. It is impossible to show all of them just using one set of product pages. This is why custom product pages are that important. Addressing an audience and showing them what they exactly search for can increase your conversions. Creating different sets of creatives will give you the opportunity to reach a specific audience.
Custom Product Pages Use Case for Travel Category: Expedia: Hotels, Flights & Cars
We mentioned the custom product page usage of Expedia, let’s dive into that. Expedia: Hotels, Flights & Cars is using several custom product pages, for different features and even for different languages.
Custom Product Pages Data from MobileAction Dashboard
They run many custom product pages and they really have high impression rates. When we look at them separately, each of them has a different target. Let’s take a closer look at the creatives and linked keywords.
This one is dedicated to a competitor strategy, most of the keywords are competitor names, including “hopper”. The fact that it gets 19% impressions is also something to focus on. After the default product page, the second creatives set in terms of impression rates. Meaning Expedia: Hotels, Flights & Cars gets a significant amount of impression from its competitors’ names.
On the other hand, these three are dedicated to different features of Expedia: Hotels, Flights & Cars, one is for flights, one is for renting a car and the last one is for hotel reservations. Here, the target audience is specified through keywords and Expedia is reaching a more specific audience which possibly increases the conversion rate. A user who searches for “hotel reservation” won’t be seeing car rental discounts so the attention of the user will be caught easily.
Lastly, this one is for Spanish-speaking people in the United States, the language of keywords and creatives is switched to Spanish for more localized targeting. Even if you don’t target every country you should still< think of everyone in that region. This is a great strategy to reach Spanish speakers.
Key Takeaways
- Importance of Trophy Keywords: Identifying and targeting trophy keywords in the travel app category is crucial for gaining visibility and user acquisition. Keywords related to essential travel aspects like plane tickets and accommodations consistently attract high user interest.
- Custom Product Pages and Audience Targeting: Utilizing custom product pages allows travel apps to address specific audience segments effectively. Tailoring creatives and keywords to suit different features and languages enhances conversion rates and engagement.
- Localized Targeting for Enhanced Reach: Adapting creatives and keywords to specific languages and regions, such as Spanish-speaking audiences in the United States, can improve localized targeting and reach untapped markets.
- Diversified Features and Product Pages: Travel apps benefit from offering multiple features, such as delivery, flight tracking, and hotel discounts. Custom product pages help showcase these diverse features and cater to various user preferences.
- Strengthening ASO Efforts: For apps struggling to gain impressions from trophy keywords, focusing on App Store Optimization (ASO) efforts and optimizing Apple Search Ads campaigns is essential for improving visibility and user acquisition.
MobileAction provides comprehensive app store marketing intelligence and seamless AI-powered Apple Search Ads campaign management. Backed by our vast dataset of 5+ million tracked keywords and a library of 70+ million ad creatives from 50+ ad networks, our solutions help you drive more downloads effectively. Maximize your app’s success and make data-driven decisions with the MobileAction platform.
Schedule a demo now and let’s discover all the gems you need in your app marketing strategy.
