Paid Search Spend in the Travel Category Is Down 19% so far in 2013, Thanks to Google

Memorial Day is just around the bend, which means the summer travel season is too. AdGooroo uses this time of year to offer a glimpse into paid search spending in the travel category so far in 2013. The company reports that there’s a downward trend happening and that Google might be to blame.

Paid search spend in travel descends
According to AdGooroo, paid search spend in the travel category on U.S. AdWords from January through April totaled $238 million, which is down 19 percent from the $295 million in spend in the same time period in 2012, and down nearly 25 percent from the same time period in 2011.

With the same downward trend happening during the summer months of previous years, AdGooroo forecasts that paid search spend in the travel category from May through August will amount to $242 million, which would reflect a 19 percent dip from the same period last year.

The culprit
It would appear that travel marketers are just reining back their paid search spending, but AdGooroo says that’s not what’s going on here. “For instance, we found 217 advertisers in the travel category on U.S. AdWords in Q1 2012 and 228 in Q1 2013,” writes Gregg Hamilton, senior vice president of research and analytics and business development at AdGooroo.

Then what about the ability of travel sites to better retain users that previously had good experiences? Maybe.

AdGooroo says that a more probable reason for this downward trend in paid search spend in the travel vertical is Google