Bing search advertising case study | smart destinations | updated February 28, 2013

1. the yahoo! Bing network includes Microsoft and yahoo! core search sites in the u.s.2. comscore core search (custom), december 2012.

smart destinations helps travelers save money and skip lines at the top attractions in nine u.s. cities. the company sells multi-attraction passes for admission to museums, tours, and amusement parks — at savings of up to 55% off combined retail gate prices.

“in the travel industry, buyers now expect more savings and purchase more online,” says Katie angeloni, seM manager at smart destinations. “that trend has worked out well for us.” Based in Boston, Massachusetts, the company has grown every year since it was founded in 2003.

search advertising has been key to that success. “We know that search advertising traffic converts well; searchers have a high level of intent to buy,” angeloni says. “so we’ve always wanted to make all the major search engines, including Bing and yahoo! search, an important part of our strategy.”

the company has used Bing ads since 2007. With one ad buy through Bing ads, advertisers like smart destinations are able to reach 153 million unique searchers on the yahoo! Bing network1 in the u.s., including 47.3 million unique searchers who don’t use google.2

Easy Importing and OptimizationBing ads features help smart destinations save time. using the import campaigns feature, angeloni imported four google adWords campaigns directly into Bing ads. the tool saved her four hours per campaign, compared to manually transferring the campaign data. and the initial results were

Travel Company Achieves 50% Lower Average CPC with Bing Ads

Case Study

Client: smart destinations

Website: www.smartdestinations.com

Industry: travel

Using Bing Ads since: 2007

this document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

About BingWhen it comes to finding more customers online, businesses can connect with a vast, high-quality audience using Bing search advertising. With one ad buy through Bing ads, advertisers are able to reach millions of unique searchers on the yahoo! Bing network1 worldwide — searchers who spend more than the average internet searcher.2 Bing ads is a great way for small businesses to reach their best customers when they are searching and in decision-making mode, and it provides advertisers with complete control over their budget. For more information, visit http://advertise.bingads.microsoft.com/en-us/home.

1. the yahoo! Bing network includes Microsoft and yahoo! sites worldwide.2. comscore qsearch (custom), december 2012.

strong. “We’ve seen an 80% increase in impressions and nearly doubled our clicks for the campaigns we imported from google,” angeloni says. “We’d like to import the main google campaign for each of our cities into Bing ads.”

the Bing sales team has also been invaluable. “My account representative helps me with a lot of upload changes. he also makes recommendations such as adding keywords and changing bids,” angeloni says. “at smart destinations, we have a lot of different priorities and different channels, and i’m the only member of the pay-per-click team. so it’s important for me to have that extra help.”

50% Lower Average CPC Bing ads delivers a much lower average cost per click (cPc) than the company’s other channels, including google. “Our average cost per click with Bing ads is trending 50% lower while the conversion rate is on par with all of our other channels,” angeloni says. “it’s good that we can rely on Bing ads for a lower cPc while at the same time delivering high-quality traffic.”

angeloni recommends that other companies take advantage of Bing ads. “if businesses are already advertising on google, it’s absolutely essential to advertise on the yahoo! Bing network too,” she says. “it’s so easy to import campaigns from google, and you have one platform to manage traffic on Bing.com, yahoo.com, and search partners. Bing ads makes it so much more efficient to reach a wider audience.”

“ Our average cost per click with Bing ads is trending 50% lower while the conversion rate is on par with all of our other channels. it’s good that we can rely on Bing ads for a lower cPc while at the same time delivering high-quality traffic.”

— Katie angeloni, seM Manager, smart destinations