Before you begin
To participate in Travel campaigns for Things to do, you’ll need to provide your product information through a Things to Do Center product feed. The product feed is the primary way for you to provide Google with the activities content you’d like to display across Google. You can learn more about how to work with one of Google’s approved connectivity partners, or create your own Things to do product feed by filling out our Partner Intake form and following the guidelines in the Developer’s guide to integrate once approved.
After you set up your feed for Things to do, you can connect your activities content with a Google Ads account to run Things to do campaigns and manage your budget, campaigns, ad groups, bids, and reporting.
Instructions
Step 1. Link your Actions Center (fka Things to do Center) and Google Ads accounts
Follow the steps below to link your Actions Center and Google Ads accounts. The steps differ if you’re a manager or a user in your Actions Center account.
If you manage your Actions Center account
- In your Google Ads account, click the Tools icon
.
- Click Data manager.
- Click the + Connect Product, and search for “Things To Do Center”.
Note: Things To Do Center has migrated to Actions Center. The Google Ads UI will be updated to reflect this soon.
- Under “Enter link request details”, enter the Actions Center Linking Account ID to choose the feed to connect to. You can find this ID in your Actions Center account on the Configuration > Account and Users page. It will be listed next to the “Linking Account ID” under the “Google Ads Links” header.
- Review your link request, then click Submit.
- In your Actions Center account on the Configuration > Account and Users page, click Review link request next to the Google Ads account ID you’re linking.
- In the "Google Ads link" table, find the "Action" column and click Review link request.
- From here, select “All services”, “Only some services” or “None”.
- “All services” shares your entire activities feed with the Google Ads account.
- “Only some services” enables you to link only a subset of activities to Google Ads. You’ll need to download your CSV using the Download links, adjust it to contain only the activities you’d like to link to the Google Ads account, then click Select a CSV to upload to upload the adjusted CSV file.
- After the file is parsed, the number of IDs will be displayed and the Save button enabled.
- Any major CSV parsing errors will be displayed upon upload. Unrecognized product IDs will be saved in case the product is matched or added in the future.
- “Only some services” enables you to link only a subset of activities to Google Ads. You’ll need to download your CSV using the Download links, adjust it to contain only the activities you’d like to link to the Google Ads account, then click Select a CSV to upload to upload the adjusted CSV file.
- Click Submit to complete the linking process. You’ll find your Actions Center account listed on the Data Manager page in Google Ads.
If you don't manage your Actions Center account
- Ask your connectivity partner to provide you with their Actions Center Linking Account ID. They can find this ID in the Actions Center account on the Configuration > Account and Users page. It will be listed next to the “Linking Account ID” under the “Google Ads Links” header.
- In your Google Ads account, click the Tools icon
- Click Data manager.
- Click + Connect Product, and search for “Things To Do Center”.
Note: Things To Do Center has migrated to Actions Center. Google Ads will be updated to reflect this soon.
- Under “Enter link request details”, enter the Actions Center Linking Account ID that your connectivity partner provided.
- Review your link request, then click Submit.
To complete the linking process, your connectivity provider needs to follow the steps below to review and accept the request in their Actions Center account.
- In the Actions Center account on the Configuration > Account and Users page, click Review link request next to the Google Ads account ID being linked.
- In the "Google Ads link" table, find the "Action" column and click Review link request.
- From here, select “All services”, “Only some services” or “None”.
- “All services” shares your entire activities feed with the Google Ads account.
- “Only some services” enables you to link only a subset of activities to Google Ads. You’ll need to download your CSV using the Download links, adjust it to contain only the activities you’d like to link to the Google Ads account, and click Select a CSV to upload to upload the adjusted CSV file.
- After the file is parsed, the number of IDs will be displayed and the Save button will be turned on.
- Any major CSV parsing errors will be displayed upon upload. Unrecognized product IDs will be saved in case the product is matched or added in the future.
- Click Submit to complete the linking process. The advertiser should now see this Actions Center account listed on the Data Manager page in Google Ads.
Step 2. Create a Travel Campaign
After your Things to do and Google Ads accounts have been linked, follow these steps to create a new Travel campaign:
- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
.
- Click the Campaigns drop down in the section menu.
- Click Campaigns.
- On the “Campaigns” homepage, click the blue plus button
, then select New campaign from the dropdown menu to create a new campaign.
- Select Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance as your campaign objective.
- Choose the Travel campaigns card.
- In the “Choose the services you want to advertise” section, tick the “Activities” box and select a feed from your linked feeds, then click Continue.
- Choose a name for your new Travel campaign.
- Set your budget and select your bidding strategy, then click Save and Continue.
- On the “Target Settings” page:
- Select which locations you want to target.
- Choose your campaign’s start and end dates.
- Ensure that the “Network” and “Devices” settings are not selected.
- Click Save and Continue.
- Choose an ad group name.
- Click Save and Continue.
- Create your Activity group for the Ad group created.
Note:
- Travel campaigns allow you to group your connected activities by certain criteria. All activities in the feed that match the criteria will be included in the Activity group by default:
- Activity country or territory
- Activity region
- Activity city
- Activity ID
- User rating
- Activity country or territory
- Only activities in an included activity group will be targeted for ads.
To create your Activity Groups, follow the steps below:
- In the Activity group column, hover and click the plus button
next to Everything else in “All activities” to add subdivisions, and select activities from the connected feed.
- Choose your subdivision criteria from the dropdown menu.
- Select the activities you'd like to advertise from the list.
- After you've selected activities, select Continue to edit bids, then select Save.
- In the cell next to your subdivision criteria, it will say “Excluded”. In order for activities to be targeted for ads, hover and click the pencil icon
next to the Excluded status, select “Automatic”, and Save.
- You can skip this step and review the important details below if you plan to subdivide by Activity region or Activity city.
next to Everything else in “All activities” to add subdivisions, and select activities from the connected feed.Important: If you selected Activity country or territory as your subdivision and want to subdivide the Activity group further by Activity region or Activity city, follow the below steps:
- To subdivide by region, hover and click the plus button
- If you would like to subdivide your Activity group even more, hover and click the plus button
- When your Activity country/territory, Activity region, and/or Activity city are saved, you will need to include the activities to serve ads. If you only want to include one of the activity subdivisions, hover and click the pencil icon
You've now successfully created your Travel campaign. You can return to edit your campaign at any time. Learn more about how to Edit your campaign settings.
Step 3. Pause your existing Things to do campaigns
If you’re in the migration process, make sure to pause existing Things to do campaigns after you activate your new Travel campaign. Learn more about how to Enable, pause, or remove a campaign.
Account limits
Travel campaigns for Things to do
The following are the limits that apply to Travel campaigns for Things to do. All active and paused entities count towards these account limits.
- 10 Google Ads accounts linked per Things to do account
- 5,000 campaigns per Things to do Center account
- 10,000 travel campaigns per Google Ads account
- 20,000 ad groups per travel campaign
- 20,000 activity groups per ad group