About Travel campaigns for Things to do

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 Centre product feed. The product feed is the primary way for you to provide Google with the activities content that 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 Things to Do Centre and Google Ads accounts

Follow the steps below to link your Things to Do Centre and Google Ads accounts. The steps differ if you’re a manager or a user in your Things to do Centre account.

If you manage your Things to Do Centre account

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Admin icon .
2. Click Linked accounts.
3. In the 'From Google' section, select Things to Do Centre from the list.
4. Enter the Things to do Centre account ID to choose the feed to connect to. You can find the ID in your Things to do Centre under 'Account Settings'.
5. Go back to the Things to do Centre Account Settings page and click Approve on the 'Link account' card to approve the account link.
6. In the 'Google Ads link' table, find the 'Action' column and click Review link request.
   • If you select 'All properties' (the default), you'll have the option to download a CSV file of the associated Product IDs.
     1. Download the file and click Save.

• You can also select Only some properties and upload a CSV file with a list of product IDs.
  Note: Linked activities may take up to 24 hours to show in Google Ads for advertisers who are partially linking a feed.
  1. Upload the file and click Save.
  2. Bear the following in mind:
     • After the file is parsed, the number of IDs will be displayed and the 'Send' button enabled.
     • Any major CSV parsing errors will be displayed upon upload. Unrecognised product IDs will be saved in case the product is matched or added in the future.

7. In the table, you'll find that your status is now 'Manage link'.

If you don’t manage your Things to do Centre account

1. Ask your connectivity partner to provide you with their Things to do Centre account ID. They can find this information in their Things to Do Centre 'Account Settings'.
2. In your Google Ads account, click the Admin icon .
3. Click Linked accounts.
4. In the 'From Google' section, select Things to do Centre from the list.
5. Enter the Things to do Centre account ID to choose the feed to connect to.
   To complete the linking process, your connectivity provider needs to follow the steps below to review and accept the request in their TTD Centre account.
6. Access the Things to Do Centre 'Account Settings' page.
7. In the 'Google Ads link' table, find the 'Action' column and click Review link request.
   1. If you select 'All properties' (the default), you'll have the option to download a CSV file of the associated Product IDs.
      1. Download the file and click Save.

• You can also select 'Only some properties' and upload a CSV file with a list of product IDs.
  Note: Linked activities may take up to 24 hours to show in Google Ads for advertisers who are partially linking a feed.
  1. Upload the file and click Save.
     • After the file is parsed, the number of IDs will be displayed and the 'Send' button enabled.
     • Any major CSV parsing errors will be displayed upon upload. Unrecognised product IDs will be saved in case the product is matched or added in the future.

8. In the table, you'll find that your status is now 'Manage link'.

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:

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Campaigns drop-down in the section menu.
3. Click Campaigns.
4. On the 'Campaigns' homepage, click the blue plus button , then select New campaign from the drop-down menu to create a new campaign.
5. Select Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance as your campaign objective.
6. Choose the Travel campaigns card.
7. 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.
8. Choose a name for your new Travel campaign.
9. Set your budget and select your bidding strategy, then click Save and continue.

Note: Currently, maximise conversion value is the only bidding strategy available for Travel campaigns, and an assigned percentage for the return on ad spend target (ROAS) is required. Learn more about target ROAS bidding.

10. On the 'Target settings' page:
    1. Select which locations you want to target.
    2. Choose your campaign’s start and end dates.
    3. Ensure that the 'Network' and 'Devices' settings are not selected.
11. Click Save and continue.
12. Choose an ad group name.
13. Click Save and continue.
14. Create your activity group for the ad group created.

Note:

1. 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
2. Only activities in an included activity group will be targeted for ads.

To create your activity groups, follow the steps below:

1. In the 'Activity group' column, hover over and click the plus button next to 'Everything else in "All activities"' to add subdivisions, then select activities from the connected feed.
2. Choose your subdivision criteria from the drop-down menu.
3. Select the activities you'd like to advertise from the list.
4. After you've chosen activities, select Continue to edit bids, then Save.
5. 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.

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 next to the country/territory you originally selected, select one or more regions from the list to narrow your activity group to activities in the regions, select Continue to edit bids, then select Save.
• If you would like to subdivide your activity group even more, hover and click the plus button next to the activity region you just added, select the activity city and save like the previous bullet.
• 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 over and click the pencil icon next to the 'Excluded' status for the subdivision and select 'Automatic' for the activity group to serve as an advertisement.

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 that you 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 Centre account
• 10,000 Travel campaigns per Google Ads account
• 20,000 ad groups per Travel campaign
• 20,000 activity groups per ad group

Related links

• Introducing Things to do on Google
• About Things to do ads
• Things to do content and referral experience policies