Departure
Maldives Overwater Villas
Google Search
£25.83
CPA
Iceland Northern Lights
Meta Retarget
£21.94
CPA
Amalfi Coast Boutique
Programmatic
£17.69
CPA
Google Ads ROAS
Maldives Villas · last 30d
Q1 2025 Summary
Cost per Booking
We turned £40k in ad spend into 11,200 resort bookings last quarter.
Departure engineers Google Ads, Meta campaigns, and programmatic buys for tour operators, boutique hotels, and DMOs who measure success in confirmed seats — not impressions.
Campaigns that
filled the seats.
Every brief below arrived with a budget, a seat count, and a deadline. Every one departed full.
Boutique Hotel Group
Coral Horizons Resorts
Maldives overwater villa campaign — fill 94 villas across shoulder season without discounting the rack rate.
The Brief
Previous agency was buying broad travel audiences on Meta and hitting £48 CPA. Revenue team needed sub-£25 or the campaign was unviable.
£3.57
Cost per Booking
vs £48 prior
18.4×
ROAS
Google Search
94%
Occupancy
Shoulder season
Result
£3.57 CPA · 18.4× ROAS · 94% occupancy through shoulder season
Recognition
Google Premier Partner — Travel Category
Google Search · Meta · Programmatic
Similar brief?
Adventure Tour Operator
Patagonia Wild Expeditions
Sell out 18 guided Patagonia treks (12 guests each) across a 6-month window using a £22k total budget.
The Brief
High-intent audience is tiny. Traditional broad targeting burns budget on aspirational browsers who never convert. Needed micro-precision at scale.
18/18
Treks Sold Out
6 months
£20.00
CPA
£22k budget
312%
ROI
On media spend
Result
18/18 treks sold out · £20.00 CPA · 312% ROI on media spend
Recognition
Skift Innovation Award — Performance Marketing
Google Search · YouTube · Meta
Similar brief?
Destination Marketing Organisation
Visit Faroe Islands DMO
Shift perception from "remote curiosity" to "bucket list confirmed" — driving direct bookings to island accommodation partners across 6 source markets.
The Brief
DMO had seasonal budget constraints and needed to balance brand awareness with direct booking attribution across partner hotels and guesthouses.
+340%
Booking Referrals
YoY
£1.2M
Attributed Revenue
6 source markets
£68k
Budget
Seasonal
Result
340% increase in partner booking referrals · £1.2M attributed revenue · Travel Weekly Campaign of the Year shortlist
Recognition
Travel Weekly — Campaign of the Year Shortlist
Google · Meta · Programmatic Display
Similar brief?The industry
took notice.
Quiet confidence. Loud results. The recognition followed the work.
Premier Partner
Google · Travel & Tourism Vertical
Top 3% of Google Ads agencies globally, specialising in travel intent signals and booking-window optimisation.
Performance Agency of the Year
Travel Weekly · Digital Performance
Recognised for the Faroe Islands DMO campaign which delivered 340% uplift in partner booking referrals.
Meta Business Partner
Meta · Travel & Hospitality
Certified for advanced travel audience architecture and dynamic product catalogue management.
Innovation in Travel Marketing
Skift · Programmatic & Data
Featured at Skift Forum for proprietary booking-window bidding algorithm reducing CPA by 56%.
Google Summit Speaker
Google Premier Partner Summit · Travel Vertical Excellence
Presented at Google's annual Premier Partner Summit on micro-moment targeting for adventure travel.
Featured: Travel Performance Benchmark
Think with Google · Research & Insights
Departure's booking-window methodology cited as industry benchmark in Google's annual travel report.
£2.8M+
Booking Revenue Attributed
Last 12 months
47,000+
Confirmed Bookings
Across all clients
18.4×
Peak ROAS Achieved
Google Search
£3.57
Lowest CPA on Record
Luxury resort campaign
Heard in the
first-class lounge.
Marketing directors, revenue managers, and founders who measured success in bookings — not impressions.
"We'd been burning budget on impressions for two years. Departure came in, rebuilt every campaign from scratch, and had us at 94% occupancy through a shoulder season that usually kills our numbers."
Claire Ashworth
Revenue Director
Coral Horizons Resorts
18.4×
ROAS
"The precision is unlike anything I've seen in travel marketing. They knew our booking window before I'd finished the brief. Every trek sold out. We had to add a waiting list."
Marco Ferreira
Founder
Patagonia Wild Expeditions
18/18
Treks Sold
"As a DMO, attribution is always contested. Departure built a measurement framework that even our board accepted. £1.2M in partner revenue, cleanly attributed. That's a first."
Sigrid Holm
Head of Digital
Visit Faroe Islands
+340%
Bookings
"Switched from a generalist agency on a Friday. By Tuesday the following week, CPA had dropped 40%. I still don't fully understand what they did, but the dashboard tells the story."
James Okafor
Marketing Director
Archipelago Hotel Group
−40%
CPA drop
"They don't sell you on strategy decks. They show you a live dashboard with your money in it, and they explain exactly what every line means. Refreshing doesn't cover it."
Priya Sandhu
VP Marketing
AirAncillary Revenue
£280k
Ancillary rev
"Three agencies before Departure all told us our product was too niche for paid search. Departure sold out our entire season in 11 weeks. Different league entirely."
Tom Hagan
Co-Founder
Arctic Overland Tours
11 wks
Season sold
"We'd been burning budget on impressions for two years. Departure came in, rebuilt every campaign from scratch, and had us at 94% occupancy through a shoulder season that usually kills our numbers."
Claire Ashworth
Revenue Director
Coral Horizons Resorts
18.4×
ROAS
"The precision is unlike anything I've seen in travel marketing. They knew our booking window before I'd finished the brief. Every trek sold out. We had to add a waiting list."
Marco Ferreira
Founder
Patagonia Wild Expeditions
18/18
Treks Sold
"As a DMO, attribution is always contested. Departure built a measurement framework that even our board accepted. £1.2M in partner revenue, cleanly attributed. That's a first."
Sigrid Holm
Head of Digital
Visit Faroe Islands
+340%
Bookings
"Switched from a generalist agency on a Friday. By Tuesday the following week, CPA had dropped 40%. I still don't fully understand what they did, but the dashboard tells the story."
James Okafor
Marketing Director
Archipelago Hotel Group
−40%
CPA drop
"They don't sell you on strategy decks. They show you a live dashboard with your money in it, and they explain exactly what every line means. Refreshing doesn't cover it."
Priya Sandhu
VP Marketing
AirAncillary Revenue
£280k
Ancillary rev
"Three agencies before Departure all told us our product was too niche for paid search. Departure sold out our entire season in 11 weeks. Different league entirely."
Tom Hagan
Co-Founder
Arctic Overland Tours
11 wks
Season sold
"Three agencies before Departure all told us our product was too niche for paid search. Departure sold out our entire season in 11 weeks. Different league entirely."
Tom Hagan
Co-Founder
Arctic Overland Tours
11 wks
Season sold
"They don't sell you on strategy decks. They show you a live dashboard with your money in it, and they explain exactly what every line means. Refreshing doesn't cover it."
Priya Sandhu
VP Marketing
AirAncillary Revenue
£280k
Ancillary rev
"Switched from a generalist agency on a Friday. By Tuesday the following week, CPA had dropped 40%. I still don't fully understand what they did, but the dashboard tells the story."
James Okafor
Marketing Director
Archipelago Hotel Group
−40%
CPA drop
"As a DMO, attribution is always contested. Departure built a measurement framework that even our board accepted. £1.2M in partner revenue, cleanly attributed. That's a first."
Sigrid Holm
Head of Digital
Visit Faroe Islands
+340%
Bookings
"The precision is unlike anything I've seen in travel marketing. They knew our booking window before I'd finished the brief. Every trek sold out. We had to add a waiting list."
Marco Ferreira
Founder
Patagonia Wild Expeditions
18/18
Treks Sold
"We'd been burning budget on impressions for two years. Departure came in, rebuilt every campaign from scratch, and had us at 94% occupancy through a shoulder season that usually kills our numbers."
Claire Ashworth
Revenue Director
Coral Horizons Resorts
18.4×
ROAS
"Three agencies before Departure all told us our product was too niche for paid search. Departure sold out our entire season in 11 weeks. Different league entirely."
Tom Hagan
Co-Founder
Arctic Overland Tours
11 wks
Season sold
"They don't sell you on strategy decks. They show you a live dashboard with your money in it, and they explain exactly what every line means. Refreshing doesn't cover it."
Priya Sandhu
VP Marketing
AirAncillary Revenue
£280k
Ancillary rev
"Switched from a generalist agency on a Friday. By Tuesday the following week, CPA had dropped 40%. I still don't fully understand what they did, but the dashboard tells the story."
James Okafor
Marketing Director
Archipelago Hotel Group
−40%
CPA drop
"As a DMO, attribution is always contested. Departure built a measurement framework that even our board accepted. £1.2M in partner revenue, cleanly attributed. That's a first."
Sigrid Holm
Head of Digital
Visit Faroe Islands
+340%
Bookings
"The precision is unlike anything I've seen in travel marketing. They knew our booking window before I'd finished the brief. Every trek sold out. We had to add a waiting list."
Marco Ferreira
Founder
Patagonia Wild Expeditions
18/18
Treks Sold
"We'd been burning budget on impressions for two years. Departure came in, rebuilt every campaign from scratch, and had us at 94% occupancy through a shoulder season that usually kills our numbers."
Claire Ashworth
Revenue Director
Coral Horizons Resorts
18.4×
ROAS
See what your
budget could book.
Bring your monthly spend figure and your destination vertical. We'll model your potential ROAS and booking volume in the first 15 minutes — no deck, no pitch, just numbers.
2025 Travel PPC
Benchmark Report
Industry-average CPA by vertical, ROAS benchmarks across Google, Meta & programmatic, and booking-window data from 14,000+ confirmed travel bookings.
- CPA benchmarks: hotels, tours, DMOs
- Booking-window analysis by destination
- Google vs Meta vs programmatic split
- Seasonal budget allocation guide
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