/ 01
The Client
Vintage Travel is an independent UK-based villa holiday operator specialising in handpicked properties with private pools across Europe – including Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Croatia, Greece, and Turkey.
/ 02
The Challenge
Vintage Travel began working with Circus in November 2025 with a clear and urgent goal: get more bookings from less budget, and make cost per booking (CPB) substantially stronger. The pressure was greatest during their peak booking period from January to March, which left very little time to turn performance around.
Their existing PPC strategy was holding them back. It was built on preconceptions about which search queries would convert, backed by tight manual control over traffic, rather than on data showing what actually drove bookings. The account relied heavily on traditional Search campaigns with manual bidding, and there was little trust in the automation behind well-run Performance Max (PMax) and Smart Bidding strategies. The result was a setup that limited efficiency and left conversions on the table.
/ 03
The Solution
Circus replaced assumption-led control with a data-led, automation-first approach:
- Invested more in PMax. It was the best-performing campaign type, so we shifted budget towards it. Control over exact search queries was weaker, but the performance gains justified the trade-off.
- Built out location-specific asset groups. Adding asset groups for different locations allowed more granular, relevant messaging, which improved click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate (CVR).
- Used customer match lists. These gave the algorithm a strong signal about the kind of customers likely to convert, helping it prospect more effectively.
- Moved to Smart Bidding. Many campaigns were switched from Maximise Clicks to Maximise Conversions with a target CPA, so bidding was focused directly on bookings rather than traffic.
- Expanded Search coverage. We launched additional Search campaigns with location-specific messaging, ensuring every key country Vintage Travel offers was covered.
/ 04
The Results
Comparing January to August 2026 with the same period in 2025:
- Bookings: up 11% (+107)
- Spend: down 21%
- Cost per booking: down 29% (−£141)
By trusting the data and the algorithms, Vintage Travel now generates more bookings from a significantly smaller budget, which delivers exactly what they set out to achieve.
