VRS130 – Paid Advertising For Vacation Rental With Conrad O’Connell

It was a real pleasure to invite Conrad back onto the podcast for Part 2 of our interview – this time featuring his great insights into paid advertising.

Our property management company has been in business for 12 years and we’ve never seen the need to use paid ads. Over the years we’ve built up a solid reputation and through the development of content we regularly hit Page 1 of Google for our keywords. In other words, we do well on organic search even for the some of the high ranking keywords.

This year we’ll be launching a new website and taking steps to really move on our competition so I wanted to learn a little more about the type of ads we might use…and the investment we’d need to make.

As before, Conrad over-delivered and gave an information packed interview, covering Google Ads & the Google Keyword Planner, Google Analytics, Google Display Network and talked at length about Facebook ad campaigns and the best ways to implement them.

And….don’t forget to sign up on Conrad’s mailing list so you don’t miss his posts .

Conrad explained:

  • Why it is important to know your market and do your research before investing a penny in paid ads.
  • How to research keywords in your area
  • How to find out what the cost per click is for your keywords
  • Why ‘fishing in Ontario’ may not be worth the investment for my market
  • The best thing about Google adwords and capturing traffic when their intent is high
  • The reason Adwords may not be the best direction for an independent owner to take – and when they should give it a try.
  • The importance of getting Google Analytics installed and configured
  • Setting goals in Google Analytics & why and when to use ecommerce tracking
  • How Facebook ads works
  • What the Facebook pixel is and why you need to set it up on your site today
  • How to track everyone that comes to your website and has a FB account
  • How to serve ads to your audience
  • Why Facebook Boost button is the easiest but the least effective of options
  • The best option to choose when targeting your audience
  • Using Google Network Display for retargeting

Links to sites mentioned:

VRS116 – Digital Marketing for Vacation Rentals with Conrad O’ConnellGoogle Display Network

9 Facebook Ad Campaign Ideas For Vacation Rental Marketers

Facebook Ads Manager

91 Digital

Google Keyword Tool

Where you can find Conrad:

http://91digital.net/

Website

@conradoconnell

Twitter

https://www.facebook.com/91digital

Facebook

About the author

Heather Bayer

  • Love it Heather.

  • Steven

    Great interview! I’m still catching up on all the previous podcasts, so I listened to Part 1 and 2 today.

    I’m going to jump into some FB advertising over the next week.

    The pod length is perfect – don’t change a thing.

    I look forward to Part 3! With some additional info about FB targeting (minimum numbers of emails needed to create useable look-alike audiences, how finely you should target down to (as not all users they estimate in your winnowed targeting set are actual active users) and the new FB Canvas product).

  • Let me know if you have any questions!

  • Fabulous blog, thanks so much Conrad – so much info and very timely for me! I am going to listen again while at my computer and go though some of those FB stages. Can’t wait for part 3!

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  • Thank you for the feedback Steven! I tried to reduce the episode length once but couldn’t get all the information I wanted in that time…so 45 – 55 minutes it will be.

    I’ll schedule Conrad again in the fall for an advanced FB ads discussion

  • Glad you enjoyed it Bob.

  • Thanks Terry

  • Conrad, Great info as always. Question, regarding installing the Facebook Pixel on my website? Where can I locate the pixel? Thank UU, Tracy — Homes4uu.com