March 14, 2025 • 38 mins
How can tour and activity operators use Google Things to Do (GTTD) to drive more direct bookings and increase visibility?
In this episode of Growth Powered by FareHarbor, FareHarbor Community Manager Rebekah Costley dives into how operators can leverage Google Things to Do to capture more organic traffic, optimize their listings, and reduce reliance on OTAs.
Tune in to learn:
✔ What Google Things to Do is and how it works for tour and activity businesses
✔ How to optimize your listings to appear in Google search results
✔ Strategies for increasing direct bookings using GTTD
✔ Common mistakes operators make with GTTD listings and how to avoid them
This is a great episode for anyone looking to improve their Google presence, attract more customers, and stay ahead of industry trends.
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts!
#FareHarborPodcast #GoogleThingsToDo #TourismMarketing #TourOperators #DirectBookings #ScalingYourBusiness #TravelIndustry
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to...
...our...
by Fair Harbor, where we explore the strategies behind thriving tour and activitybusinesses.
From industry experts to operators in the field, we're diving into real stories, practicaladvice, and tips for leveraging Fair Harbor software to fuel your business growth.
(00:21):
Whether you're just starting out or scaling up, this podcast is packed with insights tohelp you succeed.
Now, here's your host.
Fair Harbors Community Manager, Becca Cosley.
I am so excited to introduce today's guest of Growth Powered by Fair Harbor coming instrong.
(00:46):
Our first recording of 2025.
I am so excited for today's episode of Growth Powered by Fair Harbor.
Today I have the wonderful Andrew Slega.
Andrew, how are you doing today?
I'm great and I'm ready to get into it.
yes, and it is actually a topic I am so excited about.
(01:08):
It's kind of a mystery to me, even as an employee of Fair Harbor.
And I know it's a mystery to a lot of tour operators in our Fair Harbor community as well,which is exactly why I had Andrew on.
So for today, our expert is Andrew Slega of Sol Water Sports and Marina Marathon.
(01:29):
I had noticed he posted in the community a really excellent report on his returns of histhings to do ad campaigns.
And there was so much interest from other community members, other Fair Harbor clientsasking him so many questions.
I was like, my gosh, I got to get this guy on before he blows up.
He's going to be a celebrity in no time flat.
(01:51):
So I got to grab him before someone else does.
So Andrew, thank you so much for being here.
Could you tell us a little bit about you?
I'd love a personal or maybe even professional fun fact about you.
And then a little bit about the business you have on Fair Harbor and even your side hustlediving into these things to do ad campaigns.
(02:11):
guess to start, I'm red-green colorblind and I have my captain's license.
And so a little fun story about that when I got my license back in 2020, when I wasgetting my physical, the doctor who was administering my physical was also a family friend
of ours and he's red-green colorblind.
(02:31):
That's so interesting.
Good for you.
And what about a little bit about your business?
know that Jordan is your account manager.
He was singing your praises prior to our recording.
I'd love to hear a little bit about what you have on Fair Harbor.
And like I said, your side hustle on these Google things to do ads.
Absolutely.
So Soleil Water Sports is a family business and I've become to be a large provider of alot of services for our family business, but it was my mom who started it.
(03:01):
Soleil Water Sports is located at Hawke's Cay Resort, which is the largest resort in theFlorida Keys.
And so essentially they kind of act as our one OTA, so to speak.
And they also take a commission of all of our bookings as well.
but a little bit about how I got into things to do for any of our listeners that arefamiliar with the cutthroat market of Key West that is probably considered like things to
(03:29):
do land.
All of the operators pretty much are on things to do.
And I had noticed that a couple of years ago and that was something I just really wantedto figure out how to do.
And first I want to thank all of the people that I bugged in the connectivity departmentwhen I was first trying to do this.
And I guess without them being patient with me, I might not be here today, but yeah.
(03:53):
That's amazing.
And I like the shout out to the connectivity department because when I remember back whenI was an account manager, when Google Things To Do first came out, it was really
astounding.
And I think I even went to Arrival and there was a session about it when it was first kindof coming and being developed.
And it was really just a hot topic around the tourism experience space.
(04:16):
And at Fair Harbor, we were like,
all hands down where I was trying to help map connections to get as many of our clients onit as possible.
I remember being like, I'm doing all of this and I'm still trying to fully understand likehow pivotal and how important this is.
So for someone who might not know a lot about Google Things To Do, could you kind of givean overview of what Google Things To Do kind of is and why tour operators should care
(04:43):
about it?
So I think when Fair Harbor first announced their integration with Google Things To Do, itwould have been with what's called the operator booking module, right?
So when you're looking at your Google Business profile and you see the little button thatsays prices, this is where you could have your activities displayed.
(05:05):
And if you had the Things To Do integration with Fair Harbor, these would be linkeddirectly to the light frame.
But outside of the operator booking module is where it gets really interesting.
So there's two segments of things to do.
There's the organic side and the sponsored ad side.
(05:26):
So the organic side, as most people or some people have come to figure out, is labeledactivities and tours and Google search results.
And then the sponsored ad portion is labeled tickets and tours.
Something interesting that Google started doing recently is displaying what's called topexperiences.
(05:50):
When you Google, say, things to do in Miami, for example, or Miami activities, it'stypically with the things to do and activities type searches, which are typically the
biggest broad category search terms for a market.
But below the sponsored things to do ad carousel.
(06:11):
which would be tickets and tours, you'll have top attractions.
Okay, and this would be, you know, just any large attraction in an area, typically likebrick and mortar type attractions.
And then below that, you'll have top experiences.
And it's my thought that this is powered by Google's AI.
And if you're lucky and you have things to do listings that rank really well, these
(06:38):
top experiences feature two things to do activities.
So if you can get your activities in there, it's real good way to start scooping up thingsto do search volume, which is typically quite large for certain markets.
And this is all free.
That's without being sponsored.
Yeah, there's no charge for Google things to do to connect to it, no commission taken.
(07:02):
And from what I've seen, like I said, I watched a few presentations and Google has saidthey don't plan on having any type of commission.
So it is cool that there's this like free space in that sense to purchase as a consumerthat doesn't take any additional commission or anything from the operator, which I think
(07:22):
is really interesting.
What do you think are the most misconceptions around Google Things to do?
I know a lot of people had questions for you where they're like, I'm not seeing anybookings from Google Things to do.
I'm not seeing a lot of value in this connection.
And in addition to that, think that people also want to rank, like you're saying,especially in those competitive spaces, higher to be able to grab those Google Things to
(07:51):
do, commission-free bookings in that space.
What advice would you give them and what are people probably getting wrong or even doingwrong before we even get into ads, just having your listing on Google Things to do.
Probably initial and initial misconception if you're not on Google things to do is thatonly OTAs are allowed to do it and this was once the case because when Google things to do
(08:16):
was Released in beta by Google only publicly shared companies were allowed to participateand so the TripAdvisors via tours of the world got their first stab at things to do and
largely it's remained that way and unless you're
talking about a market like Key West and it's starting to pop up in other markets as well.
(08:39):
Another misconception would be that if you are not structuring your things to do listinglike an OTA, then you will likely not rank like an OTA.
And so in order to play this game effectively, you have to properly use keywords and yourthings to do listings and name them
(09:03):
name your activities sometimes in a different way than how you would privately name it onyour site.
I don't mean to put you on the spot here, Andrea, do have any example of that on how itwould be different from website to things to do listing?
Okay, yeah, so say if you offer a tour to the sandbar, right, if you're in Florida, and sosay if personally we call our sandbar tour the sandbar experience, but nobody's searching
(09:35):
for a sandbar experience.
Most people are searching for boat tours in the area and so I named it like a sandbar boattour and then you attach the area or city.
town, market, whatever's applicable in the search terms.
That's really smart.
I've never thought of that.
I've only been to Florida, I think, when I went to Disney World.
(09:56):
So I definitely would have been one of those people where I'm just searching boat tour andseeing what sticks.
So I think that's really interesting.
Did you try anything before you started doing Google Things To Do and seeing such successin those returns?
And we'll get into that strategy later.
Did you try anything else that either works and you do it in conjunction with Things To Door things that just did not work?
(10:21):
at all that you're now steering clear from.
My knowledge has grown a lot since I first started this, but before Things To Do, prettymuch the only other thing I was doing were Google search ads.
And I do think those effectively work in conjunction with Things To Do ads.
For example, I'll just use Florida as another model, but Sunset Cruise terms have starteddisplaying organic.
(10:51):
things to do listings and you don't have to attach the term tour in your search.
So if you sponsored your site with a search ad for that search, you would also be listedin the organic things to do.
Or another one I see is if you do like snorkeling tours, typically you'll get both thesponsored Google things to do carousel
(11:18):
the map pack with the three Google business profiles and an organic things to do carousel.
And so if you're sponsoring yourself in the tickets and tours, sponsored things to do,sponsoring your business profile or already ranking highly in the map pack and you're
(11:38):
sponsoring a search result in that same search and you have an organic things to dolisting that's ranking well.
in the organic carousel, you're essentially giving someone like four chances to click onyou for the same search.
That's amazing and that really goes into what I was going to ask you next was like, arethe biggest differences for someone who is super new into getting into digital ads and
(12:03):
combining Google ads, meta ads, now things to do ads?
What are the distinctions between those and how should your goals differentiate betweenthose platforms?
I'd say the biggest distinction with things to do ads is you're not targeting keywords perse.
So Google determines where these sponsored carousels are displayed, which search terms.
(12:29):
And they're adding more and more search terms as time goes on.
But that would be the biggest distinction.
I would say that things to do ads and things to do listings are most similar to GoogleShopping.
in that your product or to or feed, what you're giving to Google about the product isessentially how Google determines where it's going to be placed.
(12:55):
if you structure it correctly, it can also allow you to pay less if you're sponsoring it.
If what your activity is named is not as relevant as Google would like it to be, you'retypically going to have to pay a little bit more money to
sponsor it, and this applies to search ads as well.
(13:16):
I really want to if you don't mind I'm gonna read the post that Went what I call fairharbor viral, which is winner our clients in the community really enjoyed a post So your
post said is anyone running things to do ads if so, how are they doing?
ten times our OAS Over the past three or so months.
(13:40):
Can you kind of explain what we're seeing here?
and what strategy you used that worked for your business to see these kinds of returns.
I the comments here are all like, I'd love to hear some tips from you and are you runningthese yourself or who is?
And is it going to the Fair Harbor URL, your own website URL?
(14:01):
I'm not seeing anything on things to do ads.
So people are really curious about this.
They wanna know the secret sauce.
And frankly, I do too.
So I'd love to hear your perspective.
Well, it is still largely a big unknown in the industry.
So I guess to start, what you're seeing in the overlay is a 10 times ROAS, which standsfor return on ad spend.
(14:29):
And one thing I would say is important is you have a better chance of getting a largerROAS if what you offer in your tours is
but I'd almost say popular in your area.
This might be counterintuitive to some people, but the more widely known the tour it isthat you offer, even if you have competitors, that's fine.
(15:01):
This would allow you to, I guess, show up more because there's a search volume for yourtours.
And also there's typically going to be a lot of carousels that
you could show up in.
Another thing I would say is, from what I've seen, it's important to have per personprices.
(15:21):
Now, I'm sure it would work just fine if you were offering private tours of some sort,because you could afford to pay for more clicks and still have a solid return.
Because when you're sponsoring ads, you pay for each click.
but the sweet spot seems to be right around $100 or a little bit less per person.
(15:44):
But if you offer, say, like a scooter tour or something like that, that could be just ascompetitive.
But you would have to convert a little bit more to achieve the same ROAS.
And something else I'll also say is the competitiveness of your market will determine whatyou're paying in the carousel per click.
(16:06):
Right?
So this can be another big factor.
For example, if you're in Hawaii, you could be paying potentially five times more perclick than we are in Marathon, Florida.
Another thing I do is I have the things to do listings land on individual tour specificpages on our website as opposed to the light frame itself.
(16:28):
I do think that's important because it gives somebody a chance to navigate quickly to anyother part of your site.
If they see fit and something else I've started doing recently is suggesting other toursbelow the main one on that tour specific landing page.
And this is something that Fair Harbor does with their own websites as well.
(16:49):
That's been very successful.
And I've seen that even if somebody clicks on say like a sandbar tour, could be suggestedsomething else and end up purchasing that.
Yeah, I like that thought there on having it go directly to an activity page rather thanthe light frame itself, especially as I keep screaming from the rooftop the importance of
(17:11):
the Fair Harbor light frame.
It's obviously so important, but it's also so important to have your listings optimizedwith all the questions that someone's going to have answered just by looking at a general
view of your listing.
So I think it's a, like you said, our Fair Harbor websites have that activity page and wehave that dialed in.
in a way that I think is really optimized eye catching and also built with SEO in mind.
(17:35):
So I love that thought there.
What I like about your approach, Andrew, to Google things to do both as just having itintegrated or connected rather, as well as from the ad standpoint and paying for these
ads, you seem to be very realistic and these expectations that operators should have.
So I'd love to dive into that just a little bit more.
(17:56):
What do you think operators should realistically expect when launching their first GoogleThings to-do campaign?
Whether it's just getting their listing up, but I'd also like to hear when they're firststarting to get into their ads as well.
Well, I guess the easiest answer is it depends.
Not all websites are going to perform the same.
(18:17):
And the easiest example would be the structure of a Fair Harbor website.
So if your things-to-do listings are having the user land on that tour-specific landingpage, it's important to have those short, detailed.
Information tidbits up top.
(18:37):
It's also good to have social proof.
So if you can get like a review widget in there as well, that's really important.
Up top, I wouldn't go text heavy.
Up top, you you want somebody to quickly get the gist of what you're offering.
See your reviews, see people that like it, see a good picture, and then go from there.
(19:03):
And it's also important, I think,
to easily be able to view the light frame from this tour-specific landing page.
So something that I've started doing recently, and I know Fair Harbor does this with theirwebsites too, is having like a sticky bottom button at the bottom of the screen that's
really, you don't have to struggle to reach it with your thumb, and it says checkavailability.
(19:26):
That would be something important to offer.
So I guess in terms of realistic expectations for an operator,
When you're setting up things to do, can take about a week to see where you're going toend up ranking organically.
And depending on the structure of your tour-specific landing pages, you can either haveimmediate great results or you can kind of struggle to get those first initial
(19:55):
conversions.
But it's really up in the air.
But generally, what I've seen is that it turns out to perform quite well.
I love that you're hitting how all of this is so connected.
Like, make sure, I always compare these kinds of things to baking a cake, where it's like,okay, well, make sure you have your eggs and your flour, everything you need to actually
bake a cake, and then let's get to your icing.
(20:18):
We can't have any icing without having the cake.
So I love the little plugs in here for make sure your website is optimized, your activitypages are optimized, how does your light frame look?
Are there any other key optimizations you think operators should have in mind?
when they're getting started with Google things to do or with ads or really even ifthey're just starting out and they're building their websites.
(20:41):
I'd say a good practice would be to, if you're starting to build a website from scratch,just try to find a really good example of one that is working and try to model it.
There's no shame in doing a website yourself, but at least try to look at what's workingin the industry.
There's a lot of Fair Harbor websites out there that you can look at and you don't have toexactly replicate it, but it would be generally good to replicate that format.
(21:10):
As far as Google things to do goes and particular things to do ads, are there certain typeof experiences that tend to perform better than others?
I know you said it can greatly depend on where your operation is located, depending on thecompetition that you have around you.
Does that kind of principle melt into the type of experience that someone could have thatit might not do as well as something else?
(21:39):
I guess the first question that I would ask somebody is, is what you offer relevant toyour area?
And most of the time that's going to be yes.
But you can do some quick searches for things to do and then you insert whatever marketyou're in.
You can see what's being offered in the sponsored carousels.
You can also try a few different searches with what you offer and then input the wordtours after it.
(22:05):
to see if there are any organic things to do, carousels for what you offer.
That would generally be a good way to start.
And then in terms of what performs best, like Anna said earlier, per person activitiestend to perform best, but I wouldn't see any issue in putting like a rental up there or
(22:29):
like a private tour.
Like I said, you could afford more clicks and still turn a good profit.
We kind of touched on this a little earlier in the episode, but do you personally, whenyou're utilizing this strategy in your marketing with things to do ads, do you put all of
your offerings up there or only particular activities?
(22:49):
It depends on what your budget is and kind of what performs best, right?
So if you offer five different things, but kind of your bread and butter, maybe like twoout of five, then I would start with two.
And generally I'd like to see a budget of at least like seven to $10 per activity that youhave.
(23:10):
And that's per day if you're running sponsored ads.
Interesting.
That directly relates to my next question, which was around budget of what kind of budgetshould operators expect to set aside for a successful campaign and maybe even like what
that looks like.
Does it start with a little and you see something working and you pour more money into itor how does that exactly look?
(23:31):
I know it's probably pretty contextual operator to operator, but I'd be curious to hearyour thoughts.
Once again, it does depend.
But yes, if you do start getting a good return, I would try to feed it more.
I guess the one interesting thing about things to do is depending on your market,sometimes the impression share is almost limitless.
(23:58):
So for example, I'm helping somebody in Las Vegas right now and
If anybody can imagine the search volume for things to do in Las Vegas, it's absurd.
so if you keep, if you're turning a profit with your ads, you keep feeding it with whatit's making and sometimes it'll just go for the moon.
(24:19):
Yeah, and you said how long are we waiting to see if something is working?
How long is that limbo of is this worth my time?
A good example right now is a personal one.
So we just opened up another location about 15 minutes and into town.
And that's, that's in Marathon proper, right?
(24:39):
So I swapped over all of my things to do links to land on this new website of mine.
And that was about five days ago and it's already doing about twice as good as the onethat I posted in the group.
So I'm actually seeing about a 20 X row ass right now.
That's amazing.
Yeah, I improved the structure of the landing pages a good bit.
(25:02):
And like I said, I have those other related or recommended tours at the bottom.
So somebody who's on mobile and looks at one tour can easily navigate to another one.
It's all about keeping somebody's attention when they're on their phone.
I'm sure everybody here knows how easy it is to click on a Google shopping ad and thenimmediately X out of it.
(25:22):
So that's essentially what you're trying to do with things to do is keep them on yourwebsite.
Beyond Google Things to Do and Things to Do Ads, how do you diversify your sales channelsto drive booking?
So I know you touched on you have like an affiliate that is like your primary affiliate.
I hear also that you're establishing a real presence in your community.
(25:46):
So maybe grabbing people who might be walking by or people who are at a local hotel.
So maybe getting those walk-in bookings as well.
What does that diversification of sales look like for you and your businesses?
And what do you think is a healthy way to approach that mix?
So the affiliate you mentioned is in this case a resort and we're the only operator atthat resort.
(26:08):
And so this is typically more common in Florida.
If you do like dock your vessel at a resort, you know, you're going to have a chance toget those hotel guests onto your boat or your tour, depending on what you offer.
But I don't just do ads, you know, I focus heavily on SEO now too.
(26:29):
And I'm starting to get into blog writing.
But for I guess somebody that's just starting out, know, I would focus heavily on amulti-pronged approach, right?
So we also have a lot of people on the ground that are heavily marketing with like ratcards and Flyers QR codes everywhere and this this works quite well in the Florida Keys It
(26:56):
may not work as well in other markets like large cities, but for us it works.
So
a combination of organic traffic, traffic from the hotel, recruiting restaurants and barsto refer people over to you.
We're actually gonna now start offering affiliate commission to bartenders and servers andhotel guests.
(27:18):
So that's another way that you can start to drive bookings.
So interesting.
Back when I was an account manager, I had an operator who would recruit like his son andhis son's friends would run up and down the beach with an iPad and they would book rentals
on it and they'd be able it was their summer job.
(27:39):
It's how they afford.
They afforded like their books at college, et cetera.
And I thought that was so creative.
What does that look like for you getting those individual affiliates, those bartenders andhotel guests?
How do you track that?
Is it the QR code?
How does that kind of look for you?
Well, if you're offering somebody an affiliate commission, obviously the accepted formsfor affiliates in the Fair Harbor community, you either get an affiliate link made and
(28:09):
then you're responsible for paying that person if they produce a booking, or you can usethe distribution network, or you can kind of track it yourself.
We are actually tracking it through the online booking reference field and detailed FairHarbor reports.
(28:29):
for example, all of these bartenders and servers will be landing on our website as opposedto a booking link.
And then we'll use what's called a referrer URL.
And so we'll be able to track the purchases that way.
Is that like a UTM?
It's not a UTM, but it's similar and it's something that Fair Harbor uses a lot.
(28:55):
Cool.
I did run what Fair Harbor calls a channel mix report.
We're actually updating our reporting so eventually our clients can see this forthemselves.
But I tested it out for this episode.
And it let me know that your direct online sales are at about 68%.
Your walk-in bookings, your back-end sales were at about 23%.
(29:20):
And your affiliates made up the difference.
I think that ratio is really healthy.
I think that is a really huge testament to your success online.
How does that breakdown kind of reflect to you the success of your marketing strategies?
Well, that current breakdown, would say, is largely due to our affiliation with that saidresort, but the real test is going to be breaking into the more competitive market of
(29:50):
Marathon.
But I would say that ratio should be a goal, whether you have a resort referring youclientele or you're doing it organically, you should always try to strive for
direct bookings to and you know through your website that should be a goal for anyone.
Absolutely.
And I wanted to dip in a little bit as we kind of round out the episode about tracking.
(30:14):
So again, I know success looks differently operator to operator.
What do you look for when you're tracking the success of your organic listing, yourorganic traffic, your Google Ads traffic?
What are you looking for that tells you that something is successful?
And this can be as broad or as specific as you'd like to be.
(30:35):
I just noticed in this comment section in the community, people were really interested intracking and how you get these numbers.
And sometimes people miss because Google Analytics is GA4 in particular, it's a real beastto take on.
It's so contextual.
If you miss one exclusion, if you miss one setting, your perception can be completelythrown off on what's working and what's not.
(30:59):
So I'd love to hear maybe some principles you follow.
to make sure you're doing what's right for your business when it comes to your ad spendand how much time you're spending in each online marketing strategy you have.
Well, I guess the easiest answer in terms of ad spend would be I use a two-prongedapproach.
(31:20):
in the instance of Google Things to do ads and listings, I use these refer URLs that Italked about, and I embed them not only in the ads campaign URL, but I also put them in
the landing page URL for the Things to do listings.
And so I can see if somebody purchased through an organic listing or if it was a sponsoredone and I'll see what things to do listing it came from.
(31:48):
And then I also utilize direct tracking in the light frame that results in seeing fromwhat I've seen about 30 % more conversions that you're accounting for and 100 % of them
are attributed.
the combination of seeing them in Fair Harbor and
in real time and feeding 100 % of those conversions back into Google Ads is a verypowerful one.
(32:13):
That's awesome.
You seem really plugged in to the Google of it all, whether it's ads, whether it's thingsto do ads, things to do organic listings.
With that in mind, since you're just so hip into the space, what do you foresee what'sgoing to happen this year in 2025?
Do you think there's going to be any shifts on how travelers are booking experiences?
(32:35):
And if you do, how do you think operators should adjust their marketing strategiesaccordingly?
Well, I guess the best answer would be what Google wants you to do.
So Google is trying to scoop up as much of every market as possible.
The best example would be car sales.
(32:58):
That's another interesting model.
So it used to be that most people would go to Auto Trader or cars.com or somethingsimilar, Carvana.
But now Google is offering dealers the chance to run something that looks just like thingsto do ads up in a sponsored carousel.
So I think in terms of tour operators, there's going to be a big wave of people jumping onthings to do in 2025.
(33:25):
So it's best to be first in your market is something I would say.
So as we finish up the episode, I just have a couple more questions for you.
I would love just a synopsis all in one place on how Fair Harbor in particular has helpedstreamline your multi-channel sales approach and how it's made it easier for you with
(33:45):
things to do.
I know you shouted out our connectivity team earlier.
Is there any support ticket that our clients should be filing in order to get started withthis or in order to enhance their connections?
Well, I no longer use Fair Harbor for my things to do integration, but I heavily use allof the tools that they give me in order to track all of the purchases and produce
(34:11):
affiliates.
The only ticket I say that you would have to submit would be code that you would like toput in your dashboard if you're looking to implement direct tracking.
That's the...
the only ticket you'd have to submit.
Everything else can be done outside of Fair Harbor and within your dashboard yourself.
(34:32):
And finally, what advice would you have for operators who rely too heavily on just onesales channel?
Maybe they just are really into organic SEO.
Maybe they're pouring everything they've got into meta ads.
What advice would you have for them to diversify the way that they're getting foundonline?
I guess I'll go with the most common example, which might be relying too heavily on OTAs.
(34:57):
This can be a good method for starting your business, but I would try to bring thepercentage of OTA bookings down over time by using things like SEO and paid search ads.
Ads are a major component of how OTAs produce their bookings, and it's why they'reconstantly wanting to get a larger percentage out of you.
(35:23):
So they can turn that profit.
But if you can produce sales through Google Ads for a smaller percentage than an OTA wouldtake, then you're winning and you're beating them at their own game.
Whether it's a
get your guide or via tour.
They're all running things to do in search ads.
And so if you want to play the game just like an OTA, you can do that too.
(35:47):
I would say that I wouldn't rely heavily on just meta ads, like you mentioned, because Ithink a lot of the intent in searches is found on Google.
And so if you want the best chance at getting a really high return, you just bid on what'smost applicable to your tours.
but I'm not dissing Meta ads at all.
(36:09):
I think they offer a great chance to retarget customers that have left your website.
I don't have much experience or any experience at all running them in a broader sense.
I think there's typically better ways to capture a broader audience than running broad adson Meta.
(36:31):
This might work better for
say like a supplement brand or something of that sort.
But if you're trying to target people that might be traveling to your location or arealready in it, I would suggest targeting those direct searches on Google.
Absolutely.
Andrew, you know your stuff.
Sometimes I'm like, wow, am I just have the coolest job ever that I get to work withoperators like you who are so multifaceted.
(36:58):
And I think it's very apparent in this episode just how knowledgeable you are at this, notonly just with Google things to do, but with online marketing in general.
So as we close out the episode, I'd love.
for you to plug your businesses, whether someone wants to visit you out in Florida to yourtour operation there, or if someone would like to utilize your services in launching
(37:21):
things to do ads or talking a little bit about their online presence, how can they contactyou?
Well, if you want to take a look at our businesses, can go to solewatersports.com or justGoogle solewatersports or marinamarathon.com.
We offer a whole host of activities out of the marina we now manage, whether it's fromchess key rentals or parasailing or snorkeling, sunset cruises, boat rentals, fishing.
(37:50):
And then if you are interested in getting set up with something like Google Things to do,
would be willing to set you up for free and run your ads free for a month outside of adspend, of course.
But you can email me at things todo ads at gmail.com.
And we'll see if you're a good fit for things to do.
(38:12):
Perfect, amazing.
Well, thank you so much.
I'll be sure to include that contact information when I post this into our Fair Harborofficial community, which is on Facebook.
If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to like, subscribe, especially if you're watching onYouTube, which I certainly recommend so you can see some visual examples of what Andrew
(38:34):
talked about today.
and leave a comment if you feel so inclined.
Thank you all so much for listening and I hope you have a really great 2025 and an evenbetter day.
See you all next time.
Thank you, Andrew.
Thank you.
Welcome to...
...our...
by Fair Harbor, where we explore the strategies behind thriving tour and activitybusinesses.
From industry experts to operators in the field, we're diving into real stories, practicaladvice, and tips for leveraging Fair Harbor software to fuel your business growth.
(00:21):
Whether you're just starting out or scaling up, this podcast is packed with insights tohelp you succeed.
Now, here's your host.
Fair Harbors Community Manager, Becca Cosley.
I am so excited to introduce today's guest of Growth Powered by Fair Harbor coming instrong.
(00:46):
Our first recording of 2025.
I am so excited for today's episode of Growth Powered by Fair Harbor.
Today I have the wonderful Andrew Slega.
Andrew, how are you doing today?
I'm great and I'm ready to get into it.
yes, and it is actually a topic I am so excited about.
(01:08):
It's kind of a mystery to me, even as an employee of Fair Harbor.
And I know it's a mystery to a lot of tour operators in our Fair Harbor community as well,which is exactly why I had Andrew on.
So for today, our expert is Andrew Slega of Sol Water Sports and Marina Marathon.
(01:29):
I had noticed he posted in the community a really excellent report on his returns of histhings to do ad campaigns.
And there was so much interest from other community members, other Fair Harbor clientsasking him so many questions.
I was like, my gosh, I got to get this guy on before he blows up.
He's going to be a celebrity in no time flat.
(01:51):
So I got to grab him before someone else does.
So Andrew, thank you so much for being here.
Could you tell us a little bit about you?
I'd love a personal or maybe even professional fun fact about you.
And then a little bit about the business you have on Fair Harbor and even your side hustlediving into these things to do ad campaigns.
(02:11):
guess to start, I'm red-green colorblind and I have my captain's license.
And so a little fun story about that when I got my license back in 2020, when I wasgetting my physical, the doctor who was administering my physical was also a family friend
of ours and he's red-green colorblind.
(02:31):
That's so interesting.
Good for you.
And what about a little bit about your business?
know that Jordan is your account manager.
He was singing your praises prior to our recording.
I'd love to hear a little bit about what you have on Fair Harbor.
And like I said, your side hustle on these Google things to do ads.
Absolutely.
So Soleil Water Sports is a family business and I've become to be a large provider of alot of services for our family business, but it was my mom who started it.
(03:01):
Soleil Water Sports is located at Hawke's Cay Resort, which is the largest resort in theFlorida Keys.
And so essentially they kind of act as our one OTA, so to speak.
And they also take a commission of all of our bookings as well.
but a little bit about how I got into things to do for any of our listeners that arefamiliar with the cutthroat market of Key West that is probably considered like things to
(03:29):
do land.
All of the operators pretty much are on things to do.
And I had noticed that a couple of years ago and that was something I just really wantedto figure out how to do.
And first I want to thank all of the people that I bugged in the connectivity departmentwhen I was first trying to do this.
And I guess without them being patient with me, I might not be here today, but yeah.
(03:53):
That's amazing.
And I like the shout out to the connectivity department because when I remember back whenI was an account manager, when Google Things To Do first came out, it was really
astounding.
And I think I even went to Arrival and there was a session about it when it was first kindof coming and being developed.
And it was really just a hot topic around the tourism experience space.
(04:16):
And at Fair Harbor, we were like,
all hands down where I was trying to help map connections to get as many of our clients onit as possible.
I remember being like, I'm doing all of this and I'm still trying to fully understand likehow pivotal and how important this is.
So for someone who might not know a lot about Google Things To Do, could you kind of givean overview of what Google Things To Do kind of is and why tour operators should care
(04:43):
about it?
So I think when Fair Harbor first announced their integration with Google Things To Do, itwould have been with what's called the operator booking module, right?
So when you're looking at your Google Business profile and you see the little button thatsays prices, this is where you could have your activities displayed.
(05:05):
And if you had the Things To Do integration with Fair Harbor, these would be linkeddirectly to the light frame.
But outside of the operator booking module is where it gets really interesting.
So there's two segments of things to do.
There's the organic side and the sponsored ad side.
(05:26):
So the organic side, as most people or some people have come to figure out, is labeledactivities and tours and Google search results.
And then the sponsored ad portion is labeled tickets and tours.
Something interesting that Google started doing recently is displaying what's called topexperiences.
(05:50):
When you Google, say, things to do in Miami, for example, or Miami activities, it'stypically with the things to do and activities type searches, which are typically the
biggest broad category search terms for a market.
But below the sponsored things to do ad carousel.
(06:11):
which would be tickets and tours, you'll have top attractions.
Okay, and this would be, you know, just any large attraction in an area, typically likebrick and mortar type attractions.
And then below that, you'll have top experiences.
And it's my thought that this is powered by Google's AI.
And if you're lucky and you have things to do listings that rank really well, these
(06:38):
top experiences feature two things to do activities.
So if you can get your activities in there, it's real good way to start scooping up thingsto do search volume, which is typically quite large for certain markets.
And this is all free.
That's without being sponsored.
Yeah, there's no charge for Google things to do to connect to it, no commission taken.
(07:02):
And from what I've seen, like I said, I watched a few presentations and Google has saidthey don't plan on having any type of commission.
So it is cool that there's this like free space in that sense to purchase as a consumerthat doesn't take any additional commission or anything from the operator, which I think
(07:22):
is really interesting.
What do you think are the most misconceptions around Google Things to do?
I know a lot of people had questions for you where they're like, I'm not seeing anybookings from Google Things to do.
I'm not seeing a lot of value in this connection.
And in addition to that, think that people also want to rank, like you're saying,especially in those competitive spaces, higher to be able to grab those Google Things to
(07:51):
do, commission-free bookings in that space.
What advice would you give them and what are people probably getting wrong or even doingwrong before we even get into ads, just having your listing on Google Things to do.
Probably initial and initial misconception if you're not on Google things to do is thatonly OTAs are allowed to do it and this was once the case because when Google things to do
(08:16):
was Released in beta by Google only publicly shared companies were allowed to participateand so the TripAdvisors via tours of the world got their first stab at things to do and
largely it's remained that way and unless you're
talking about a market like Key West and it's starting to pop up in other markets as well.
(08:39):
Another misconception would be that if you are not structuring your things to do listinglike an OTA, then you will likely not rank like an OTA.
And so in order to play this game effectively, you have to properly use keywords and yourthings to do listings and name them
(09:03):
name your activities sometimes in a different way than how you would privately name it onyour site.
I don't mean to put you on the spot here, Andrea, do have any example of that on how itwould be different from website to things to do listing?
Okay, yeah, so say if you offer a tour to the sandbar, right, if you're in Florida, and sosay if personally we call our sandbar tour the sandbar experience, but nobody's searching
(09:35):
for a sandbar experience.
Most people are searching for boat tours in the area and so I named it like a sandbar boattour and then you attach the area or city.
town, market, whatever's applicable in the search terms.
That's really smart.
I've never thought of that.
I've only been to Florida, I think, when I went to Disney World.
(09:56):
So I definitely would have been one of those people where I'm just searching boat tour andseeing what sticks.
So I think that's really interesting.
Did you try anything before you started doing Google Things To Do and seeing such successin those returns?
And we'll get into that strategy later.
Did you try anything else that either works and you do it in conjunction with Things To Door things that just did not work?
(10:21):
at all that you're now steering clear from.
My knowledge has grown a lot since I first started this, but before Things To Do, prettymuch the only other thing I was doing were Google search ads.
And I do think those effectively work in conjunction with Things To Do ads.
For example, I'll just use Florida as another model, but Sunset Cruise terms have starteddisplaying organic.
(10:51):
things to do listings and you don't have to attach the term tour in your search.
So if you sponsored your site with a search ad for that search, you would also be listedin the organic things to do.
Or another one I see is if you do like snorkeling tours, typically you'll get both thesponsored Google things to do carousel
(11:18):
the map pack with the three Google business profiles and an organic things to do carousel.
And so if you're sponsoring yourself in the tickets and tours, sponsored things to do,sponsoring your business profile or already ranking highly in the map pack and you're
(11:38):
sponsoring a search result in that same search and you have an organic things to dolisting that's ranking well.
in the organic carousel, you're essentially giving someone like four chances to click onyou for the same search.
That's amazing and that really goes into what I was going to ask you next was like, arethe biggest differences for someone who is super new into getting into digital ads and
(12:03):
combining Google ads, meta ads, now things to do ads?
What are the distinctions between those and how should your goals differentiate betweenthose platforms?
I'd say the biggest distinction with things to do ads is you're not targeting keywords perse.
So Google determines where these sponsored carousels are displayed, which search terms.
(12:29):
And they're adding more and more search terms as time goes on.
But that would be the biggest distinction.
I would say that things to do ads and things to do listings are most similar to GoogleShopping.
in that your product or to or feed, what you're giving to Google about the product isessentially how Google determines where it's going to be placed.
(12:55):
if you structure it correctly, it can also allow you to pay less if you're sponsoring it.
If what your activity is named is not as relevant as Google would like it to be, you'retypically going to have to pay a little bit more money to
sponsor it, and this applies to search ads as well.
(13:16):
I really want to if you don't mind I'm gonna read the post that Went what I call fairharbor viral, which is winner our clients in the community really enjoyed a post So your
post said is anyone running things to do ads if so, how are they doing?
ten times our OAS Over the past three or so months.
(13:40):
Can you kind of explain what we're seeing here?
and what strategy you used that worked for your business to see these kinds of returns.
I the comments here are all like, I'd love to hear some tips from you and are you runningthese yourself or who is?
And is it going to the Fair Harbor URL, your own website URL?
(14:01):
I'm not seeing anything on things to do ads.
So people are really curious about this.
They wanna know the secret sauce.
And frankly, I do too.
So I'd love to hear your perspective.
Well, it is still largely a big unknown in the industry.
So I guess to start, what you're seeing in the overlay is a 10 times ROAS, which standsfor return on ad spend.
(14:29):
And one thing I would say is important is you have a better chance of getting a largerROAS if what you offer in your tours is
but I'd almost say popular in your area.
This might be counterintuitive to some people, but the more widely known the tour it isthat you offer, even if you have competitors, that's fine.
(15:01):
This would allow you to, I guess, show up more because there's a search volume for yourtours.
And also there's typically going to be a lot of carousels that
you could show up in.
Another thing I would say is, from what I've seen, it's important to have per personprices.
(15:21):
Now, I'm sure it would work just fine if you were offering private tours of some sort,because you could afford to pay for more clicks and still have a solid return.
Because when you're sponsoring ads, you pay for each click.
but the sweet spot seems to be right around $100 or a little bit less per person.
(15:44):
But if you offer, say, like a scooter tour or something like that, that could be just ascompetitive.
But you would have to convert a little bit more to achieve the same ROAS.
And something else I'll also say is the competitiveness of your market will determine whatyou're paying in the carousel per click.
(16:06):
Right?
So this can be another big factor.
For example, if you're in Hawaii, you could be paying potentially five times more perclick than we are in Marathon, Florida.
Another thing I do is I have the things to do listings land on individual tour specificpages on our website as opposed to the light frame itself.
(16:28):
I do think that's important because it gives somebody a chance to navigate quickly to anyother part of your site.
If they see fit and something else I've started doing recently is suggesting other toursbelow the main one on that tour specific landing page.
And this is something that Fair Harbor does with their own websites as well.
(16:49):
That's been very successful.
And I've seen that even if somebody clicks on say like a sandbar tour, could be suggestedsomething else and end up purchasing that.
Yeah, I like that thought there on having it go directly to an activity page rather thanthe light frame itself, especially as I keep screaming from the rooftop the importance of
(17:11):
the Fair Harbor light frame.
It's obviously so important, but it's also so important to have your listings optimizedwith all the questions that someone's going to have answered just by looking at a general
view of your listing.
So I think it's a, like you said, our Fair Harbor websites have that activity page and wehave that dialed in.
in a way that I think is really optimized eye catching and also built with SEO in mind.
(17:35):
So I love that thought there.
What I like about your approach, Andrew, to Google things to do both as just having itintegrated or connected rather, as well as from the ad standpoint and paying for these
ads, you seem to be very realistic and these expectations that operators should have.
So I'd love to dive into that just a little bit more.
(17:56):
What do you think operators should realistically expect when launching their first GoogleThings to-do campaign?
Whether it's just getting their listing up, but I'd also like to hear when they're firststarting to get into their ads as well.
Well, I guess the easiest answer is it depends.
Not all websites are going to perform the same.
(18:17):
And the easiest example would be the structure of a Fair Harbor website.
So if your things-to-do listings are having the user land on that tour-specific landingpage, it's important to have those short, detailed.
Information tidbits up top.
(18:37):
It's also good to have social proof.
So if you can get like a review widget in there as well, that's really important.
Up top, I wouldn't go text heavy.
Up top, you you want somebody to quickly get the gist of what you're offering.
See your reviews, see people that like it, see a good picture, and then go from there.
(19:03):
And it's also important, I think,
to easily be able to view the light frame from this tour-specific landing page.
So something that I've started doing recently, and I know Fair Harbor does this with theirwebsites too, is having like a sticky bottom button at the bottom of the screen that's
really, you don't have to struggle to reach it with your thumb, and it says checkavailability.
(19:26):
That would be something important to offer.
So I guess in terms of realistic expectations for an operator,
When you're setting up things to do, can take about a week to see where you're going toend up ranking organically.
And depending on the structure of your tour-specific landing pages, you can either haveimmediate great results or you can kind of struggle to get those first initial
(19:55):
conversions.
But it's really up in the air.
But generally, what I've seen is that it turns out to perform quite well.
I love that you're hitting how all of this is so connected.
Like, make sure, I always compare these kinds of things to baking a cake, where it's like,okay, well, make sure you have your eggs and your flour, everything you need to actually
bake a cake, and then let's get to your icing.
(20:18):
We can't have any icing without having the cake.
So I love the little plugs in here for make sure your website is optimized, your activitypages are optimized, how does your light frame look?
Are there any other key optimizations you think operators should have in mind?
when they're getting started with Google things to do or with ads or really even ifthey're just starting out and they're building their websites.
(20:41):
I'd say a good practice would be to, if you're starting to build a website from scratch,just try to find a really good example of one that is working and try to model it.
There's no shame in doing a website yourself, but at least try to look at what's workingin the industry.
There's a lot of Fair Harbor websites out there that you can look at and you don't have toexactly replicate it, but it would be generally good to replicate that format.
(21:10):
As far as Google things to do goes and particular things to do ads, are there certain typeof experiences that tend to perform better than others?
I know you said it can greatly depend on where your operation is located, depending on thecompetition that you have around you.
Does that kind of principle melt into the type of experience that someone could have thatit might not do as well as something else?
(21:39):
I guess the first question that I would ask somebody is, is what you offer relevant toyour area?
And most of the time that's going to be yes.
But you can do some quick searches for things to do and then you insert whatever marketyou're in.
You can see what's being offered in the sponsored carousels.
You can also try a few different searches with what you offer and then input the wordtours after it.
(22:05):
to see if there are any organic things to do, carousels for what you offer.
That would generally be a good way to start.
And then in terms of what performs best, like Anna said earlier, per person activitiestend to perform best, but I wouldn't see any issue in putting like a rental up there or
(22:29):
like a private tour.
Like I said, you could afford more clicks and still turn a good profit.
We kind of touched on this a little earlier in the episode, but do you personally, whenyou're utilizing this strategy in your marketing with things to do ads, do you put all of
your offerings up there or only particular activities?
(22:49):
It depends on what your budget is and kind of what performs best, right?
So if you offer five different things, but kind of your bread and butter, maybe like twoout of five, then I would start with two.
And generally I'd like to see a budget of at least like seven to $10 per activity that youhave.
(23:10):
And that's per day if you're running sponsored ads.
Interesting.
That directly relates to my next question, which was around budget of what kind of budgetshould operators expect to set aside for a successful campaign and maybe even like what
that looks like.
Does it start with a little and you see something working and you pour more money into itor how does that exactly look?
(23:31):
I know it's probably pretty contextual operator to operator, but I'd be curious to hearyour thoughts.
Once again, it does depend.
But yes, if you do start getting a good return, I would try to feed it more.
I guess the one interesting thing about things to do is depending on your market,sometimes the impression share is almost limitless.
(23:58):
So for example, I'm helping somebody in Las Vegas right now and
If anybody can imagine the search volume for things to do in Las Vegas, it's absurd.
so if you keep, if you're turning a profit with your ads, you keep feeding it with whatit's making and sometimes it'll just go for the moon.
(24:19):
Yeah, and you said how long are we waiting to see if something is working?
How long is that limbo of is this worth my time?
A good example right now is a personal one.
So we just opened up another location about 15 minutes and into town.
And that's, that's in Marathon proper, right?
(24:39):
So I swapped over all of my things to do links to land on this new website of mine.
And that was about five days ago and it's already doing about twice as good as the onethat I posted in the group.
So I'm actually seeing about a 20 X row ass right now.
That's amazing.
Yeah, I improved the structure of the landing pages a good bit.
(25:02):
And like I said, I have those other related or recommended tours at the bottom.
So somebody who's on mobile and looks at one tour can easily navigate to another one.
It's all about keeping somebody's attention when they're on their phone.
I'm sure everybody here knows how easy it is to click on a Google shopping ad and thenimmediately X out of it.
(25:22):
So that's essentially what you're trying to do with things to do is keep them on yourwebsite.
Beyond Google Things to Do and Things to Do Ads, how do you diversify your sales channelsto drive booking?
So I know you touched on you have like an affiliate that is like your primary affiliate.
I hear also that you're establishing a real presence in your community.
(25:46):
So maybe grabbing people who might be walking by or people who are at a local hotel.
So maybe getting those walk-in bookings as well.
What does that diversification of sales look like for you and your businesses?
And what do you think is a healthy way to approach that mix?
So the affiliate you mentioned is in this case a resort and we're the only operator atthat resort.
(26:08):
And so this is typically more common in Florida.
If you do like dock your vessel at a resort, you know, you're going to have a chance toget those hotel guests onto your boat or your tour, depending on what you offer.
But I don't just do ads, you know, I focus heavily on SEO now too.
(26:29):
And I'm starting to get into blog writing.
But for I guess somebody that's just starting out, know, I would focus heavily on amulti-pronged approach, right?
So we also have a lot of people on the ground that are heavily marketing with like ratcards and Flyers QR codes everywhere and this this works quite well in the Florida Keys It
(26:56):
may not work as well in other markets like large cities, but for us it works.
So
a combination of organic traffic, traffic from the hotel, recruiting restaurants and barsto refer people over to you.
We're actually gonna now start offering affiliate commission to bartenders and servers andhotel guests.
(27:18):
So that's another way that you can start to drive bookings.
So interesting.
Back when I was an account manager, I had an operator who would recruit like his son andhis son's friends would run up and down the beach with an iPad and they would book rentals
on it and they'd be able it was their summer job.
(27:39):
It's how they afford.
They afforded like their books at college, et cetera.
And I thought that was so creative.
What does that look like for you getting those individual affiliates, those bartenders andhotel guests?
How do you track that?
Is it the QR code?
How does that kind of look for you?
Well, if you're offering somebody an affiliate commission, obviously the accepted formsfor affiliates in the Fair Harbor community, you either get an affiliate link made and
(28:09):
then you're responsible for paying that person if they produce a booking, or you can usethe distribution network, or you can kind of track it yourself.
We are actually tracking it through the online booking reference field and detailed FairHarbor reports.
(28:29):
for example, all of these bartenders and servers will be landing on our website as opposedto a booking link.
And then we'll use what's called a referrer URL.
And so we'll be able to track the purchases that way.
Is that like a UTM?
It's not a UTM, but it's similar and it's something that Fair Harbor uses a lot.
(28:55):
Cool.
I did run what Fair Harbor calls a channel mix report.
We're actually updating our reporting so eventually our clients can see this forthemselves.
But I tested it out for this episode.
And it let me know that your direct online sales are at about 68%.
Your walk-in bookings, your back-end sales were at about 23%.
(29:20):
And your affiliates made up the difference.
I think that ratio is really healthy.
I think that is a really huge testament to your success online.
How does that breakdown kind of reflect to you the success of your marketing strategies?
Well, that current breakdown, would say, is largely due to our affiliation with that saidresort, but the real test is going to be breaking into the more competitive market of
(29:50):
Marathon.
But I would say that ratio should be a goal, whether you have a resort referring youclientele or you're doing it organically, you should always try to strive for
direct bookings to and you know through your website that should be a goal for anyone.
Absolutely.
And I wanted to dip in a little bit as we kind of round out the episode about tracking.
(30:14):
So again, I know success looks differently operator to operator.
What do you look for when you're tracking the success of your organic listing, yourorganic traffic, your Google Ads traffic?
What are you looking for that tells you that something is successful?
And this can be as broad or as specific as you'd like to be.
(30:35):
I just noticed in this comment section in the community, people were really interested intracking and how you get these numbers.
And sometimes people miss because Google Analytics is GA4 in particular, it's a real beastto take on.
It's so contextual.
If you miss one exclusion, if you miss one setting, your perception can be completelythrown off on what's working and what's not.
(30:59):
So I'd love to hear maybe some principles you follow.
to make sure you're doing what's right for your business when it comes to your ad spendand how much time you're spending in each online marketing strategy you have.
Well, I guess the easiest answer in terms of ad spend would be I use a two-prongedapproach.
(31:20):
in the instance of Google Things to do ads and listings, I use these refer URLs that Italked about, and I embed them not only in the ads campaign URL, but I also put them in
the landing page URL for the Things to do listings.
And so I can see if somebody purchased through an organic listing or if it was a sponsoredone and I'll see what things to do listing it came from.
(31:48):
And then I also utilize direct tracking in the light frame that results in seeing fromwhat I've seen about 30 % more conversions that you're accounting for and 100 % of them
are attributed.
the combination of seeing them in Fair Harbor and
in real time and feeding 100 % of those conversions back into Google Ads is a verypowerful one.
(32:13):
That's awesome.
You seem really plugged in to the Google of it all, whether it's ads, whether it's thingsto do ads, things to do organic listings.
With that in mind, since you're just so hip into the space, what do you foresee what'sgoing to happen this year in 2025?
Do you think there's going to be any shifts on how travelers are booking experiences?
(32:35):
And if you do, how do you think operators should adjust their marketing strategiesaccordingly?
Well, I guess the best answer would be what Google wants you to do.
So Google is trying to scoop up as much of every market as possible.
The best example would be car sales.
(32:58):
That's another interesting model.
So it used to be that most people would go to Auto Trader or cars.com or somethingsimilar, Carvana.
But now Google is offering dealers the chance to run something that looks just like thingsto do ads up in a sponsored carousel.
So I think in terms of tour operators, there's going to be a big wave of people jumping onthings to do in 2025.
(33:25):
So it's best to be first in your market is something I would say.
So as we finish up the episode, I just have a couple more questions for you.
I would love just a synopsis all in one place on how Fair Harbor in particular has helpedstreamline your multi-channel sales approach and how it's made it easier for you with
(33:45):
things to do.
I know you shouted out our connectivity team earlier.
Is there any support ticket that our clients should be filing in order to get started withthis or in order to enhance their connections?
Well, I no longer use Fair Harbor for my things to do integration, but I heavily use allof the tools that they give me in order to track all of the purchases and produce
(34:11):
affiliates.
The only ticket I say that you would have to submit would be code that you would like toput in your dashboard if you're looking to implement direct tracking.
That's the...
the only ticket you'd have to submit.
Everything else can be done outside of Fair Harbor and within your dashboard yourself.
(34:32):
And finally, what advice would you have for operators who rely too heavily on just onesales channel?
Maybe they just are really into organic SEO.
Maybe they're pouring everything they've got into meta ads.
What advice would you have for them to diversify the way that they're getting foundonline?
I guess I'll go with the most common example, which might be relying too heavily on OTAs.
(34:57):
This can be a good method for starting your business, but I would try to bring thepercentage of OTA bookings down over time by using things like SEO and paid search ads.
Ads are a major component of how OTAs produce their bookings, and it's why they'reconstantly wanting to get a larger percentage out of you.
(35:23):
So they can turn that profit.
But if you can produce sales through Google Ads for a smaller percentage than an OTA wouldtake, then you're winning and you're beating them at their own game.
Whether it's a
get your guide or via tour.
They're all running things to do in search ads.
And so if you want to play the game just like an OTA, you can do that too.
(35:47):
I would say that I wouldn't rely heavily on just meta ads, like you mentioned, because Ithink a lot of the intent in searches is found on Google.
And so if you want the best chance at getting a really high return, you just bid on what'smost applicable to your tours.
but I'm not dissing Meta ads at all.
(36:09):
I think they offer a great chance to retarget customers that have left your website.
I don't have much experience or any experience at all running them in a broader sense.
I think there's typically better ways to capture a broader audience than running broad adson Meta.
(36:31):
This might work better for
say like a supplement brand or something of that sort.
But if you're trying to target people that might be traveling to your location or arealready in it, I would suggest targeting those direct searches on Google.
Absolutely.
Andrew, you know your stuff.
Sometimes I'm like, wow, am I just have the coolest job ever that I get to work withoperators like you who are so multifaceted.
(36:58):
And I think it's very apparent in this episode just how knowledgeable you are at this, notonly just with Google things to do, but with online marketing in general.
So as we close out the episode, I'd love.
for you to plug your businesses, whether someone wants to visit you out in Florida to yourtour operation there, or if someone would like to utilize your services in launching
(37:21):
things to do ads or talking a little bit about their online presence, how can they contactyou?
Well, if you want to take a look at our businesses, can go to solewatersports.com or justGoogle solewatersports or marinamarathon.com.
We offer a whole host of activities out of the marina we now manage, whether it's fromchess key rentals or parasailing or snorkeling, sunset cruises, boat rentals, fishing.
(37:50):
And then if you are interested in getting set up with something like Google Things to do,
would be willing to set you up for free and run your ads free for a month outside of adspend, of course.
But you can email me at things todo ads at gmail.com.
And we'll see if you're a good fit for things to do.
(38:12):
Perfect, amazing.
Well, thank you so much.
I'll be sure to include that contact information when I post this into our Fair Harborofficial community, which is on Facebook.
If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to like, subscribe, especially if you're watching onYouTube, which I certainly recommend so you can see some visual examples of what Andrew
(38:34):
talked about today.
and leave a comment if you feel so inclined.
Thank you all so much for listening and I hope you have a really great 2025 and an evenbetter day.
See you all next time.
Thank you, Andrew.
Thank you.
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