The challenge
A well-known scenic helicopter flight company was losing a painful slice of its revenue to the online travel agencies. The OTAs were bidding on the company's own brand name, catching people at the last click, and taking 20% to 30% commission on bookings the operator had earned through its own reputation. Worse, every OTA booking handed away the customer too: no email, no direct relationship, no repeat visit. In a crowded, high-intent marketplace, they wanted to be visible for their own flights and win those bookings back, direct.
What we did
We built and ran a Google Ads account designed to take those bookings back:
- Brand-protection campaigns to intercept the OTAs bidding on their name
- Tight negative keyword lists so nothing was wasted
- Seasonal timing, ready and warmed up before the summer demand peak
- Bidding trained on their real booking patterns, so the account got sharper every season
Tracking ran throughout, so the shift to direct was something we could see, not something we assumed.
The results
Around $23,000 of ad spend produced roughly $717,000 in revenue, a return of more than 30 times across the campaign. In the peak December month it reached nearly 57 times, at an average booking value north of $2,000.
The bigger story is what a direct booking cost against an OTA booking. Winning one through Google Ads cost under 2% of its value in ad spend, or about 4% once you include our management. An OTA would have taken 20% to 30% of the same booking in commission. Across a busy season that gap is enormous, and it stays with the operator rather than leaving with the platform. They kept the margin, and they kept the customer.