Google has moved Travel Search campaigns into open beta for the Things To Do and Events verticals. That means advertisers running paid search for attractions, tours, experiences, and live events can now access Search campaign structures and AI Max features that were previously only available to accommodation and flights advertisers within the Travel vertical. It is a meaningful shift - not because the underlying technology is new, but because it signals how Google is thinking about intent in experiential categories.
Why Travel Campaigns Are a Different Structural Beast
Standard Search campaigns work for most categories. But the Travel campaign type exists for a reason. It is designed around the way travel intent actually works - destination-led, date-sensitive, and frequently driven by exploratory rather than transactional queries. A user searching for things to do in Edinburgh in August is not behaving the same way as someone searching for a specific product with an established brand and a clear purchase path.
Applying Travel campaign logic to Things To Do and Events acknowledges that experiential searches share that same pattern. Intent is often broad at first, shaped by destination or occasion rather than a specific operator or product. Getting in front of that intent requires a different approach to keyword coverage and ad relevance than a traditional direct-response Search campaign provides.
For advertisers who have been forcing Things To Do inventory into standard campaign structures, this beta offers a more appropriate framework. The question is how much of the underlying campaign logic - feed integration, query matching, bidding signals - actually differs from what they have been running.
AI Max in an Experiential Context
The inclusion of AI Max features in this expansion is the part worth paying attention to. AI Max for Search brings together query matching beyond traditional keyword boundaries, URL expansion, and asset generation - all designed to widen reach while staying within the intent signals Google's systems are reading. In the context of Things To Do and Events, that matters more than it does in verticals where branded and category searches are clear-cut.
When someone searches for weekend activities near them, or looks for something to do for a special occasion, the range of qualifying queries is enormous. AI Max's broader matching capability is supposed to identify and act on those signals without requiring advertisers to anticipate every query variation manually. That is theoretically useful in a vertical where the vocabulary of intent varies wildly between users.
The practical caveat is one that applies to AI Max in any campaign: broader matching without tight conversion signals tends to produce reach without quality. For Things To Do advertisers, that means conversion tracking needs to be specific. Are you tracking ticket purchases? Booking initiations? Enquiry form completions? The system needs clear signals about what a good outcome looks like, or it will optimise towards volume rather than value.
Conversion Tracking Is the Prerequisite, Not an Afterthought
Any campaign using Smart Bidding or AI Max features is only as good as its conversion data. For operators in the Things To Do and Events space, this is often where paid search falls apart. Booking journeys are sometimes completed off-platform, through third-party ticketing systems or aggregators where you have limited visibility on the final transaction. That creates a gap between ad click and confirmed conversion that leaves the bidding algorithm working with incomplete data.
Server-side tracking and offline conversion imports are the practical tools for closing that gap. If your booking confirmation happens in a third-party system, you can still pass that data back to Google Ads as an offline conversion event - provided you have the infrastructure in place to capture and transmit it. GA4 event tracking configured correctly at each stage of the funnel at least gives you the intermediate signals if the final transaction is beyond your direct tracking reach.
Before testing Travel Search campaigns with AI Max enabled, audit what you are actually sending back to the platform. Running an intelligent bidding system on proxy metrics like clicks to a third-party booking page is not the same as feeding it confirmed purchases or bookings. The campaign type may be better suited to your inventory, but it will not overcome poor signal quality on its own.
Account Structure Implications for Multi-Product Operators
Many operators in the Things To Do category run multiple products - different tour types, activity categories, or event series - each with its own margin profile, availability, and seasonality. The move to Travel Search campaigns raises a structural question: do you separate those products into distinct campaigns, or consolidate them under the new campaign type and let the feed and AI features do the differentiation work?
The answer will depend on how different the economics are across your product range. If cost per acquisition targets vary significantly between, say, a high-margin private tour and a low-margin group experience, keeping them in separate campaigns with separate target CPA or target ROAS settings gives you more direct control. Consolidation makes sense where the economics are similar and you want to pool conversion data to help Smart Bidding learn faster.
The Events vertical adds another dimension - campaigns tied to specific dates have a natural urgency that changes bidding behaviour and budget pacing. An event three months away should be managed differently from one running in two weeks. Travel campaign structures designed for date-specific inventory may handle that more gracefully than standard campaigns, but that is worth testing rather than assuming.
How to Approach the Beta Sensibly
Open betas in Google Ads come with an implicit expectation that you are providing data to the platform as much as you are extracting value from it. That is not a reason to avoid them, but it is a reason to go in with clear measurement criteria rather than a vague plan to see what happens. Define what success looks like before you activate - ideally a cost per acquisition target tied to real booking or ticket revenue, not a proxy metric.
Start with a contained test: one product type, one geographic focus, a controlled budget. Compare performance against your existing Search campaigns for the same inventory over a meaningful window - at least four to six weeks to allow Smart Bidding to move through its learning phase. Look at conversion rate, cost per acquisition, and query quality rather than just volume metrics like impressions and clicks.
The expansion of Travel Search campaigns to Things To Do and Events is a genuine opportunity for operators who have been working around the limitations of standard Search for experiential inventory. But the campaigns will not perform well in isolation. Feed quality, conversion tracking, and a clear bidding strategy are what turn a new campaign type into a consistently productive channel.