Where did my clicks go?
Tijmen Pars, Head of Google Ads at Red Online Marketing since 2017, started with the question every client asks: "Where are my clicks?" His answer takes a detour through 2007. When the mobile revolution hit, the clients who suffered were the ones without a good mobile site. The AI revolution will separate companies the same way — and the ones who adapt fastest win.
AI didn't kill the funnel; it rewired how people discover places to go. In 2023 a family searched "Pairi Daiza", clicked, and found out on the website that there was an indoor world for rainy days. Today they ask an AI assistant "is Pairi Daiza good on a rainy day with kids?", get the answer, ask a follow-up — and never see a results page. Search-term reports confirm it: queries are far longer than three years ago.
That is where the clicks went. They are lost in the dream and plan phases, before intent is visible. The fishing pond of clicks gets smaller as more people use Gemini and other AI assistants. Click-through rates on AI-answered queries are roughly 70% lower, 68% of searches end without a click (Sparktoro, as Joyce Dijkstra showed earlier that afternoon), and cost per click is rising. That last point is not all bad: the click that does happen comes from someone closer to buying a ticket — it is simply worth more, and it has to convert.
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Why is branding the new performance?
AI recommends what it knows. What gets recommended: known, recognisable brands, strong branded search volume and trust signals across channels (reviews, as Joyce Dijkstra covered). What gets skipped: unknown attractions, thin brand presence, unreliable websites.
So a search-only strategy quietly stops working. If you rely mostly on search, do this now:
- Shift SEO to Organic Search — from traffic to authority; measure AI citations and change your KPIs.
- Accept higher CPCs and lower ROAS as the new baseline and optimise within that reality.
- Strengthen creative quality — the click that happens needs to convert.
And set up soon, if you haven't: add YouTube and TikTok as (paid) search channels, launch upper-funnel video campaigns to create demand, and activate first-party data — email, CRM, social organic.
Why YouTube?
- Reach. YouTube reaches around 80% of UK residents — more than Facebook (55%), Instagram (50%) or TikTok (39%) (DataReportal, 2026).
- Reach before intent. You start building audiences (video viewers) before anyone searches, you raise your chance of being mentioned by AI, you create recognition so the later search ad gets a higher CTR, and you create new demand instead of only capturing existing demand. That is how you fill the gap of missing traffic and ticket sales.
- One ecosystem. YouTube is Google. Upper-funnel video and performance campaigns in the same Google Ads account work together.
What Red sees in accounts that adopt YouTube: effectively unlimited extra reach and views, 1.2–1.6× higher performance ROAS, and a branded search uplift of up to 40%.
How do you put it into practice?
You need five things: a separate branding and performance budget; an active performance set-up ready to scale; good video in several formats; a marketer who builds the campaigns; and measurement.
| Shared budget | Separate budget |
|---|---|
| Performance results are leading | Branding gets a protected line |
| Branding is the easiest thing to cut | Judged on its own timeline |
| It's cut before it works | Still work together, don't compete |
The reason is the echo effect. Run a summer campaign, and when the flight ends the performance doesn't drop: branded demand keeps converting for four, six, eight weeks. The harvest continues after the sowing — 20–50% of the total effect lands after the flight. Cut early and you lose the part that hadn't paid off yet. So start early, and analyse with a lag.
Red's standard set-up has two layers at two speeds: a Video Reach layer that builds awareness with broad targeting, and a Demand Gen layer that remarkets activated viewers (people who watched at least a few seconds) and turns views into ticket sales. The echo effect then does the rest.
What makes a good video?
A campaign without a good video is a problem. Google's ABCD principles still work: Attention (hook early, jump into the action, use audio and supers, bright contrasted visuals), Branding (show up early and throughout, reinforce with audio, use your brand assets), Connection (humanise, focus the message, use emotional levers) and Direction (a clear call to action). Efteling's Dutch spot was the example — most of the ABCDs in one film.
The difference is measurable. Compared with weak creatives, good videos show up to 49% more view time, up to 100% ROAS uplift and up to 125% more branded searches. And in the AI era, "we can't make a good video" is no longer an excuse — test AI-assisted production.
How do you measure it?
Measurement matters more than ever: AI answers are invisible to click-based tracking, brand effects land late, and fewer clicks mean every signal carries more weight. Two studies inside Google Ads help. Brand Lift surveys your audience on awareness and consideration. Brand Search Lift shows how many extra searches for your brand terms the campaign caused — for Pairi Daiza and Edenya last summer that was 6–21%, alongside a visible uplift in sales.
Four takeaways
Adapt in a rapidly changing world. Start investing in branding, on its own budget. Invest in good video. Measure the outcome. As in 2007: who adapts, wins.
Questions the room asked
Why should branding and performance have separate budgets?
In a shared budget, performance results lead and branding is the easiest thing to cut — usually before it has worked. A separate line protects branding, lets it be judged on its own timeline, and the two still work together without competing.
What is the echo effect?
The uplift in branded searches and ticket sales that continues for four to eight weeks after a video campaign stops. Between 20% and 50% of the total effect lands after the flight, so results should be analysed with a lag, not on the campaign end date.
How do we measure whether a YouTube campaign worked?
Use the lift studies in Google Ads: Brand Lift (survey-based awareness and consideration) and Brand Search Lift, which shows how many extra searches for your brand terms the campaign generated. For Pairi Daiza the search lift measured 6–21%.
About the speaker
Tijmen Pars is Head of Google Ads at Red Online Marketing, where he has worked since 2017, and manages the agency's largest accounts in travel and leisure. Contact: tijmen@redonlinemarketing.nl
Want to talk about this for your park, museum or destination?
Red Online Marketing works with attractions, zoos, museums, holiday parks and destinations across Europe on exactly these questions. Read more: Google Ads & YouTube at Red · more on the changing customer journey on Red's blog. Or email events@redonlinemarketing.com / get in touch via redonlinemarketing.com.
