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Brand Defense: Halifax

Objective

Defend our own brand name in Halifax from OTA conquesting. When a guest searches for us by name, the ad they see should be ours, not Viator or GetYourGuide bidding on our name to insert themselves between the guest and the tour we run.

Success is impression share on exact-brand queries and defended direct bookings. This campaign is never judged on ROAS: brand search demand already exists before the ad runs, so ROAS on a brand line measures demand we already had, not demand this campaign created.

Campaign settings

  • Type: Search only. No Display, no Video, no Shopping.
  • Search partners: OFF. We only want Google Search itself, where the OTA conquesting actually happens.
  • Display expansion: OFF.
  • Geo targeting: United States and Canada, "Presence or interest" (Google's default targeting setting). Rationale: most guests research and book a Halifax tour from home, before they travel, so the searcher's physical presence in Halifax at click time is not the signal to target on. Restricting to "Presence" only would exclude the pre-trip planning searches this campaign exists to defend.
  • Language: English.
  • Bidding: Target Impression Share, 90 to 95 percent, location set to "Top of results page" (not absolute top). Max CPC cap: 3 USD to start, reviewed weekly against actual branded CPC.
  • Budget: 75 to 100 USD/month to start, inside the 50 to 150 USD/month per-market range set in journal 003. Halifax carries 18 live products (live CMS product counts, 2026-08-30, journal entry 003), mid-tier among the six launch markets, so it sits mid-range on budget rather than at either end.
  • AI Max: OFF. Per docs/research/marketing/google-youtube.md:72, AI Max on brand campaigns specifically underperforms traditional match types in tested cases: 35 percent lower ROAS, and 100.37 USD versus 43.97 USD CPA in the cited comparison. A brand-defense line has no discovery job to do; it needs exact control over exact-brand queries, which is the opposite of what AI Max's broader matching is built for.

Keywords

Exact match only. Every keyword below contains a brand token: "see sight," "seesight," or "sea sight." No generic sightseeing keywords appear anywhere in this campaign.

Ad group 1: Brand Core

[see sight tours]
[seesight tours]
[sea sight tours]
[see sight tours reviews]
[seesight tours reviews]
[book see sight tours]
[see sight tours coupon]
[see sight tours promo code]

Ad group 2: Brand + Halifax

[see sight tours halifax]
[seesight tours halifax]
[sea sight tours halifax]
[see sight halifax]
[seesight halifax]
[see sight halifax tours]
[halifax see sight tours]
[see sight tours halifax reviews]
[book see sight tours halifax]

Negative keywords

Phrase match, account-level intent filters:

"jobs"
"careers"
"hiring"
"salary"
"application"
"login"
"complaint"
"refund"
"scam"
"sue"

Exact match, close-variant leakage protection. These sit one edit away from our brand name and are the queries most likely to leak spend toward generic sightseeing intent instead of our brand:

[sightseeing tours]
[sightseeing tours halifax]
[halifax sightseeing]
[halifax sightseeing tours]
[sightseeing tour halifax]
[halifax tours]
[tours in halifax]

Ads

One RSA per ad group.

Ad group 1: Brand Core

headlines:
  - "Official See Sight Tours"
  - "Book Direct, No Fees"
  - "You Book the Real Operator"
  - "No Marketplace Markup"
  - "Best Price Guarantee"
  - "We Match Any Lower Price"
  - "Free Cancellation 24 Hours"
  - "Small Groups, Never Crowded"
  - "Local Guides, Real Stories"
  - "Rated 4.8/5, 10,000+ Reviews"
  - "Operating Since 2006"
  - "See Sight Tours Official Site"
descriptions:
  - "You book with the company that runs the tour. No marketplace in between."
  - "Best Price Guarantee. We match any lower price you find, direct or OTA."
  - "Free cancellation up to 24 hours before your tour. Plans change, we get it."
  - "Small groups, never a crowd, led by a local guide who knows the city."

"Official See Sight Tours" may be pinned to headline position 1.

Ad group 2: Brand + Halifax

headlines:
  - "See Sight Tours Halifax"
  - "Halifax Tours, Booked Direct"
  - "Official Halifax Tour Site"
  - "No Booking Fees in Halifax"
  - "Book Direct, No Fees"
  - "A Local Halifax Guide"
  - "Small Groups, Never Crowded"
  - "Best Price Guarantee"
  - "Free Cancellation 24 Hours"
  - "Rated 4.8/5, 10,000+ Reviews"
  - "Operating Since 2006"
  - "22 Cities, One Standard"
descriptions:
  - "You book with the company that actually runs the Halifax tour, not a reseller."
  - "Best Price Guarantee. We match any lower price you find on your Halifax tour."
  - "A local guide who knows Halifax leads every small group, never a crowd."
  - "Free cancellation up to 24 hours before your tour. Change of plans, no problem."

"See Sight Tours Halifax" may be pinned to headline position 1.

Sitelinks

Display text Final URL
Halifax Tours https://seesight-tours.com/halifax-tours
Guest Reviews https://seesight-tours.com/reviews
Contact Us https://seesight-tours.com/contact
Our Local Guides https://seesight-tours.com/guides

All four are within the 25-character display text limit.

Final URLs and UTM

Final URL template for both ad groups:

https://seesight-tours.com/halifax-tours?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=brand-defense-halifax-tours

utm_source=google, utm_medium=cpc, utm_campaign=brand-defense-halifax-tours.

Google Ads autotagging (gclid) should stay enabled alongside the manual UTM parameters. The gclid value gets captured into the ss_attr cookie the same way the UTM parameters do, per lib/attribution/capture.ts, and rides through to Stripe metadata at checkout automatically. No extra wiring is needed for this campaign to show up correctly in attribution reporting.

Launch checklist

  • Conversion feed live check in Google Ads diagnostics is NOT required before launch. This is a defensive brand campaign, not a conversion-optimization campaign; it can go live on impression share bidding alone.
  • Confirm AI Max is OFF at the campaign level.
  • Confirm Search partners is OFF.
  • Confirm Display expansion is OFF.
  • Confirm both ad groups use exact match only, and every keyword contains a brand token.
  • Confirm the exact-match generic-sightseeing negatives are applied at the campaign level.
  • Check the search terms report DAILY for the first 14 days. Add any generic-query leakage as a new exact-match negative the same day it appears.
  • Screenshot exact-brand impression share weekly, starting week 1, for the readout at week 4.
  • Confirm sitelinks resolve to live pages before launch.

Success metrics

  • Exact-brand impression share reaches 90 percent or higher within 4 weeks of launch.
  • Branded CPC stays under 1.50 USD.
  • The monthly cannibalization audit shows OTA ads displaced below our own ad on our brand terms in Halifax.
  • Journal entry 003 records the readout against the predicted effect logged there.