How to build your brand and not pay interest on it

Session synopsis

James opened with an analogy that landed well: imagine you were Head of Marketing at a holiday park and spent half your budget advertising at the check-in desk. That is what a lot of businesses are doing with paid search without realising it. Bidding on branded keywords to capture guests who have already decided to book with you is paying for something you already had.

The session title, how to build your brand and not pay interest on it, is a useful frame for everything James covered. Paid advertising is often set up to chase the last click, the branded search, the moment someone types your name into Google having already made their decision. That moment gets 100% of the credit in last-click attribution models, and so it absorbs a disproportionate share of budget. The real opportunity is everything that happens before that search: the research, the comparison, the “is it any good?” questions that a completely undecided guest is typing weeks earlier.

James took the room through a practical set of changes that do not require large budgets, just sharper thinking. On Google, that means building proper exclusion lists, adding negative keywords so budget is not wasted on irrelevant traffic, and turning off the AI asset optimisation settings that hand creative decisions to an algorithm chasing conversions rather than brand fit. On Meta, the biggest lever is testing more creative variations than most teams think necessary, treating feed and reel placements as entirely separate briefs, and again turning off the AI settings that can quietly rewrite your ads or add music you did not choose.

He also made the case for thinking about budget as a shape rather than a flat line. Most operators divide their annual figure by twelve and spread it evenly. But user intent, search trends, weather and the natural rhythms of holiday planning mean that some weeks are worth three times the spend of others. Q5, the period between Boxing Day and the end of January, is one James highlighted specifically: lower ad costs, high engagement, and the moment annual leave refreshes and people start thinking about the year ahead.

The session closed with a practical checklist and a raffle. Angela George from IMS Marketing and Furzecroft Holiday Home won the bottle of Moet. Thoroughly deserved.