Microsoft Ads success story · Holiday comparison and travel deals site

How icelolly.com earned a 15% higher return on ad spend with Microsoft Performance Max.

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icelolly.com, the UK holiday deals site run by Ice Travel Group, wanted to reach travellers before they typed a search. Performance Max, travel audiences and patient bidding gave it a higher return and cheaper clicks than its Search campaigns.

Business: icelolly.com
Market: United Kingdom
Goal: Reach more holidaymakers at a better return

Aerial view of a sandy beach dotted with colourful umbrellas and sunbathers beside the surf

The results.

Compared with its traditional Search campaigns over the last six months.

15%higher return on ad spend than Search
32%lower cost per click than Search
40%of total search investment now in Performance Max

Performance Max ran on Microsoft Advertising from June 2025. Microsoft compares the last six months with traditional Search campaigns in a story published February 10, 2026, and does not state the exact dates or how the results were measured.

The challenge.

icelolly.com is a UK holiday comparison and travel deals site run by Ice Travel Group. It helps people find package holidays and compare prices before they book. Search ads had long been its main way to win those shoppers on Microsoft Advertising.

Search only reaches people at the moment they type. Many holidaymakers spend weeks browsing destinations, reading reviews and watching for deals before that point. The team wanted to reach those travellers earlier, and to do it profitably, with campaigns efficient enough to scale up quickly when demand rose.

Copilot in Microsoft Advertising generating travel images of a couple walking through a city

What they did.

Performance Max campaigns · Travel in-market audiences · Automated bidding to a return target · Budget caps for peak season

Added Performance Max: In June 2025 the company launched Performance Max campaigns, which use one budget to show ads across search results and the wider Microsoft network. The aim was to find new holidaymakers and win sales that Search alone was missing.
Gave the system room to learn: Early on, the return targets were set at a realistic level rather than an aggressive one. A looser target lets automated bidding try more auctions, so it learns what works faster.
Pointed it at real travellers: The campaigns used travel in-market audiences: people Microsoft can see are actively comparing destinations, browsing deals or planning a seasonal trip. That gave the system strong clues about who to reach beyond search.
Paced spend for peak season: Budget caps were watched closely so money lasted through the busy holiday planning periods, instead of running out early in the week or the month.
Scaled what worked: As the results held up, Performance Max grew to 40% of the company’s total search investment.

Why it worked.

Our read on the decisions behind the numbers, and what any business can take from them.

Holidays are planned, not impulse buys: Travellers browse for weeks before they book. Reaching them while they are still comparing places a brand in the running before the final search.
Audiences sharpen automation: Automated campaigns are only as good as the signals they get. Telling the system who is in the market for a trip helped it spend on likely buyers, not casual browsers.
Patience pays early: Tight return targets on day one can starve a new campaign of data. Starting realistic, then tightening, gave the bidding enough room to find profitable traffic.
Judged against Search: The results were measured against the company’s own Search campaigns, so the higher return and cheaper clicks show what Performance Max added, not just how busy the season was.

How we would run this play for your business.

You do not need a national budget to use the same ideas. This is how Overtop Media Digital Marketing puts them to work in our microsoft ads management.

Launch with a plan to learn: We set realistic targets in the first weeks, then tighten them as the data comes in, so your new campaigns find profitable customers instead of stalling.
Feed the right signals: We add audiences of people already shopping for what you sell, plus your customer lists and conversion tracking, so the system spends on buyers.
Protect your busy season: We pace budgets around your peak weeks and watch spend daily, so you are visible when demand is highest. That is the core of our Microsoft Ads management.
Run it beside Google: Many of your customers use both search engines. Our Google Ads management runs the same play there, with one view of what each channel returns.