Thomas Cook
How we helped one of the UK's biggest travel brands uncover a critical data quality issue in their paid search campaigns. While their main website and partner channels like Booking.com showed accurate pricing, their long tail PPC search terms were serving stale flight and hotel data — costing them millions in wasted ad spend and lost conversions.
Get Results Like ThisOf long tail PPC data inaccurate within hours
Wasted ad spend quantified and attributed
Products analysed across all channels
Solution roadmap and recommendations delivered
What Thomas Cook Needed
Thomas Cook's main website and established partner channels like Booking.com had accurate, up-to-date pricing. But their paid search campaigns — particularly long tail search terms targeting specific routes, dates, and hotel combinations — were a different story. The data feeding these ads was going stale within hours, meaning customers were clicking ads showing prices that no longer existed.
Rapid Data Decay
Long tail PPC ads were showing flights and hotels at prices that had already changed. Customers clicked expecting one price and found another — killing conversion rates and wasting ad spend.
Hidden Cost
Stale data was driving clicks on holidays that were no longer available or no longer at the advertised price, but the financial impact had never been properly measured.
Customer Experience
Customers were clicking on deals only to find different prices or sold-out packages. This was damaging trust, increasing bounce rates, and hurting the brand.
No Clear Path Forward
Thomas Cook knew they had a data quality problem but didn't have a clear picture of the root causes, the scale of the impact, or what the viable solutions looked like.
What We Delivered
We ran a comprehensive research project focused specifically on their paid search data pipeline — analysing how product data flowed from inventory systems into their PPC campaigns, where it was going stale, and why their long tail terms were worst affected.
Data Decay Analysis
Conducted a systematic audit of the data feeding Thomas Cook's paid search campaigns — particularly the long tail terms covering specific routes, dates, and hotel packages. Measured exactly how quickly pricing became inaccurate after the ad was generated, and tracked decay rates by product type, destination, and campaign tier.
Commercial Impact Assessment
Quantified the financial cost of stale PPC data: wasted ad spend on clicks for prices that no longer existed, lost conversions when landing page prices didn't match the ad, customer service costs from pricing complaints, and the hidden cost of eroded trust when customers learn not to click your ads.
Root Cause Mapping
Identified exactly where the pipeline broke down for long tail campaigns: feed refresh frequencies that couldn't keep pace with inventory changes, latency between booking systems and ad platforms, and the fundamental challenge that thousands of route/date/hotel combinations change faster than any batch feed can update. Their core website and partners like Booking.com used live API connections — the PPC feeds didn't.
Solution Roadmap
Delivered a comprehensive solutions document covering real-time feed architectures, validation frameworks, monitoring systems, and integration approaches. Gave Thomas Cook everything they needed to make informed decisions about how to solve the problem.
Measurable Impact at Scale
For the first time, Thomas Cook had complete visibility into the scale, cost, and causes of their stale data problem.
Data Staleness Exposed
Our research revealed that 83% of long tail PPC ad data was becoming inaccurate within hours of generation. While the main website showed correct prices via live APIs, thousands of paid search ads were serving outdated information — a figure that shocked the business and made the case for change undeniable.
Impact Quantified
Millions in wasted ad spend, lost conversions, and customer service costs attributed directly to stale data. The research gave Thomas Cook the business case they needed.
Solutions Mapped
A comprehensive roadmap of technical solutions, from real-time feed architectures to validation frameworks, giving Thomas Cook a clear path to fixing the problem.
“We knew our PPC data had issues, but Dynamics quantified exactly how bad it was. Our website and partner channels like Booking.com were fine — it was the long tail paid search campaigns where data was going stale within hours. The research gave us the business case to invest in real-time feed infrastructure. It completely changed how we thought about the problem.”
Thomas Cook Digital Team
Services Delivered
Research, analysis, and strategic consulting that gave Thomas Cook the clarity they needed.
Data Quality Audit
Systematic measurement of PPC data staleness across long tail campaigns, routes, and destinations
Commercial Impact Analysis
Quantifying the financial cost of stale paid search data across wasted clicks, lost conversions, and complaints
Root Cause Analysis
Identifying why long tail PPC feeds couldn't keep pace while website and partner APIs stayed accurate
Solution Architecture
Technical blueprints for real-time feed systems, validation frameworks, and monitoring infrastructure
Strategic Recommendations
Prioritised roadmap of solutions with cost, complexity, and expected impact for each approach
Research Reporting
Custom dashboards tracking feed accuracy, ad spend efficiency and conversion performance across all channels
Got a Data Quality Challenge?
If you suspect your product data is costing you money but don't know how much, we can help. From data audits to solution roadmaps, we give you the clarity to make confident decisions.