How are you driving traffic to the site and what are your conversion metrics? Have you done face to face user tests with at least 5 random people? Do people have to book right at that time or do you give them the ability to save/share a booking?
Additionally, SEO/SEA is something that we feel will be much more relevant for the parties in the market that cater to those users that already know where they would like to travel to and just need to find their flight and/or accommodation. We cater to those earlier in the cycle, wondering 'where can I go?'. This is the feeling we try to associate ourselves with, which is why brand advertising might prove more useful than direct response. Again, this is tricky with a small budget (<€1000)
Yes, we've tested with >5 random people. Users don't have to book immediately, but can create an account and save the itinerary for later.
Conversion metrics we're tracking: 'happy 1st visit' (i.e. views more than 5 trips), visit/search, search/save, search/book. account signup
It might be important to note that, at this point, we're not so much interested in how much we make from the actual booking as much as we're interested in the conversion rate itself. We use the Expedia & SkyScanner APIs, which was more practical from a technical perspective to get to MVP as soon as possible. But the affiliate fees for flights are close to nothing ($2 if we're lucky) and we have different solutions in mind.
We only ask for the user to sign-up once she clicks the 'save itinerary' button, which we believed would be the most seamless. The most confusing part of the product so far has been the fact that we currently have two 'book now' buttons once the user tries to book her flight, something we're addressing.
1) You push me onto a landing page instead of right into the product - why?
2) The initial form you ask me to fill out is a bit intimidating - perhaps it can be broken up a bit
3) On the results page - its unclear at first what I'm supposed to click on - and you dont tell me anything about the flight or the hotel you've chosen for me
4) Results page loads slowly
5) No button to book trip
6) You are choosing a 1 star crappy hotel for me...
There is a lot of product refinement you can do to improve this experience / conversion rate