Dakota from Travel Tractions lays out a full-funnel marketing approach for travel brands that treats SEO, paid ads, and organic social as one connected system rather than separate channels. On the SEO side, she introduces the "search intent ladder" — Dreaming, Planning, Comparing, and Buying — arguing that most brands only create content for the final "buying" stage and therefore show up as strangers instead of familiar names by the time someone's ready to book; she also touches on GEO (generative engine optimization), noting that AI models favor clarity and third-party mentions over domain authority or ad spend. For paid media, she recommends layering broad-awareness campaigns with retargeting built specifically around meaningful actions, and separating Meta from Google spend since Google captures higher-intent (often branded) searches close to the booking decision. On social, she frames platform-native, UGC-style content as the trust-builder that closes the gap right before purchase, citing that 73% of travelers say influencer content has shaped their bookings. She ties it together by pushing brands toward GA4's data-driven attribution instead of last-click, which tends to over-credit paid ads and hide organic's assist role, and closes with a suggested sequencing: SEO first because it compounds and can't be taken away by OTAs, paid second to fill the gaps while organic builds, and social third to reinforce the trust the other two create.