AirBaltic: Making Sales Take Off

The airline industry is one of the most competitive sectors in the modern world. As a result of this, their profit margins are extremely tight. This means that companies have to be extremely smart with their limited advertising budget. 
This is why online places such as Facebook have become a highly attractive place for companies to reach more customers. The benefit of this was seen by Latvian airline, airBaltic as they saw increased revenues of 8.4X when they used Facebook flight ads for prospecting to act on signals that people intended to travel, showing them highly relevant deals as they researched and planned their trips.
airBaltic is consistently looking for new opportunities to improve it’s customers’ flying experience. It provides flights for a competitive price, alongside the common codeshare tactic where two airlines come together to publish the same flight under the designated aircraft carrier.
The aim was to use Facebook ads to increase their sales revenue from campaigns that focused on the initial awareness phase of the sale funnel, achieving this would mean they could efficiently scale up their digital advertising activity.
In order to make this campaign a success, they worked with agency Mediabrands Digital to help come up with a strategy that would generate high-quality interactions with people who showed the potential to book a flight with them. 
What did the strategy look like?
The plan was to start with a very wide audience so that they would maximise the potential number of customers they could reach. In order to find people that were even slightly interested in air travel, they used interested targetting. They also added broad audience targetting with dynamic ads (called flight ads for prospecting) so that AirBaltic could reach people who had expressed an interest in its products, or similar products, even if they hadn't yet been to airBaltic’s website.
What's the benefit of using flight ads for prospecting? This allowed airBaltic to show people messages and visuals that were relevant to the routes and deals that they would be most interested in. These ads were delivered across the entire Facebook family of apps, with automatic placements being activated to ensure that the ads were spread in the most cost-effective way possible. 
The use of flight ads for prospecting meant that airBaltic quickly achieved their goal whilst cutting the cost per acquisitions almost by 50% in just a two-month campaign. The results are quite impressive:

• 90% lower cost per acquisition

• 8.4X increase in revenue

• 9.2X higher return on ad spend

If your business needs a boost through social media, Gather Social is here to help. We specialise in helping businesses see results through their social media campaigns and adverts. Contact us today to find out how we can help you.