Ad solutions drive major ticket sales for airline

Despite avianca being well known in Latin America as one of the largest carriers in the region, they needed a partnership and advertising solutions to raise brand awareness and upsell their offerings in markets like the U.S. and Europe.

“Our main goal is to attract customers who don’t know avianca, such as tourists, international travelers, and those driven by price or loyalty to other programs,” account manager Janice Martinez said. “We achieve this through advertising with online travel agencies and generating incremental revenue that we didn’t have before.”

With an existing partnership and years of collaboration, avianca turned to Expedia Group to figure out which solutions and strategies would help them reach their goals.   

The airline’s digital media expert helped them develop a full-funnel approach to reach travelers at every stage of their journey, promote their offerings, and maintain visibility across our extensive traveler network.

avianca leveraged Flights Sponsored Listings to ensure their flights appeared prominently in search results targeting strategic routes from U.S. points of sale to Central and South America. This solution featured tailored ads that captured the attention of high-intent travelers who were ready to book.

Along with Flights Sponsored Listings, avianca ran on and offsite display ads to build brand awareness and stay top of mind with travelers at critical moments throughout their path to purchase.

avianca was also part of a co-op campaign, which lets airlines stretch their budget and work with destinations, hotels, and more in a joint advertising effort. Plus, co-op campaigns can run at the same time as Flights Sponsored Listings to drive maximum impact.

“We always have a campaign live with Expedia Group. You know your brand, you’re innovative, you know how to promote it, and you know what partnerships we need,” Martinez said.

avianca significantly boosted their market share and ticket sales for strategic routes where Flights Sponsored Listings were running. Comparing the first half of 2023 to the first half of 2024, avianca experienced a 13.5 percentage point share shift and successfully captured market share from their competitors.

“Flights Sponsored Listings are fantastic for conversion. You can’t compare avianca’s brand awareness with Expedia in the U.S. and European markets, so we like to take advantage of that in our partnership,” Martinez said.

The campaign drove 21.6 million impressions from the on and offsite display ads. The ads helped ensure maximum brand awareness that kept the airline top of mind. During the same period, the full-funnel strategy effectively drove conversions, and avianca saw a 64% increase in ticket sales.