3 Travel Companies Successfully Using Facebook Ads
If you’re in the travel and tour space, you’ve probably noticed that Google and display ads are getting more competitive every year.
That’s why this is a great time to start exploring the potential of Facebook ads.
Even though Facebook’s been around since 2004, most travel and tour companies still aren’t running ads there.
Facebook Ads Are Generating Millions For Other Businesses
Although the travel industry isn’t doing much Facebook marketing, Facebook ads are working in plenty of other industries, especially businesses that allow you to purchase online. Companies like WISH, MVMT Watches, Hello Fresh, and Casper Beds are making millions from Facebook ads.
There’s a reason for that — the targeting.
Facebook has A LOT of user data. Not just what you tell Facebook directly, like age, location, relationship status, etc, but Facebook is able to create a complete avatar of each user based on their activity when using the site.
Facebook can determine, with high probability, when you’re about to do certain things in your life, like buy an engagement ring, start a diet, or… plan a vacation.
Even though most travel companies have yet to take advantage of all this data, let’s look into three that are.
Contiki has won multiple awards for their marketing campaigns, online user experience, and website, including “Travel Marketing Team of the Year” at the Mumbrella Travel Marketing Awards last year.
With a very clearly defined audience of 18–35 year olds, they know how to create a marketing campaign that speaks directly to their ideal customer, something a lot of travel companies struggle with.
Even if your company’s audience is much broader or you have several different audiences, there’s still a lot to be learned from their campaigns.
Traffic Profile
Facebook is by far the number one source of social media traffic for Contiki.
Note that they’re also utilizing another great ad platform for travel companies, Youtube. Because of the amazing videos that travel companies can use in their advertising, any photo/video based ad network is likely to work in this industry.
Ads
General overview
Contiki usually runs a few main types of ads:
- Discount offers, typically 15–25% off all trips or flight discounts
- Destination specific offers
- Video ads
Discount ads
Destination specific ads
Click here to see the full article and watch video ads
Key Takeaways
- Making a very specific offer (like a discount) on Facebook tends to work well, especially with a hard deadline
- Photos that look like they belong on Facebook, i.e. like a friend might have posted it, work well to grab attention. Specifically the Ireland ad would work well on Facebook.
- Video ads highlighting the trips also tend to work well
- Some of the landing pages have good congruence with the ads. You don’t want people to click on the ad and then feel confused about the page they’re on. Some ads, like the destination specific ads, go to a landing page that immediately seems directly related to the ad.
Areas for improvement
- Almost none of their URLs include UTM parameters, meaning they’re not tracking which ads are generating leads and sales in their booking software. This makes it much harder to determine what’s working in Facebook and actually generating ROI.
- Try using diagonal lines in the images. The eyes can’t resist this natural pattern interrupt and tend to be more drawn to the ads in a newsfeed.
- On that note, in some ads where Contiki makes a specific offer, like $1 flights, the landing page is confusing. You’re just brought to a general deals page and it’s hard to find the specific offer they’ve advertised.
- Take advantage of Facebook’s generous space for ad copy. Unlike the 90 character limit for a Google Ads, Facebook gives you a lot more room to share benefits of the trip, the offer, testimonials, and what makes your company different. You can also use the space to speak more specifically to whoever your ad is for, like asking a question that could define your audience, i.e. “Need a break from the boring 9–5?” or “Need to warm up this winter WITHOUT breaking the bank?”
- Unless they’ve done extensive testing already, it’s best to run at least 4 images for every campaign. Contiki only seems to run 1 ad in each ad set.
In 2018, Carnival Cruise Line was estimated to hold an 8.9% share of cruise industry revenue and 22.0% of passengers. They also won dozens of awards for best cruise line. In the last year alone they’ve won multiple awards from USA Today, Cruise Critic, Reader’s Digest, and Travel Weekly.
Whatever’s Carnivals doing to grow their market share of the cruise industry, it’s working and you can see from their traffic profile below that part of that is their Facebook ads.
Traffic Profile
Similar to Contiki, Facebook is by far the number one source of social media traffic for Carnival. Also like Contiki, they’re using Youtube to get almost a quarter of their social traffic.
Ads
General overview
Carnival usually runs a few main types of ads:
- Casino ads — offering free play credits, drinks, and upgrades
- Photo and video ads that all go to the same quote page
- Discount or special VIP offers
Casino Ads
Quote Ads
Click here to see the full article and watch video ads
Key Takeaways
- Unlike Contiki, Carnival does have tracking setup, which you can see as the utm parameters at the end of the URLs.
- I like how they break down the cost/day/person in some of their ads. This isn’t guaranteed to work but it could make the overall price seem more reasonable and is definitely worth testing.
- The specific casino ads are a good start to using more targeted ads. Remember, the advantage with Facebook is that you can use more precise audience targeting and speak directly to them. You no longer have to use the broad, vanilla messaging that’s used in newspaper and magazine ads.
- The video ads are short and eye-catching. Ads like these tend to get a lot of clicks.
Areas for improvement
- Some of their photos look more like ads, which could cause people to gloss over them more quickly, compared to Contiki, that use more ‘real’ looking photos of travellers.
- I’d also recommend editing the photos to help them stand out more — change the exposure, try grayscaling the background, or putting a diagonal box in the images with text that features a special offer.
- The offer is not well-highlighted in these ads. It seems they may be running more generic ads that don’t have to be updated when there’s new offers. This is likely to not be as eye-catching as a good, clear offer.
- I would also advise Carnival to include more copy above the image. Include an opening statement to address your ideal customer, write about the benefits of the trip, include a clear offer, instructions on how to redeem it, testimonials, and what makes cruising with Carnival different.
- Carnival also doesn’t seem to do much image testing. Best practice is at least 4 images in every ad set. In most cases, they’re just running 1.
Kensington Tours is one to watch. Their founder, Jeff Willner, is at the forefront of travel technology, having acquired and built several key pieces of software used in the travel industry today.
Although Kensington Tours was only started in 2006, they were named North America’s Leading Tour Operator at the World Travel Awards in 2018 and 2019, even labelled as “The Best Adventure Travel Companies on Earth,” by the editors of National Geographic Adventure Magazine.
Ads
General overview
Kensington Tours usually runs a few main types of ads:
- Destination specific ads — these seem to regularly change but currently Italy, Greece, Iceland and the U.A.E
- Continent specific ads — currently Australia and Africa
Country Destination Ads
General Continent Ads
Click here to see the full article and watch video ads
Key Takeaways
- They have some incredibly beautiful photos of their destinations. A little photo editing could really help these images pop, making them even more eye-catching.
- By highlighting their private guides and tailor-made trips, they’re speaking directly to their audience that’s looking for a trip like that. This also disqualifies anyone looking for a budget, large group tour. The more specific language and phrases you use to call out your ideal audience, the less money you’ll waste on clicks from people that will never buy from you.
- Their landing pages are clear and directly connected to the image/copy from the ad. This will definitely help people move through the sales process and get started on a quote more smoothly.
- The carousel ads are interesting and I’ve had mixed results with these. Definitely worth trying, especially if you’ve got a collection of eye-catching photos to put in them.
Areas for improvement
- Kensington does seem to have proper tracking setup for some ads and not others. This is something I would recommend fixing right away so that sales can properly be attributed to the right ad.
- There’s no clear offer on most of there ads and no reason to take action. Most of them just feel like they’re saying “We’re here if you’re thinking of taking a trip to this destination”. A limited time offer or reason to visit the destination now would definitely increase CTR.
- Like Contiki and Carnival, Kensington Tours should also include more copy above the image. Of the 3 companies, Kensington has written the most but it’s still a little generic. Again, I’d recommend an opening statement to address the ideal customer, more info about the benefits of the trip, include a clear offer, instructions on how to redeem it, testimonials, and what makes cruising Kensington different than other tour companies.
- Kensington Tours also doesn’t seem to do much image testing. They should be using at least 3 more images in each ad set.
- I would test using the awards that they’ve won in their ad images and copy, especially since they are targeting a high end clientele
Ready To Start Your Own Facebook Campaign?
If you’ve tested Facebook ads before with little success, I encourage your company to give them another try. Just know that it’s nearly a full-time job to get the ads setup and optimized for maximum ROI.
Don’t expect much if you’re only going to have a team member working on them a few hours a week.
Hopefully this article has provided some inspiration to get you started.
If you want even more inspiration for your ads, click here to download a PDF of 77 winning ads from top travel companies.
Before you go, drop a comment below and let me know if your travel company is running Facebook ads. Why or why not?
I’d love to hear why so many travel companies are missing out on this huge platform. My experience tells me many companies have tried but had little success. Let me know why you think that is.
