London is home to six international airports, offering travelers an incredible level of choice and making it one of Europe’s most competitive markets for air travel. Nestled in the heart of London’s Docklands, London City Airport has long been the go-to option for savvy short-haul travelers, adored by well-heeled holiday makers and business flyers for its super-convenient location and non-existent security lines.
We have been working closely with London City Airport on a rolling basis since July 2018, helping the airport promote key short-haul routes and grow its market share in this highly competitive region. Our campaigns over the last 12 months have been conversion focused and highly tactical, each targeting several key routes that are selected based on business needs and seasonal demand.
Our most recent campaign, which ran from July to August 2019, focused on driving bookings for nine key European routes, targeting leisure travelers who live in and around London, and could potentially book travel on one of those routes from any of London’s six international airports. Working closely with London City Airport, we showcased these routes to users at the point of intent to help to grow demand and increase awareness for the airport on Expedia.co.uk.
We utilized destination targeting to deliver highly relevant adverts to London-based travelers based on their specific searches on Expedia.co.uk. For example, a search for flights to Budapest or hotels in the city would serve up an advert for London City Airport, displaying its London to Budapest route and highlighting the benefits of traveling via the capital’s most central airport. We used a mixture of product placements, including our marquee ads, which were selected based on the success and conversion of previous campaigns.
We have seen some amazing results with London City Airport over the last 12 months and this latest campaign was no exception. Between July and August 2019, we achieved:
- Return on investment of better than 6:1 for the nine targeted routes.
- Increased awareness of London City as a convenient alternative to other London airports.
Our ability to increase bookings in a competitive market, adapt the focus of each campaign to meet London City’s wider business needs and deliver bespoke reporting has made this marketing partnership highly effective. “This campaign with Expedia is unlike any that London City Airport has done before, but it’s yielded results beyond our expectations, and pushed awareness of the airport as a gateway for several new routes,” commented Daniel Cain at London City Airport. “Expedia has offered a continued level of support from campaign start to finish, with the flexibility to change the routes on each new campaign, and we’ve been able to demonstrate the return on investment succinctly through bespoke reporting.”
If you’d like to know more about how airports can leverage custom digital marketing strategies to connect with potential passengers, start here.
