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What is Airline Marketing?

Airplanes at airport, Airline Advertising Agency — Image Source: Unsplash Ilya Cher

The average Airline business in the United States makes $206.3 billion per year in revenue. Airline marketing is the process of promoting the business to increase that number, or removing obstacles that are causing the ROI to be low. This can include paid social ads, paid search ads, local ads, radio ads, TV ads or traditional ads.

Most air travel companies struggle with a variety of factors such as an expensive workforce, finding adequate experts in each area, producing new creative content fast enough, and overseeing all aspects efficiently of their digital marketing. Let our team of airline digital marketing and advertising experts manage the groundwork it takes to grow your air travel company. If you are looking to increase sales for your airline business, please contact AdvertiseMint.

“Every airline business pays for advertising. You either pay for advertising or you pay in lost revenue to your competitors.” – Brian Meert, CEO, ADVERTISEMINT

Popular ways to increase revenue for Air Travel companies

The airline industry, characterized by its cyclical nature, is profoundly influenced by external factors like geopolitical events, economic conditions, and technological advancements. While these elements play a role in the industry’s growth, airlines have also identified several internal levers to pull in their quest for enhanced profitability.

Best Airline Advertising Agency. — Image Source: Unsplash David Preston

Here are five key factors that can potentially increase revenue for airlines:

Dynamic Pricing and Revenue Management: With the help of sophisticated algorithms and real-time data analysis, airlines can adjust ticket prices based on demand, competition, seasonality, and booking timelines. For instance, prices can surge during peak travel times or when there’s increased demand for a particular route. By efficiently managing pricing strategies, airlines can optimize seat occupancy and boost revenue.
Ancillary Revenue Streams: Over the past decade, airlines have expanded their revenue horizons beyond just ticket sales. Charging for baggage, priority boarding, seat selection, in-flight meals, Wi-Fi, and offering branded credit cards or loyalty programs have become substantial income sources. For some low-cost carriers, ancillary revenue can account for over 40% of their total income.
Fleet Modernization and Fuel Efficiency: A more modern fleet can offer airlines dual benefits: operational efficiency and enhanced passenger experience. Newer aircraft tend to be more fuel-efficient, reducing costs. Simultaneously, these planes often come with improved amenities, enabling airlines to potentially charge more for tickets or attract a higher number of passengers.
Strategic Alliances and Partnerships: Partnering with other air travel companies can provide carriers with access to new markets without incurring the costs and risks of starting new routes. These partnerships, often in the form of code-sharing agreements or membership in larger airline alliances, can boost passenger numbers and revenue. Moreover, airlines can collaborate with hotels, car rental companies, or travel agencies to offer package deals, earning commissions in the process.
Digital Transformation and Personalization: In today’s digital age, enhancing the passenger experience starts long before they board the plane. Investing in user-friendly booking platforms, mobile apps, and personalized marketing can lead to higher conversion rates. By utilizing customer data, airlines can offer tailored promotions, upsell additional services, or even make personalized route suggestions, all of which can enhance revenue.

Airline Industry Facts

Average Revenue for Airline Companies: $206.3 billion

Average Profit Margin for Airlines: 2-3%

Average Employees for Air Travel Companies: 249 per business

Average ROI for Airline business: 3-5%

Average Growth Rate for the Airline Industry: 4.2%

Total number of Airline companies: over 5,000

Average CPC on Google for the Airline Industry: $22.00

Airlines Paid Social Ads

Paid social is a powerful way to help reach consumers interested in airline products or services. Paid social provides the ability to reach a wide range of people and then target your ads based on key attributes like age, gender, location, interest, behaviors or using custom audiences and lookalike audiences. Paid social ads are the leading advertising option to reach consumers on mobile devices. Paid social is also typically less expensive than other forms of advertising making it a powerful combination, however the pricing for paid social can increase as you get more targeted or if your ads appear to not be relevant by the ad platform algorithm.

Airport with a sunset in a background. Airline Advertising Agency — Image Source: Mika Baumeister

The most popular paid social ad platforms are:

Air Travel Paid Search Ads

Aerial picture of Airport with airplanes. Airline Advertising Agency — Image Source: Douglas Bagg

Paid search is the most efficient way to reach consumers who are actively searching for airline products or services. Consumers often search the internet for questions pertaining to where they are in the buying cycle. A general search would indicate they are just beginning to research companies. A specific search would indicate that the consumer is already knowledgeable and close to making a selection or purchase. Aerospace advertisers can bid specifically on the keywords that are most valuable for their business, which help them appear above their competitors for the most profitable keywords. Paid search ads are generally used for lead generation, local awareness or ecommerce. Paid search ads can also be run on YouTube, where your business can advertise a specific video to appear first when consumers are searching on specific keywords or for competitors. The most popular airline-paid search ads are:

Airlines Local Ads

Local ads are extremely important for air travel companies and often overlooked because of the focus on larger ad platforms. Local ads allow you to reach customers that are physically located near your business and offer them a reason to visit your business instead of your competitors. Local digital ads typically include promotions, deals or coupons and often align with your current business reviews on that platform. This means having great customer service along with reputation management to help grow your five star reviews. Other physical ads like billboards, digital billboards, bus and metro ads allow you to ensure you are reaching customers located in your targeted area. Many times, the cost to reach a new local customer is small in comparison to the lifetime value that customer will bring to your business. The most popular local ads for airline companies are:

Air Travel Facebook Ads
Air Travel Google Local Ads
Air Travel Yelp Ads
Air Travel Nextdoor Ads
Air Travel Billboard Advertising
Air Travel Metro Ads
Air Travel Bus Ads

Aerospace Radio Ads

Passegers at airport, airline advertising agency — Image Source: Unsplash Jue Huang

Radio ads allow aerospace companies to reach a captive audience often listening while commuting in the car, at the gym or while working. Radio ads allow you to talk directly to your customer and present . Radio ads are fixed in length and cannot be skipped, ensuring that your audience will hear your message. Due to the passive nature of radio listeners, it’s essential to have optimized audio creatives and a large enough ad budget to ensure that the average listener is reached at the recommended frequency. It’s recommended when possible to use the radio personality to read your ads as they have built Some of the most popular airline radio advertising options are:

Aerospace Local iHeartRadio Ads
Aerospace Spotify Ads
Aerospace Pandora Ads
Aerospace Podcast Ads
Aerospace National Radio Advertising
Aerospace Talk Radio Advertising

Airline Direct Mail

Direct Mail can be a powerful tool for Airline companies to reach new and existing customers. With the increase of online advertising, direct mail can often be a hidden gem regarding reaching people inside their inbox with targeted messages. Direct mail can be sent in mass with new automation tools and can also be personalized prior to sending. The cost of the direct mail often depends on the size of the mail (postcard vs full size letter envelope) and while postage can be purchased at bulk rates, is still a rising cost to be considered. If you are interested in learning more about how your company can send out Direct Mail, please contact AdvertiseMint and our team would be more than happy to walk you through the options.

Airline TV Ads

Drone shot of an airport, Airline Advertising Agency. — Image Source: Unsplash Tomas Williams

There are several things that air travel companies should be aware of when running TV ads. TV advertising for airlines can be targeted to users on a local level which are perfect for a company with just one location, or can be shown on a DMA, state or national level for companies that have multiple locations. The price for TV ads will depend on the targeting of the ad, which often include channel, programming, time of day and frequency you wish to display the ad. If you have exact requirements, expect to pay more. If you are flexible on when and to who your ad is shown, the price is often much lower. TV ads often fall in 30 or 60 second video formats, so you’ll need to ensure all video requirements are met prior to submitting the ad to run. Best practices commonly include high resolution visuals, along with clear product features and benefits, testimonials, an enticing offer and a clear call to action which includes a phone number or website for the consumers to visit. There are also options for paid programming, which includes 30 minute or 60 minute segments that are played without interruption, typically between 11pm and 5am. If you are interested in TV advertising for your air travel company, please contact AdvertiseMint for more details and pricing.

How important are reputation management and online reviews for Airline companies?

Every airline company knows that online reviews are essential for the growth of sales. In a digital world, online reviews on Google local, Yelp and many rating websites are used by your customers to validate your business and the products or services you provide. Most of the review sites will penalize you if you try to actively solicit reviews for your business, however, there are a variety of strategies that can be used to help ensure your online reputation is safe from negative reviews. In addition, you’ll need a plan to praise five star reviews while professionally addressing lower reviews, which are often read by potential customers. If you are looking to improve your total online reviews, average rating and help lower negative articles on your company from the organic search engine rankings, please reach out to AdvertiseMint to talk more.

Frequently asked questions about Airline advertising and digital marketing

How much should an Airline business spend on marketing and advertising each year?

An average airline business should be spending between $15.472 bn and $30.945 bn a year on marketing and advertising expenses, or roughly 7.5% – 15% of annual gross revenue. The total amount may be higher if you are in a highly competitive industry, want accelerated growth or your business generates high amounts of revenue during the holiday shopping season.

Why Air travel companies typically outsource their marketing and advertising?

Airline business owners are often heavily involved with the day-to-day operations of their business. Some of the most common challenges for a air travel business include:

Economic and Geopolitical Uncertainties: Airlines, being part of the global economic framework, are highly susceptible to economic downturns. When economies falter, discretionary income drops, leading to fewer people traveling. Geopolitical events, such as political unrest, wars, and terrorism, can also deter travel to specific regions or countries, causing significant drops in passenger numbers for airlines serving those areas.
Fluctuating Fuel Prices: Fuel remains one of the largest operating expenses for airlines. The volatile nature of oil prices, influenced by global geopolitical events, supply-demand dynamics, and OPEC decisions, means that airlines have to constantly adjust and hedge their operations based on unpredictable fuel costs.
Regulatory and Environmental Concerns: Airlines operate in a heavily regulated environment with standards set by international, national, and local authorities. Regulations can cover everything from passenger rights to safety standards. Additionally, there’s growing concern about the environmental impact of air travel, with many advocating for stricter emissions standards and the industry facing increasing pressure to adopt more sustainable practices.
Intense Competition and Price Wars: The airline industry is fiercely competitive. With the rise of low-cost carriers and the availability of transparent pricing online, price wars have become commonplace. This environment can lead to decreased profit margins. Moreover, customer loyalty can be fickle, with many passengers choosing flights based on price rather than airline brand.
Operational Complexities and External Shocks: Running an airline involves intricate operations, from managing a vast fleet of aircraft to coordinating schedules globally. Any disruption—be it due to technical issues, labor strikes, natural disasters, or pandemics like COVID-19—can lead to cascading delays, cancellations, and significant financial losses. The recent pandemic has been an unprecedented shock, grounding fleets worldwide and bringing global travel to a near standstill for an extended period.

Because airline businesses are so focused on these challenges, it often becomes very efficient to bring in outside experts to help manage and ensure specific tasks are done correctly. Marketing and advertising are two of the most commonly outsourced areas business use because they are so critical to the success of the business.

What are the most popular Airline advertising objectives?

Airline Lead Generation

Many airline companies are focused on generating leads. This can include building an internal email list for marketing purposes or generating high value leads that can be quickly contacted to grow revenue. Lead generation typically involves creating a specific incentive, offer or informational guide, then driving prospects to a landing page to collect their information. You can also collect the prospects information on a lead form hosted by the ad platform. Both options can be connected with your CRM or email marketing system so that automatic calls, emails and sms messages are sent directly to your new prospect. If you are looking to help set up lead generation for your airline office, please contact the team at AdvertiseMint to discuss your options.

Increasing Air Travel Revenues

The most popular of all advertising objectives for airline companies is sales. Increasing revenue is essential for every aerospace company to succeed. Many of the ad platforms have new tools that allow you to pass through values for each customer, which means they associate more weight towards the customers spending the most. This allows them to find more customers like your top spenders. If you are looking to help grow your airline, please contact the team at AdvertiseMint to discuss your options.

Airline App Installs

Perfect for any air travel business that has a mobile app. The mobile app objective allows you to run ads either for new app installs or for app events, which are specific events set up inside of your app such as account created, payment method added, or transaction complete. It can also be used to monitor usage inside the app or if users are reaching a certain area. This allows you to display highly targeted ads that are relevant towards each user who sees your ads. The most common types of apps are games, utilities or informational mobile apps. If you are looking to help grow sales or usage from your airline mobile app, please contact the team at AdvertiseMint to discuss your options.

Airlines Local Traffic

Many airline companies have locations they are looking to drive local foot traffic to. This can be for a special event, promotion, grand opening, or just daily usage. Local ads can be targeted down to a single zip code or a 1 mile radius around a spot on a map. This ensures you can reach the individuals that are located closely to your airline location and get your ads in front of them. If you are looking to increase foot traffic for your airline location, please contact the team at AdvertiseMint to discuss your options.

Airlines Brand Awareness

As your airline company grows, it will become essential that you stay ahead of your competition. This is generally done by Brand Awareness campaigns which focus on reaching a wide number of targeted users consistently over a long period of time. This ensures that your air travel company stays at the top of mind for your consumers and they continue to purchase your products and services. If you are looking for ways to increase your Brand Awareness, please contact the team at AdvertiseMint to discuss your options.

Should Air travel companies utilize content marketing to boost their advertising efforts?

The airline industry is a competitive one, and airlines are always looking for ways to reach new customers and boost their advertising efforts. Content marketing can be a great way to do this, as it allows airlines to create and share valuable content that their target audience will find interesting and engaging.

There are many different ways that airline companies can utilize content marketing. Here are a few ideas:

Blog posts: Airline companies can create blog posts about a variety of topics related to travel, such as destination guides, tips for packing light, or stories about their flight crews. These blog posts can be a great way to educate and inform potential customers, and they can also help to build brand awareness.
Infographics: Infographics are a great way to present complex information in a visually appealing way. Airline companies can create infographics about their destinations, their aircraft, or their safety procedures. Infographics can be shared on social media, in email newsletters, or on the airline’s website.
Videos: Videos are a great way to tell stories and connect with potential customers on an emotional level. Airline companies can create videos about their destinations, their flight crews, or the history of the airline. Videos can be shared on social media, on the airline’s website, or on streaming platforms.
Podcasts: Podcasts are a great way to reach a captive audience. Airline companies can create podcasts about travel tips, interviews with flight crews, or stories about the airline industry. Podcasts can be shared on social media, on the airline’s website, or on podcasting platforms.
Social media: Social media is a great way to connect with potential customers and build relationships. Airline companies can share content on social media, such as blog posts, infographics, videos, and photos. They can also run social media contests and giveaways to engage with their audience.

How can Airlines integrate AI and other advanced technologies into their marketing strategies?

The world has changed for Airlines] looking to increase their marketing and advertising efforts using AI. A variety of new tools now enable automation and AI to be used in areas like sales, graphic design, video production, content creation, voiceovers, spokesperson, video creation, blog writing and more.

What do Airline companies need to know about search engine optimization (SEO)?

The current average cost per click (CPC) on Google ads for the term Airline” is $2.31 and is expected to increase over time. SEO generates you these same clicks from targeted keywords for free. There is tremendous value from SEO as you are able to generate a high volume of traffic for your key business segments, however SEO is a long term investment. Our recommendation is that airline companies should be willing to plan for 6-12 months of SEO services before expecting to see an increase in results from these efforts. Please know that with SEO, the work is foundational, which means each task builds on top of each other. Each action ads more credibility to your website in the eyes of Google and other search engines. AdvertiseMint only believes in high quality SEO, or long game efforts, when working on building SEO. Most SEO tricks or gimmicks often work for a bit, but later end up hurting your air travel company when updates are made to the search engines. The only way to move forward regarding SEO is by doing a lot of the right things, and doing them faster than your competitors. Airlines SEO involves three main areas. The first is onsite optimization, which means the pages of your website contain content and are optimized for the search engines. The second step is to build more topical authority around your business to help Google understand that you are an expert in the aerospace area. This is done by writing consistent blogs between 500-2000 words on core topics relating to your business. The final area is off site linking, which means other websites on the internet are linking back to your site and using specific anchor text. This can be achieved by public relations, outreach and building relationships with other websites. When these three are done together, the result is that your airline SEO will improve and your organic ranking will start to increase, thus sending more traffic to your website. If you are looking to improve your SEO, please contact AdvertiseMint.

Should airline companies be doing Email Marketing?

Yes. Every airline should have email marketing and SMS marketing for their company. Email marketing has continually been proven to be one of the most profitable marketing channels for air travel companies. Email marketing gives you the ability to reach your prospects and customers with specific messaging based on where they are located in your customer journey. These “flows” can be set up so that every person experiences the same informational process regardless of when they join. This ensures your company is communicating 24/7 with the people who are most interested in your airline services and products. SMS messaging is also becoming a highly profitable way to break through all the noise and reach your most valuable prospects via text message. There are many rules regarding SMS marketing and how to add and remove people from your air travel SMS marketing. If you are interested in learning more about how to optimize your Email marketing and SMS marketing for your air travel company, AdvertiseMint is here and ready to help.

Are there any advertising restrictions for airline businesses?

Yes, there are a number of advertising restrictions for airline businesses. These restrictions vary depending on the country or region, but some common restrictions include:

Prohibiting misleading or deceptive advertising: Airlines cannot make false or misleading claims about their services, such as claiming that they offer the cheapest flights or the best customer service.
Requiring price advertising: Airlines must disclose the full price of their tickets, including all taxes and fees.
Prohibiting bait-and-switch advertising: Airlines cannot advertise a low price for a ticket and then charge a higher price at the time of purchase.
Requiring refunds: Airlines must offer refunds for canceled or changed tickets for certain reasons.
Prohibiting unfair or discriminatory pricing: Airlines cannot charge different prices for the same service based on factors such as race, religion, or national origin.

Where can I find examples of other air travel ads?

There are several places where you can find examples of air travel competitor ads online. Here are the instructions for how to view competitor ads running on Facebook, Google and TikTok ad platforms.

View Airline Competitor Facebook Ads

Go to Facebook Ad Library
Select the country where the ad appeared.
Select ad category (All, Politics, Housing, Employment, Credit).
Search by keyword or advertiser.
Review Facebook ads.

View Air Travel Competitor Google Ads

Go to Google Ads Keyword Planner
Sign into Google Ads.
Click ‘Tools and settings’ in the top nav.
Click ‘Keyword Planner’ under the ‘Planning’ heading.
Click ‘Discover new keywords’
Type a relevant keyword into the box.
Click ‘Get Results’
Review Top of page bid and Google ads.

View Airline Competitor TikTok Ads

Go go TikTok Ad Library
Select ad target country
Select ad type.
Select ad published date.
Enter in the desired keyword or advertiser.
Hit search.
Review TikTok ads.

How do Airline companies measure the success of their marketing and advertising?

For most companies, revenue is the KPI (key performance indicator) we monitor when determining if the marketing and advertising efforts are successful. The revenue can be used to determine the ROI or ROAS for your campaigns over a set period of time. ROI (Return on Investment) is calculated by subtracting the initial cost of the investment from the final value, then dividing this new number by the cost of the investment, and finally, multiplying it by 100. ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is determined by dividing the total revenue by total ad spend for a specific period of time.

In addition to revenue, other companies may use metrics such as CPL (Cost Per Lead), CPA (Cost per Acquisition) or CPI (Cost per Installs) for mobile apps. Monitoring these costs over time can help understand factors that are increasing or decreasing these numbers. They can be affected by a variety of factors such as landing page optimization, time of the year and competitors.

For companies interested in branding and spending over $100,000 on advertising, many of the digital ad platforms offer a tool called the brand lift study. This study is used to measure the impact on the perception of your brand when running ads. A brand lift study takes a specific audience and splits it into two groups. The first group is shown your ads over a specific period of time, the second group sees none of your ads. At the end of the study, users who were in both groups are shown a survey by the ad platform. The difference between the first group and the second group is called the brand lift, or the increase of consumer awareness of your brand due to running advertising.

Who is the best Airline advertising agency?

Advertisemint is the best airline marketing agency. Our team of airline advertising experts have proven experience in the air travel industry. We bring a full-service team of expert account managers, copywriters, graphic designers, video editors and media buyers who are all ready to help you implement your marketing strategy and grow your airline business.