Case: targeted advertising for international bus transportation
Progress
Project
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Bus transportation between countries, bus transportation for both business and tourist purposes.
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The purpose of advertising
"Lead generation" — obtaining leads using direct correspondence on Instagram and Facebook.
A person who is interested in your advertising offer clicks on the interaction button and gets into a direct chat with your account.
In Instagram it is Direct.
On Facebook, it's Messenger.
Where a person immediately receives a welcome message from your company and a clarifying question. This can be a clarification or an immediate bonus for the started correspondence.
Plus, you can lay out different options for questions and answers that the client can ask, for example:
Customer "What payment and delivery options do you have?"
Auto-reply "There is delivery through: Ukrposhta, Nova poshta. To send, please specify your phone, full name, city, post office number. There are the following payment options, etc."
You can set any auto-responder to receive an instant response (even at late hours)
Budget
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In the first month, $100 was spent on the test.
Then the advertising budget was $270 per month.
Advertising is done in Romania, Moldova and partly in Ukraine.
The average price for starting correspondence on Instagram or Facebook is $0.15
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Settings
More than 6 different audiences and 29 interests were used .
The time frame for launching an advertising company is 48 hours, during which time 4 creatives for 4 companies, a check for compliance with Facebook rules and a full launch of the company were made.
What were the goals set for the carrier's advertising campaign?
The goal of the advertising campaign was to promote international bus transportation and increase the number of online ticket bookings. Main objectives:
attract new passengers through Facebook and Instagram;
increase brand awareness among travelers;
to form a stable flow of applications for flights across Europe;
reduce the cost of the lead and optimize the budget.
How we developed an advertising strategy for a transport company
The campaign was built to reach a wide audience of passengers and create a comfortable path from advertising to booking a ticket.
Preparing advertising infrastructure
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Meta Pixel is connected to track conversions and applications.
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End-to-end analytics are installed to monitor all stages of the funnel.
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Creatives and advertising messages that work
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Banners and videos were created that demonstrate the comfort of buses, affordable prices, and popular destinations (Poland, Germany, Czech Republic).
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The offers used were: "15% discount on the first booking", "Convenient flights to Europe", "Online tickets without queues".
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The visuals are built on a combination of emotions (travel, comfort) and benefits (price, convenience).
Segmentation and targeting settings
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Main target audience: men and women aged 20–55 traveling to Europe.
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Additional segments: migrant workers, students, tourists.
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Look-alike audiences based on the company's customers were used.
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Retargeting has been launched for users who visited the site but did not complete the booking.
Results of the advertising campaign for bus transportation
500+ ticket requests within the first month.
The CTR of the best creatives is 4.5%.
The average cost of a lead is from $1.3.
Increase in the number of followers on social networks by 35%.
High percentage of repeat bookings from new customers.
Which tools showed the best results?
Video reviews of buses and popular routes.
Banners with the call "Book a ticket online."
Retargeting to those who viewed the booking page but did not complete the action.
Recommendations for further development of the campaign
To further increase efficiency, we recommend:
run dynamic ads with current flights and prices;
add passenger reviews in stories and video format;
connect a chatbot in Messenger or Telegram for quick booking.
Conclusions
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The International Bus Services case proved that targeted advertising can ensure a stable flow of passengers, reduce the cost of the application, and increase the visibility of the transport company.
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Thanks to the strategy of the "Necessary People" team, the carrier gained hundreds of new customers, increased online sales, and became more recognizable on the international market.
The basis of the team
Denis
Denis is the voice of our company. He spends hours making sure that our clients feel cared for and enjoy their interactions with the company. If you have any suggestions or ideas, you can write to us.
Christina
Khrystyna is responsible for the product concept, manages the creative team. Her task is to help the customer formulate a message for the target audience and visually package it so that it is correctly perceived.
Eugene
Evgeny is the main creative engine of our team. Logical thinking, analytical mindset, but at the same time can always impress our clients with a unique approach to business.
Daria
Daria's job is to formulate the client's objectives and desires, and then communicate them to the team of specialists. The project manager has to gather his or her will into a fist and finish the task with shocking force.
Nikita
Responsibility, broad horizons, marketing vision and many more qualities that can be said about Nikita. A unique tandem is the quality and speed with which Nikita performs her work.
Karina
A native speaker and expert in foreign languages with over 10 years of experience in writing texts for various tasks. She will study your tone of voice and craft the perfect text for each specific need.
Targeted advertising of international bus transportation
Targeted advertising for international bus transportation allows you to turn chaotic queries like “who’s going to…” tomorrow into a steady stream of bookings. People search for tickets on Google, in chats, on social networks, compare prices with BlaBlaCar, trains, and flights, but they learn about a specific carrier by accident. The project’s goal was to set up advertising so that a person who is actually planning a trip abroad would see in their feed not a general “delivery of passengers,” but a clear offer: route, date, departure time, luggage, border crossing conditions. Facebook and Instagram campaigns focused on the most popular destinations and departure days, as well as on the audience’s pain points: convenient boarding, adequate cost, normal travel time, transparent baggage transportation rules. As a result, targeted advertising for international buses ceased to be just an informational ad and became a clear sales tool.
Specifics of the international bus travel niche and starting conditions
The international bus transportation market is very sensitive to seasonality, prices and routes. Some passengers travel to work, others to visit family, and still others plan a trip or shopping trip. Before the project started, the carrier already had regular flights, a loyal customer base and social media pages where they published schedules, bus photos and announcements of available seats. The main flow of bookings came through recommendations, phone calls and messengers, while targeted advertising for international bus transportation was either not used or was launched sporadically. The reach of posts was limited, and information about flights often simply got lost in the feed. The task was to make the advertisements work as an entry point to booking: a person sees the direction, presses a button, immediately writes to the messenger or goes to the application form.
Targeting challenges for international buses and online passenger behavior
Promoting international buses through targeting has several important challenges. Passengers often search for "for yesterday" or "for tomorrow", compare options by price, departure time, trip duration, and boarding point. If the carrier's advertising looks like a general message without specifics, they will simply scroll through it. Additionally, changes in border crossing rules, documents, luggage, and the ability to take transfers have an impact - all of this needs to be explained in simple language. Targeted advertising for international bus transportation in this case was supposed to simultaneously sell the route and alleviate typical fears: what will happen if the flight is delayed, will they help with luggage, how is boarding, and are there any stops along the way. A separate challenge is to weed out untargeted clicks from people who are only "estimating" and are not planning a trip on specific dates.
Targeted advertising strategy for international bus flights on social networks
The promotion strategy was built around specific destinations and dates. Separate targeted advertising campaigns for international buses were customized for key departure and arrival cities, with adapted creatives for each route. Audiences were collected by interests (earning money abroad, living in Europe, traveling), geolocation (departure cities and regions with high demand) and behavior (visiting ticket sites, searching for routes). Some campaigns were conducted directly in Messenger or Viber/WhatsApp, where the manager specified the date, number of seats and luggage; others were conducted on short landing pages with a booking form. An important part was remarketing ads, which reminded those who were already interested in the route but did not complete the booking the first time about upcoming flights.
Creatives, offers and benefit language in international bus advertising
The creatives were focused on the real situations of passengers. Instead of abstract photos of roads, they showed comfortable seats, a neat interior, luggage compartments, stops, and passenger boarding. The texts of targeted advertising for international bus transportation emphasized clear benefits: convenient departure times, a fixed price without “surprises,” assistance with documents, and normal travel conditions. Individual ads explained what was included in the ticket price, how to reserve a seat without prepayment, and when you need to pay for the trip. They tested their accents for different audiences: for those traveling to work, the stability of routes; for travelers, comfort and suitcases; for families, the ability to travel together and take more luggage. This approach made the advertising close to people’s real needs, and not just an announcement of “there are free seats.”
Results of targeting international transportation and further development steps
After several waves of optimization, targeted advertising for international bus transportation achieved a stable bid price and the predicted number of bookings from social networks. The share of calls from people who had already decided on the destination and dates and were ready to buy a ticket in the near future increased. Remarketing campaigns helped to “pick up” those who hesitated and remind them about flights a few days before departure. Analytics showed which routes, days of the week and creative formats give the best payback, so the budget was redistributed in favor of the most effective destinations. The next step was to test new markets, launch separate campaigns for regular passengers, loyalty programs and expand travel content. Thanks to this, international bus advertising turned into a long-term growth tool, rather than a one-time attempt to fill a single flight.