Case study on setting up targeted advertising for a travel agency
Work progress
Project
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Sale of tours, premium tours, hotel reservations, bus tours, hot tours, group filling in Telegram.
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The purpose of advertising
"Lead generation" — obtaining leads by filling out a return form on Instagram and Facebook.
What the Necessary People team has done
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First name, Last name, Phone number, Email, and so on.
Provide multiple choice answers, for example, choose one country out of 10 (Egypt, Turkey, Zanzibar, Maldives...).
Extensive answer (the client fills in the answer himself).
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The result of the work of the Necessary People team
In the first month, $60 was spent on the test.
Further, the lead generation budget was $350 per month. Advertising is done both in standard countries and in the premium segment.
The average price of a completed client application (contacts, country, budget from and to, number of people) is $2.01
To Turkey and Egypt $0.50
Settings
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More than 8 different audiences and interests were used. The time frame for launching an advertising company is 72 hours, during which time 4 creatives for 4 countries and settings for 4 companies, a check for compliance with Facebook rules and a full launch of the company were made.
What were the objectives of the travel agency's advertising campaign?
Our task was to help the travel agency increase the number of tour applications and increase brand awareness among travelers. Main goals:
attracting new customers through Facebook and Instagram;
formation of a stable flow of applications in high and low seasons;
advertising special offers and last minute deals;
strengthening the brand's position in the competitive travel market.
How we organized an advertising strategy for the tourism business
For this case, we created a comprehensive promotion system focused on a target audience that is actively looking for travel.
Technical training and analytics
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Meta Pixel is connected for tracking applications.
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End-to-end analytics are set up to measure the effectiveness of each campaign.
Creatives that make you want to travel
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Banners and videos with bright visuals of resorts and cities have been developed.
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Main offers: "Hot tours with discounts up to -30%", "All-inclusive vacation", "Travel with children and family tours".
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The visuals are focused on emotions — sea, sun, comfort, unforgettable impressions.
Audiences and segmentation for precise targeting
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Main target audience: men and women aged 25–50 who are interested in traveling.
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Additional segments: families with children, youth, business travelers.
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Look-alike audiences based on the agency's clients were used.
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Retargeting has been launched for those who viewed tours but did not submit an application.
Advertising campaign results for a travel agency
350+ tour requests within the first month.
The CTR of the best creatives is 4.4%.
The average cost of a lead is from $1.7.
Increase in the number of followers on social networks by 40%.
Stable flow of customers in the off-season.
What worked best in promoting tours
Video reviews of popular destinations with a call to action.
Banners with an emphasis on promotional tours and hot deals.
Retargeting with reminders about viewed tours.
Tips for further growth of a travel agency
To further increase efficiency, we recommend:
run dynamic ads with relevant tours;
add customer reviews in video or story format;
test advertising in TikTok Ads for a younger audience;
connect a chatbot in Messenger or Telegram for instant booking.
Conclusions
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The Travel Agency case showed that targeted advertising can be a key tool for consistently attracting customers in the tourism industry.
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Thanks to the work of the "Necessary People" team, the travel agency received hundreds of applications, increased its audience, and significantly improved conversions even in competitive market conditions.
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 for a travel agency
Targeted advertising by a travel agency turns random likes on a photo of the sea into real tour bookings. People dream of vacations, save locations, browse resort pages, but when choosing a tour operator, they often get lost among dozens of offers. It is precisely targeted advertising by a travel agency that allows you to show a specific tour to those who are already interested in flights, hotels, all-inclusives, and excursions. In the case study, the work was built around a clear funnel: from the first touch through attractive creative to an application in Direct or on the website. The emphasis is on popular destinations, seasonal offers, and clear benefits: transparent prices, clear conditions, and support during the trip. Thanks to this, targeted advertising by a travel agency ceases to be just a pretty picture in the feed and turns into a stable channel that brings requests from people ready to book a vacation in the near future.
Tourism niche and initial conditions for launching targeted advertising
The travel market is oversaturated with promotions, hot tours, and promises of "the best vacation at a great price." The travel agency already had a base of regular customers, an active profile on social networks, regular posts with tour selections and traveler reviews. However, most bookings depended on recommendations and seasonal surges in demand. Organic reach did not allow for a stable acquisition of a new audience, and previous attempts to launch advertising were chaotic and not tied to specific goals. The travel agency's targeted advertising received a clear task: to bring in applications from people who are really looking for a vacation, and not just dreaming of the sea. It was important to divide the audience by destination, budget, travel format, and build a system where each advertising budget is converted into a measurable number of calls, not just into beautiful statistics of views.
Targeting challenges for travel agencies and online bookings
Promoting tours through targeting has several special challenges. People can look at offers for months, save options, but postpone decisions until the last moment. Advertising often competes not only with other travel agencies, but also with marketplaces, ticket and hotel aggregators. If a travel agency's targeted advertising says only "discount" and "hot tour", the audience quickly gets tired, and the cost of the application increases. It is necessary to take into account seasonality, different budgets, the presence of children, the format of the vacation - beach, excursions, city tours, shopping. A separate challenge is distrust of little-known brands, fear of hidden payments, changes in conditions and bureaucratic nuances. That is why the targeting strategy was built not only on creatives with the sea, but also on transparent communication, reviews, guarantees and clear steps from "liked" to "booked".
Travel agency targeted advertising strategy on social media
In the promotion strategy, the campaigns were divided by goals and directions. Separate ad groups worked on a cold audience, introducing the brand and showing the most attractive tours of the season. Other targeted advertising campaigns of the travel agency focused on a warm audience: people who had already visited the site, viewed selections, wrote in Direct, and interacted with the content. Separate creatives and landing pages were created for popular destinations: family vacations, tours for two, city breaks, sightseeing trips. Geotargeting was set to regions where it is convenient for customers to fly from specific airports. The campaigns were optimized for messages in Direct, filling out forms, and transitions to WhatsApp or Telegram to ensure quick contact between the manager and a potential tourist.
Creatives, offers and trust in targeted tourism advertising
A strong factor was creatives that combined the emotion of travel and the specifics of the offer. Abstract photos of the beach were replaced with real hotel shots, customer reviews, and short videos from the tour. In the texts, the travel agency's targeted advertising emphasized transparent conditions: what is included in the price, which city the flight departs from, what dates, and how support works during the trip. Additional triggers were secure payment, support with documents, and assistance in case of flight transfers. Offers were tested separately: early booking, promotional seats, and special offers for families and small companies. This approach allowed us not to dump the price, but to build trust and show the real benefits of the service. The travel agency's targeted advertising began to be perceived as a useful tip, rather than an intrusive banner image.
Targeting results and travel agency scaling opportunities
After several waves of optimization, the travel agency's targeted advertising achieved stable performance in terms of application cost and number of bookings. The share of calls from people who had already decided on a budget and dates and were looking for a reliable partner to organize a trip increased. Remarketing campaigns effectively returned those who viewed tours but hesitated to make a decision. Analytics made it possible to identify the strongest destinations, creative formats, and audiences, redistribute the budget in their favor, and abandon ineffective hypotheses. Social networks turned into a full-fledged sales channel, not just a place for travel photos. The next steps were to scale successful connections, launch separate campaigns for new destinations, and test customer video stories to further strengthen trust in the travel agency.