Jazeera Airlines: Targeting Key Audiences via Programmatic Ads in the CIS

Background

The outbound tourism market in CIS countries has fully recovered from the long period of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2023. The figures speak for themselves.

In Kazakhstan, it accounted for about 85% of the total volume of the travel market. Turkey, Egypt, South Korea, UAE, Thailand (Czech Republic, Germany) were the most popular destinations among Kazakhstani travelers.

In the first ten months of 2022, 558,600 citizens of the Republic of Uzbekistan took a vacation abroad. The audience's top picks were Turkey (202.1 thousand people), the UAE (87.9 thousand people), Saudi Arabia (49 thousand people), and Egypt (29.5 thousand people).

Kyrgyzstan is already a popular tourist destination, but even so, in 2023 its citizens showed an interest in outbound travel, with Turkey and the UAE being their main choices. Furthermore, the list of countries where Kyrgyz people can travel without a visa grows yearly, encouraging more people to fly abroad.

We successfully launched a programmatic campaign for Jazeera Airlines, which flew directly from CIS countries to international destinations in 2023.

Goal

The client's main objective was to attract as many travelers as possible from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan interested in traveling to Turkey, the UAE, Egypt, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, and Saudi Arabia.

RMAA has been operating successfully in the CIS market for over 10 years. Our experience has allowed us to define the steps needed to achieve our goal. We conducted an in-depth analysis of the audience and the market to identify the most effective tools. Launching media advertising turned out to be the best option. But which one is best? Media consumption in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan is, of course, different. One similarity unites them: the audience's interest in digital is strong. To maximize coverage, we used programmatic, which, as in Russia, requires a subtle approach to achieve the end goal.

Solutions

We began the campaign by selecting programmatic sites. This is not as simple as it may appear. Different platforms have pitfalls. Some are designed for narrowly specialized purposes, such as pharmaceutical companies. We must also consider a regional factor. It is worth noting that while programmatic technologies are developing rapidly in Kazakhstan, it is far from certain that these same technologies will be available in Kyrgyzstan. We had to find the best solution for all the countries the client specified.

That is why we focused on programmatic solutions that have already proven themselves in the Russian market. They are more likely to be able to broadcast the campaign in many CIS regions.

Let us give you a brief overview of the programmatic market. The growing interest in programmatic platforms is not just about convenience. In some cases, changes in search engines and the Internet environment are a factor. For example, Google wanted to stop using third-party cookies. This prompted other companies to use more of their own user data and look for new ways to understand who was visiting their sites. This, in turn, led to the emergence of new programmatic services.

The price of purchasing such advertising is also a major factor. The unfortunate reality is that the current trend favors cheaper, low-quality sources. The so-called fraud is a significant factor in the appearance of fake traffic on websites. The number of such "fakes" grew by 35% last year. Brands must track and identify which visitors are ‘real’ and which are ‘fake’ to avoid losing money and improve advertising. Some independent platforms are already implementing anti-fraud technologies and working on integrating improved pre-bid solutions that will determine the value of inventory and whether it's worth paying for before the auction even begins.

The entire programmatic market can be divided into three main categories: platforms owned by large media and advertising holdings, mobile data operators (such as Yandex, VK, and MTS), and independent services (such as DMP and DSP models). The latter is the new trend. They are more flexible, meaning we can customize advertising for specific topics and sites (for example, to show ads only on certain thematic pages). Larger platforms simply don't offer these options because they're more monotonous.

For Jazeera Airlines, we chose independent services - PIM Media and MediaSniper - because they offered the best options for buying media advertising in the CIS for the regions we needed.

Audience Targeting

We have narrowed the countries to cities where Jazeera Airlines has launched new international flights to ensure the most accurate audience targeting.

• Kazakhstan - Almaty and Turkestan.
• Uzbekistan - Tashkent, Samarkand, and Namangan.
• Kyrgyzstan - Bishkek and Osh.

To hit the target even more accurately, we specified the audience by age and gender: men and women, aged 20+.

Furthermore, we divided audience targeting into two strategies, depending on the capabilities of the programmatic service.

For MediaSniper, we precisely specified user interests. We aimed to tailor the campaign to reach those ready to buy airline tickets in the near future. The ads must be seen by users interested in buying and booking airline tickets, traveling, booking hotels/hostels/apartments, visa processing, comparing airfares, comfort class/business class flights, private flights, and visiting thematic travel forums and reading travel reviews.

For PIM Media, we chose a different strategy: targeting high-income users. They weren't interested in buying airline tickets right away. However, for these people, traveling abroad is a fundamental part of their lives. Furthermore, this approach allowed us to extend the reach of the campaign.

Ad formats and tools

When working with different services, you must squeeze the most effective tools out of them. Based on this, we made the decision to vary the choice of formats and features when launching programmatic for the client, as well as the audience segmentation.

MediaSniper used an RTB campaign with additional contextual targeting tools, retargeting, and look-alike features to increase reach and save advertising budget. The main campaign formats were media banners of various parameters and text-graphic banners automatically adapted to websites (note: native banner).

We added OVL to the PIM Media campaign. Video is always more effective. Furthermore, OLV allowed us to reach a new audience by broadcasting ads in movie theaters.

Results

The programmatic campaign for Jazeera Airlines was launched during peak periods of international travel demand in May and August-September 2023. During this time, we achieved significant results, managing to reduce the benchmark by 20% on both platforms compared to the average CPM market indicator.

On PIM Media, our strategy enabled us to deliver over 2.9 million impressions, ensuring precise audience coverage. The number of clicks exceeded our projections, resulting in a steady CTR of 0.15%. This demonstrates that the target audience remained highly engaged with the promotion throughout the campaign.

The campaign on the MediaSniper surpassed all expectations. We maintained an impressive reach of 6 million impressions. CTRs were especially strong in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, reaching 154% and 113% of the planned values, respectively. This highlights the high level of interest from the audience. The total number of clicks reached 6,135, surpassing our initial goals by 128%.

Our well-constructed strategy and accurate campaign planning allowed us to increase brand awareness and engagement of the target audience significantly. At the same time, we maintained budgetary limits and optimized advertising costs.