The Breakup Files: 💔 Why Low-cost Airlines Pegasus and flyadeal Switched to Insider

By definition, this market is acutely price-sensitive, and these carriers have fierce competition from carriers like Ryanair, easyJet, Wizz Air, Flydubai and Air Arabia.  Passenger acquisition and retention are key objectives. Marketing communications to passengers in this space must be segmented and targeted based on travel purpose, destination, and seasonal events. Communications are also heavily transactional and trip-related (e.g., confirmations; updates; add-ons) and extremely time-sensitive.  

Communicating effectively in this space requires a comprehensive, real-time view of customer data, and the ability to use that data for timely, relevant messaging across multiple touchpoints, channels, and devices, all integrated to give the customer a seamless digital experience that supports profitable revenue generation and customer retention.

It’s not me — it’s you

Pegasus and flyadeal needed to optimize this process. Pegasus is one of the largest low-cost airlines in Europe, flying 34.5 million passengers to 120 destinations in 2023, and driving estimated revenue of $2.3 billion. flyadeal is Saudi Arabia’s new low fare airline, a sister company of Saudia Airlines.  In 2023, flyadeal flew eight million passengers to 20 destinations, driving estimated revenue of $900 million. 

For Pegasus, the challenge was investing more heavily in online advertising to acquire new customers, while optimizing acquisition costs. They wanted to help customers make quicker and more informed decisions on their mobile devices; thus increasing conversions. 

For flyadeal, the challenge was reducing the cost per transaction for their customers and improving their ad spend returns. They wanted a platform that would help them target users with more accuracy.  flyadeal also wanted to bring back users to complete their flight bookings and to notify them of price fluctuations or new seat availability, and to engage users who had already made a purchase by enticing them with flight add-ons. Each visitor’s homepage would be personalized with content individually tailored to their preferences.

Time to break-up?

Both brands needed what they weren’t getting from their existing martech. Insider’s tools enabled them to drive more precisely targeted, relevant messaging, as well as more informative content for improving the efficiency and speed of purchase transactions

For Pegasus:  Pegasus tapped into Insider’s Predictive Ad Audiences (PAA), a solution that uses machine-learning algorithms and AI to create ready-to-use segments based on predicting the future behavior of visitors. Targeting only visitors most likely to make a purchase allowed Pegasus to create tailored experiences that improved its return on ad spend and boosted conversions. For optimizing mobile purchasing, Insider’s growth consultants and aviation industry experts suggested enabling Social Proof on its website. This would improve Pegasus’ overall revenue from ticket sales by displaying the number of seats left on a given flight, the number of repeated bookings that took place for a flight, and how many visitors had purchased a seat already, to create a sense of urgency and encourage customers to convert. 

For flyadeal:  Insider’s growth team recommended using price-alert web push and ancillary push notifications. The price-alert push would notify users about the possibility of an increase in seat prices and encourage them to book their tickets now. Ancillary web push would upsell related add-on products/packages to users who had booked a flight.  Insider also recommended the use of homepage banners to tailor highly individualized website experiences based on each user’s past behaviors. Using real-time segmentation and AI-backed predictions, Insider reimagined flyadeal’s onsite experience and provided the most relevant content to each user.

Success!

For Pegasus: Insider’s PAA application boosted Pegasus’s Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) by 17%, and Insider’s AI-driven Social Proof solution drove a 93% increase in mobile conversion rate.

Pegasus’ feedback mirrors this success: 

Insider has been an incredible platform for us. Integration into our existing web stack was mind-blowingly fast. Insider’s growth team immediately helped us identify the areas we needed to focus on to improve our margins. Plus, I really appreciate their know-how and expertise in the aviation industry, which proved to be exceptional given the results we got. In just 2 months, we achieved a 17% increase in return on ad spend and a 93% increase in conversion rate. In the low-cost airline sector, this is a significant improvement, especially when talking about improvements without any steep discounts or offers.” 

-Digital Acquisition and Growth Marketing Specialist

With Insider, we were able to extract more value from our acquisition channels, using their growth management platform.  In the few months we’ve worked together, Pegasus has been able to optimize user acquisition costs and ad spend by a great margin, through Insider’s Predictive Ad Audience technology.”

-Head of Digital Product and Growth Marketing

For flyadeal: flyadeal observed an 80% uplift in their ROAS, compared to the generic segments used in ad platforms, and a 28% reduction in the cost per transaction.  flyadeal also showed a 9.28% uplift in conversion rate for their variable group receiving push notifications, compared to the control group that did not receive the push notifications.  Finally, flyadeal reported a conversion rate uplift of 31% from their personalized banner engagements compared to the control group, which did not see these changes on the website.

flyadeal also shared enthusiastic feedback.   

“Insider’s platform provides a very reliable end-to-end growth management strategy with a wide array of tools focused on driving growth and optimizing key metrics. The growth team members at Insider are masters of the panel and helping us tackle any issue we face.  Yet, what fascinates us truly, is Insider’s dedication to helping us drive our objectives as if it were their own — the true mark of a 5-star team!”

-Chief Customer and Commercial Officer

Looking Ahead

As mobile traffic continues to rise, Pegasus is now looking to deliver a best-in-class, mobile-first experience to its customers. It will start using Insider’s Mobile App suite to further improve conversions. In addition, Pegasus also has plans to use a wider range of Insider’s mobile marketing features to re-engage users with personalized ads on both Facebook and Google.

The primary goal at flyadeal has always been about sales, with less emphasis on going after clicks and more emphasis on using data and insights to fuel onsite conversions. flyadeal will continue to use Insider to optimize conversions and boost revenue and growth.  Presently, flyadeal uses the Insider’s full suite of products except for Mobile App Suite and WhatsApp Business API integration. In the near future, flyadeal will look to incorporate these solutions into their diverse marketing mix.

Insider Knows Digital Marketing for Travel

We understand the critical importance of creating relevant, responsive, user-friendly, seamless experiences for customers.  We know how to unify data providing a full customer view, and how  to use this data to boost program productivity, using AI power and other tools for optimizing customer engagement and retention.

Ready for Takeoff? ✈️

By downloading Insider’s e-book, Tailor-Made Trips: How to Build Journeys as Unique as Every Traveler, you can find out more about how Insider supports other travel brands like Singapore Airlines, Scoot, Best Western Garuda Indonesia, and airBaltic through programming across customer touchpoints covering every stage of the travel life cycle. 

Bon Voyage!

Chris Baldwin - VP Marketing, Brand and Communications

Chris is an award-winning marketing leader with more than 12 years experience in the marketing and customer experience space. As VP of Marketing, Brand and Communications, Chris is responsible for Insider's brand strategy, and overseeing the global marketing team. Fun fact: Chris recently attended a clay-making workshop to make his own coffee cup…let's just say that he shouldn't give up the day job just yet.

Read more from Chris Baldwin

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