Singapore Airlines sales surge following AI marketing campaign

Singapore Airlines claims to have seen a surge in bookings as a result of an artificial intelligence-led marketing campaign.

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Singapore Airlines claims to have seen a surge in bookings as a result of an artificial intelligence-led marketing campaign.

The campaign, run by marketing technology firm Rocket Fuel, was launched in a bid to increase direct sales. The company harnesses the power of artificial intelligence (AI) – at big data scale – to improve marketing return on investment in digital media.

Its Programmatic Marketing Platform uses AI to learn from every moment of customer interaction and in order to optimise media spend across channels like display, video, mobile and social simultaneously.

Singapore Airlines used Rocket Fuel’s AI capabilities to map out the demographics and online behaviour of customers and key booking days during the campaign.

This means the platform knows when and where to target potential travellers, and with which destinations or deals.

Alex Geddes, head of travel and tourism for the UK at Rocket Fuel, said: “Where other firms use demographic data, we understand actual behaviour.”

Matthew Donaldson, marketing executive at Singapore Airlines, said: “This was part of our strategy to grow online sales. It is so important to keep cost per acquisition low.”

Following the initial success of the campaign, Singapore Airlines is now working on a specific project with Manchester Airport.

Donaldson continued: “Regional airports can be a challenge for airlines in terms of securing the desired passenger numbers.”

With the help of Rocket Fuel the airline drove online conversions for flights from the airport.

“What we know is average cost per acquisition halved on a month by month basis, and 14% of total website bookings during the period came through Rocket Fuel powered adverts,” said Donaldson.

“We also used it as an opportunity to use banner creative to push certain destinations.

“There was a surge in bookings to areas like the Philippines, Vietnam and Myanmar.”

Geddes added: “What we are doing is the holy grail for airlines in that we can help them increase the volume of passengers flying out from a specific embarkation, without having to rely on geo targeting.”