The Post Covid-19 Guide to Riding the Recovery Wave for Halal Tourism Companies Using Display Advertising
Before the Covid-19 pandemic struck, halal tourism was experiencing exponential growth. Close to 160 million Muslim tourists traveled in 2019. According to one of our publishers at Muslim Ad Network, CrescentRating, in 2020 this dropped down to 42 million. Over 90% of the 42 million traveled in the first three months of 2020 before most countries closed their borders.
The report – Global Muslim Travel Index 2021 – forecasts that by 2023, halal tourism will have covered 80% of the departures recorded in 2019, before the pandemic calamity. In fact, experts play up the fact that 2021 began with positive news around the development and approval of vaccines. They link this to a positive outlook towards tourism as a whole.
Muslim travel market projections:
With that in mind, let us look at how halal travel or halal tourism companies can leverage display ads to advertise halal tourism during this recovery period.
If you are new to display ads please check out: “Muslim Ad Network’s (MAN) Beginner’s Guide to Analyzing and Optimizing Your Display Ads”.
1- Using Automated Production
Many marketing teams, including those in the travel industry, had to let go of some of their members as a direct consequence of COVID-19.
Most are still feeling the effects of redundancies. With the halal tourism market picking up again, halal travel companies find themselves pressed for time to create the same volume of ads they did when they had full marketing teams.
Enter Automated Ad Creation
Automated Ad Creation, a.k.a Creative Automation, allows you to create thousands of display ads that automatically adjust to fit a range of platforms. It’s a cost-saver since your banner ads are created in-house, eliminating the need for an external design agency.
With Creative Automation, you can expand creative ideas and actually produce all of the variants you need across a multitude of scaling dimensions and channels – including Google, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, TikTok, and more!
Source: Celtra
You can take the leap towards Creative Automation through the likes of Celtra, Creative Studio, and HootSuite Ads.
This approach, however, will mostly work for halal travel companies based in Muslim majority countries. For halal travel agencies based in western countries, looking to fish out the right Muslim audiences from the crowd, the best strategy is to partner with Muslim Ad Network.
2- Repurpose Unused Creatives
If ever there is an industry where imagery is the most integral feature of their ads it’s the travel industry. It’s even more so for display ads in combination with a relevant call-to-action.
Your team might have created some stunning assets for marketing in 2020 and had to archive them without using them due to COVID-19. Don’t let those go to waste. Instead of going out and creating new imagery or designs, repurpose what you already have. Repurpose them to work in your current display ad campaigns.
That way you will be making the most out of your display campaigns. It also means you can enjoy a maximum return on any expenditure before the pandemic.
This opens up more opportunities in this year’s budget for some other marketing necessities like building up your team again.
3- Adapt Your Ads to Ever-changing Situation Fast
In this roller-coaster world of Covid-19 rules and regulations, halal tourism companies are struggling to keep up.
The good news is that, with display ads, you can use integrated publishing options to update your ads, even while live. This keeps your messaging fresh while reflecting on the current situation.
For many halal travel brands in Europe, for example, the traffic light system is what determines what you can put out there in terms of offers and ads. So there would be no point promoting holidays to Portugal, for example, if it’s categorized in red. However, as soon as it’s back to green or even orange, you will want to jump on the bandwagon and start promoting.
Make sure your display ads accommodate this trend in plenty of time for customers purchasing family holidays. Use this tactic to stay ahead of the competition.
4- Get Personal with Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO)
Dynamic creative optimization uses a variety of ad components (backgrounds, main images, text, value propositions, call to action, etc.) and dynamically assembles them as the page where the banner resided loads.
The ad is served, according to the particular needs of the user. Such an ad may include video, animation, native components, and interactive elements.
Why is this particularly important now?
Young people currently can’t travel as freely as they did, due to limited job opportunities and earnings. They are also not being prioritized for the vaccine.
A Recent BBC article mentions that:
TUI, the UK’s largest tour operator, says 50% of bookings on their website are currently by over-50s. This was previously a smaller market for them. National Express’s coach holiday businesses say bookings made by those 65 and over have increased by 185% in the last fortnight compared to last year.
Source: bbc.com
This could all change very fast as the vaccination rollout continues. And when it does, with DCO in place, you can capitalize on the changing trend automatically.
5- Use Live Data and Keep Users Informed
Is there a new variant of COVID-19 in Egypt and thus travel is limited? Has Dubai opened up travel completely and hotels are throwing out discounts like there is no tomorrow?
Link your halal travel display ads to live data feed and keep your customers updated on costs of flights, travel restrictions, and more.
You can connect data feed to your halal tourism display ads by using live data that allows you to control what you want to share at a particular time. That way, your campaign can quickly adapt to reflect new rules or trends.
6- Add the Wow Factor with Video
Although the video conversation is not particular to the COVID-19 issue directly, it has a place in it. Due to lost time and revenue, halal travel brands can no longer afford to go through the motions and do the bare minimum.
There is a need to be more aggressive and creative to make up for the lost time. Video is one of the ways to bolster that aggressiveness and creativity. So start creating that wow factor and instead of using only static display ads, consider video.
There is no one-size-fits-all formula when it comes to video ads and what to feature. However, studies prove that it takes just about 10 seconds to earn a user’s attention ‘or forever lose their attention. So your video display ads need to be even more captivating, as you’re working on borrowed time.
Video banner ads are awesome at captivating user emotions – making them feel that they are already at the holiday destination in Selge, Turkey, or in Malacca, Malaysia for instance.
Create brand consistency by using the same video content across your in-stream (video ads for YouTube pre-roll) and out-stream banner ads (within contextually relevant content on 3rd party sites).
7- Support Display Ads with Social Media for Budget Restraints
With your halal travel company still recovering from months of limited business, money may be hard to come by. One of, if not, the best ways to make your budget go a long way is using social media.
In fact, social media platforms are great for getting those juices flowing as people are in a mindset of showing holiday pictures and other fun stuff. So it’s the best place to get the travel conversation going organically.
Make sure you retarget the audience that has shown interest in halal travel destinations with your display ads.
Here are 3 awesome ideas to get the best out of your retargeting efforts: “50% More Sales Via Your Display Ads? Do This”.
Conclusion
With halal tourism slowly recovering from the COVID-19 crisis, it is paramount for halal travel companies to make up for lost revenue. However, halal travel companies must also stay on their toes given the volatile situation.
Those who aim to successfully advertise halal tourism to Muslims in these unsure times must be able to adapt quickly while keeping the Muslim traveler informed at all times. The strategies and tactics mentioned in this article are vital for this to happen successfully. However, there is no better time for halal travel companies and companies in other industries to work with experts in the field of targeting Muslims online than now.
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