The Challenge
Deutsche Lufthansa Group is one of the world’s leading airline groups. As Artefact has been responsible for the affiliate programs of Lufthansa and SWISS Airlines for more than 10 years, the group has recently decided to further trust Artefact and handed over the responsibility of Austrian Airlines and Eurowings affiliate programs to them as well.
On their extensive route network, based on a multi-hub strategy, they offer their customers premium offers with a high degree of travel flexibility and high-quality service.
In addition to a global strategy to increase the online bookings of every single airline, a central first touchpoint should be found for the metasearcher (flight prices engines).
The Strategy
To increase global online bookings within the affiliate channel, a dedicated roll-out map was set up. Following this plan, several markets had been set up within one year in the past, expanded and optimised. Currently we are running programs for Lufthansa, SWISS Airlines, Austrian Airlines and Eurowings in 17 markets in 4 networks.
In order to efficiently expand the set of different countries, it was essential that both – country specifications and network strategies – were taken into account. Some countries are more efficient if they are serviced from the corresponding country by a local network. Other small markets lack the volume to stand alone as a campaign. For this reason, an international campaign was set up to consolidate all non-stand-alone campaigns.
Taking into account the different country conditions and the goal of working as cost-efficiently as possible, Artefact and the Lufthansa Group decided on a hybrid network strategy – a mixture of public and private network. This has led to a permanent increase in performance as well as a successful long-term partnership with the affiliates.
Utilizing Artefacts own inhouse private network combined with high level of technical knowledge, the Lufthansa Group trusts Artefact being the central first touchpoint for the metasearchers. The open book policy of the Lufthansa Group itself allows the transfer of knowledge between campaigns and airlines to be exchanged and applied without difficulties.
All these aspects form a solid and structured basis between the Lufthansa Group, Artefact, the networks and affiliate partners.
Impact & Key Results
The centralised management of numerous affiliate marketing campaigns for the Lufthansa Group, combined with our international know-how and the metasearcher led to:
