How Flight Centre reached more ready-to-book travelers while making every ad dollar work harder

The goal: Turn travel planning into confirmed bookings by winning over high-intent customers

As one of Australia’s most trusted travel brands, Flight Centre has helped over 15 million customers across the world book everything from last-minute weekend getaways to globe-trotting adventures.

While some travelers plan months ahead, others are ready to book on the spot when they see the right price or the perfect destination. Flight Centre needs to be ready for these audiences by connecting with those most likely to book, wherever they are online, and without increasing spend.

While Search campaigns were already delivering solid results, the Flight Centre team saw several opportunities to reach travelers earlier in their researching and planning, as well as capture demand in areas where growth had been harder to achieve.

In the past, they briefly tried to leverage Performance Max to expand their campaign impact, with the short test seeming to be ineffective at the time. But with the help of the Microsoft Advertising team, Flight Centre was able to test and learn the potential of newer Performance Max features and formats…

The solution: Expand AI-powered campaign testing to reach new audiences and boost bookings

Microsoft Advertising recommended a longer, three-month Performance Max trial to help Flight Centre reach their goals. It would cover smaller segments that had been harder to grow, as well as larger segments that were already performing well to see whether Performance Max could deliver improved results in different situations.

Flight Centre launched their campaign with three main elements:

1. Identifying search themes and audience signals to help ads reach relevant audiences.
2. Maximizing conversions as the initial bid strategy, using an automated approach to drive the most conversions per budget before introducing return on ad spend (ROAS) targets.
3. Leveraging Google Import to bring in existing assets and campaign structures, saving time and ensuring consistency.

Using performance intelligence from the platform—such as which audiences were responding best, and which creative combinations drove the most bookings—the Flight Centre and Microsoft Advertising teams regularly collaborated to review results throughout the trial.

By using AI-powered solutions to refine targeting, adjust creative assets, and allocate budgets where they could have the most impact, the team was able to connect with the right travelers at the right moment.

When early results looked promising, Flight Centre expanded Performance Max to additional markets. This included both e-commerce and lead-generation activity to support multiple business goals.

Microsoft Advertising Platform Highlights

• Search themes
• Audience signals
• Automated bidding
• Cross-channel reach across Search, Display, and Native placements
• Google Import
• Real-time creative asset optimization

Results at a glance

• 84% more conversions
• 36% higher ROAS