Travel advertisers typically create separate campaigns or ad groups to promote flights between specific origins and destinations.
Business data help you see how campaigns across an advertiser contribute to promoting flights to specific destinations. Here's an example report that uses business data to organize performance metrics:
How to set up business data to report on flight routes
For maximum flexibility, create separate business data tables for origins, destinations, and routes. (As you'll see later, this enables you to apply business data at the appropriate level of granularity).
For example, create a table named "Origin Country":
Then add a column of type Text, which you can use to enter the full name of a country:
See the full list of suggested tables and columns
Table name: Origin Country
| Column name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ID | Text | Contains a two-letter identifier for a flight's country of origin. |
| Name | Text | Contains the full name of a flight's country of origin. |
Table name: Origin Airport
| Column name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ID | Text | Contains the IATA abbreviation for a flight's origin airport. |
| City Name | Text | Contains the city name in which the origin airport is located. |
| Origin Country.ID | Text | Identifies a country of origin that's been defined in the "Origin Country" table. |
Note that Origin Airport has a column that refers to a country in the "Origin Country" table. Here's what it looks like when adding columns to the Origin Airport table:
Table name: Destination Country
| Column name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ID | Text | Contains a two-letter identifier for a flight's destination country. |
| Name | Text | Contains the full name of a flight's destination country. |
Table name: Destination Airport
| Column name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ID | Text | Contains the IATA abbreviation for a flight's destination airport. |
| City Name | Text | Contains the city name in which the destination airport is located. |
| Destination Country.ID | Text | Identifies a destination country that's been defined in the "Destination Country" table. |
Table name: Route
| Column name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ID | Text | Uses an origin and destination pair to identify a flight route. |
| Origin Airport.ID | Text |
Identifies an origin airport that's been defined in the "Origin Airport" table. Note that when you apply a Route to a campaign or other item, the item will inherit data from the "Origin Airport" table. Because "Origin Airport" has a reference to the "Origin Country" table, the item will inherit data from the "Origin Country" table as well. |
| Destination Airport.ID | Text |
Identifies a destination airport that's been defined in the "Destination Airport" table. Note that when you apply a Route to a campaign or other item, the item will inherit data from the "Destination Airport" table. Because "Destination Airport" has a reference to the "Destination Country" table, the item will inherit data from the "Destination Country" table as well. |
Add business data rows
After creating tables, add business data rows to each table. For example, add countries to the "Origin Country" table. When you're done, the "Origin Country" table will look like this:
Then add airports to the "Origin Airport" table (and select a country from the Origin Country table). When you're done, the "Origin Airport" table will look like this:
Do the same for the "Destination Country" and "Destination Airport" tables. Then add business data rows to the "Route" table. When you're done, the "Route" table will look like this:
Apply business data and view reports
Apply rows in the "Route" table to campaigns or ad groups that promote specific routes. For example, apply the GIignoredMIA business data row to ad groups dedicated to promoting the Rio de Janeiro to Miami route.
If you have campaigns or ad groups that promote specific destination cities (but not specific flights or routes), apply rows in the "Destination Aiport" table to those campaigns or ad groups. Similarly, if you have campaigns or ad groups that promote specific destination countries (but not specific cities or routes), apply rows in the "Destination Country" table to those campaigns or ad groups.
After applying data, view reports:
- View "Route.ID" on the Dimensions tab to see performance data for each specific route
-
View "Destination Airport.City Name" on the Dimensions tab and segment by "Route.ID" to see performance for each destination city, with additional detail on how each route into a destination performs. In the example below, the campaigns for the Albany destination generated 3,000 clicks, campaigns for the Albuquerque destination generated 4,000 clicks, while the campaigns for the specific ATL-ALB route generated 9,000 clicks, and so on.
If you remove the Route.ID segment, you'll see all of the clicks for individual Albany routes added to the Albany destination (and all of the clicks for individual Albuquerque routes added to the Albuquerque destination):
