In travel advertising, timing is everything.
The difference between “just browsing” and “just booked” can often be a matter of minutes. That’s why brands and advertisers need precision, scale, and real-time signals to drive real performance.
Nowhere is this more true than the travel vertical.
That’s why we’re excited to introduce Criteo Travel Audiences, a new way to reach high-intent travelers by combining real booking data with commerce intelligence across the open web.
What are Travel Audiences?
Criteo Travel Audiences are built from real booking and shopping signals.
It’s one of the reasons we say they’re built different—but what does that really mean?
Primarily, we’re talking about the composition of these travel audiences. Traditional audiences will use signals such as a user’s content consumption to essentially guess that they’re in-market for travel. However, guesswork often doesn’t get you very far.
With Criteo Travel Audiences, we ingest data from 1200+ travel partners (including car rentals, cruises, flights, hotels, Online Travel Agents, etc.) and 17,000+ commerce partners, giving advertisers a more complete view of the traveler journey.
From the moment someone starts planning a trip, to the moment they’re browsing the products they need before departure—our network captures it all. It’s this fusion of travel and commerce intelligence that means you can reach people not only when they’re booking, but also when they’re actively preparing to set off. In fact, we can even reach these users after they return. Our technology can look back up to 13 months into a user’s travel history, then tailor audiences according to their mid-term booking behaviors.
This is the kind of pinpoint accuracy you’ll simply never get from more conventional forms of audience targeting.
Why Travel Audiences?
If the precision of our Travel Audiences isn’t enough to convince you, here are three more reasons to consider adding them to your next campaign:
- Drive new bookings and purchases: Reach travelers while they’re actively planning and purchasing, from flights and hotels to luggage and travel accessories.
- Drive more relevance: Use real-time signals from 720M+ daily active users to deliver the right message at the right moment, whether they’re booking a trip or shopping for gear.
- Drive more performance: Pair Travel Audiences with full-funnel tactics to reach and convert high-intent users across CTV, the open web, and social.
What makes Travel Audiences different?
If you’ve been following this series, you’ll already know that our Commerce In-Market audiences are built for action.
The same is true for Travel Audiences. We take that same principle and apply it to the travel vertical—with a few key enhancements:
- We find signals that say, “I’m traveling.” Our system tracks bookings, searches, content interactions, and commerce behaviors tied to travel categories.
- 100% deterministic. We only include users with observed, recent travel-related activity. That ensures data accuracy and freshness, a powerful combo for any digital campaign.
- The fusion of commerce and travel. We combine real-world booking data with retail signals to build richer traveler personas—and we can reach them from first click to final checkout.
What you can buy today
Our Travel Audiences are available either via Commerce Grid as PMP deals, or directly through Commerce Growth. You can activate pre-defined segments or work with Criteo to build custom segments based on:
- Destination booked
- Travel service provider (e.g., car rentals, cruise, flights, hotels, OTAs)
- Passengers (e.g. family travelers)
- Commerce behavior (e.g. luggage, travel accessories)
- Content browsed (e.g. Thailand)
- Price sensitivity (e.g. affluent travelers)
Activate your way
Whether you’re an agency working with a travel brand, or you’re a travel brand looking to reach travelers directly, activating Travel Audiences with Criteo is simple:
- Share your brief. Include your objectives, KPIs, geography, budget, flight dates, and any constraints.
- We build your segments. We shortlist from our taxonomy, apply custom logic, and confirm definitions.
- We package and deliver. Either your Deal IDs are created via Commerce Grid and sent to your DSP, or your chosen audiences are activated directly from Commerce Growth.
- You go live and optimize. From here, you can use your usual buying platform (Criteo or not) to manage controls and reporting tools. We’ll provide insights to help you fine-tune your performance.
With Criteo, the sky’s the limit
Your next great travelers are just a segment away. Get in touch with our dedicated Travel team today at travelsolutions@criteo.com to activate Travel Audiences and start building high-performing, custom segments for your next campaign.
Looking to stay ahead of seasonal traveler trends? Explore our Global Winter Travel Pulse 2025 report and register for the Wheels Up: Winter Travel Insights 2025 Webinar to plan smarter, more effective campaigns through Q4 and beyond.
