Riyadh Air

The objective

Measuring the Full-Funnel Impact of TikTok Search Ads

Riyadh Air, a Saudi Arabia's new national airline, set out to strengthen its digital marketing strategy by exploring the potential of TikTok Search Ads — becoming the first travel brand in KSA to activate this ad format. The airline aimed to understand how Search Ads could complement its always-on traffic campaigns, driving both upper-funnel awareness and lower-funnel conversions.

To achieve this, Riyadh Air partnered with TikTok to measure the incremental impact of combining search with traffic campaigns using two methodologies: a Brand Lift Study (BLS) to assess awareness metrics and a Conversion Lift Study (CLS) to evaluate real-world conversion outcomes. The campaign sought to determine how user intent, search behavior, and creative alignment could enhance efficiency across the full marketing funnel.

The solution

Activating TikTok Search Ads alongside always-on traffic

Riyadh Air launched TikTok Search Ads alongside its always-on traffic campaigns, aiming to reach users actively searching for travel-related content and destinations. The keyword structure focused on three key pillars:

• Brand: Riyadh Air–specific keywords

• Generic: Airline and travel–related terms

• Destinations: Saudi Arabia–focused keywords

Each keyword group was supported by custom creative tailored to user intent, ensuring relevance and engagement across different audience touchpoints. The campaign ran under the Traffic objective, balancing reach with cost efficiency and driving high-quality web visits.

To quantify the impact of Search Ads beyond clicks and impressions, Riyadh Air implemented a unified measurement framework using both BLS and CLS. This approach allowed the team to capture a holistic view of TikTok’s influence — from awareness to conversion — and benchmark the effectiveness of Search Ads within a multi-layered performance strategy.

The result

Driving higher recall, stronger associations, and more qualified conversions

The campaign delivered measurable outcomes across the funnel. The Brand Lift Study revealed a 14% uplift in Ad Recall and a 4% increase in Brand Association, demonstrating that Search Ads strengthened brand perception.

At the lower funnel, the Conversion Lift Study showed a 44% directional increase in subscriptions, highlighting TikTok Search Ads’ ability to translate awareness into real-world actions. Performance metrics further reinforced this success, with 22× more qualified traffic compared to traffic-only campaigns and an 11% click-to-session ratio, emphasizing the efficiency of search-driven engagement.

From a creative perspective, Search Ads featuring travel and destination-related queries performed particularly well, driving above-benchmark engagement rates. Content linked to branded keywords such as “Riyadh Air” or “Saudi travel” attracted the most qualified audiences, reinforcing the role of search-driven discovery in boosting both brand affinity and conversion readiness.

Together, these findings confirm that integrating TikTok Search Ads with traffic campaigns can effectively bridge the gap between discovery, intent, and conversion — setting a new benchmark for travel advertisers in the region.