Can you smell the suntan lotion? Feel the warmth of the UV rays bouncing off the crystal blue water? Hear the roar of the jet engine as your commercial airliner lifts you to your tropical destination? Or, are you living vicariously as Spring Break photos start infiltrating your social media feeds and ad boxes? Well, travel advertisers are hoping you're feeling the bug, targeting those looking for a last minute getaway in lieu of using the office halogens to get rid of those pesky tan lines! It's time to check your PTO Calendars and book that next vacation, everyone!

Travel was the 4th overall category on desktop over the last 30 days, with the category’s top advertiser, MapQuest, ranking 20th overall by impression volume. So, what sites are travel advertisers targeting, either through direct or indirect channels? We broke out the top ten U.S. desktop sites by impression volume for travel advertisers over the last 30 days, including the category’s total spend per site and total impression number per site. Additionally we included the percentage breakdown of direct vs. indirect buys for the category as a whole per site. Check out the chart below.

It's obvious from the chart that indirect buys dominated the sales of the top 10 sites for travel advertisers. This also reflects how the category was buying as a whole. 60% of desktop impressions for the travel category were served via ad networks, with Google AdX + AdSense taking 33% of the share. Advertising.com was the second most used partner with 14% share. Youtube.com has a far lead in spend and impression share for the category, powered by direct buys. The site is bringing in over 3x the spend of the second top site aol.com. 

 

MapQuest used Advertising.com to serve all of their desktop impressions, with aol.com ranking as their top site. The category's #2 top advertiser, by impression volume, Expedia, Inc., purchased 77% of desktop impressions via ad networks with msn.com coming in as their top site.

 

For more industry reports, check out our online data library.