Thrifty Adventures
Lead forms at 3× the LinkedIn norm, and 3.1 million organic views on TikTok.
Paid and organic marketing for a South African tour operator across LinkedIn, TikTok and Google.
Starting point
The company had social media accounts but no paid campaigns or tracking. LinkedIn seemed an unlikely channel for personal holidays, but seven months of results showed it worked, for a different reason than I expected.
Reach up 47× while costs fell each month
I started with a small budget, tested four campaign objectives side by side, then moved budget to the best performers.
| Month | Reach, indexed to July | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 2025 | 1× | The baseline. New ad accounts pay the highest costs. |
| Aug 2025 | 8× | Clicks 58% cheaper than July. |
| Sep 2025 | 23× | Four objectives tested. The first wave of leads. |
| Oct 2025 | 22× | Conversions and video in. |
| Nov 2025 | 20× | Cut back to the winners. |
| Dec 2025 | 48× | Scaled. CPM down 73% from July. |
| Jan 2026 | 47× | Cheapest month: clicks 70% cheaper than July, CPM down 81%. |
Reach is indexed to month one; impressions and spend are confidential. Part of the cost drop comes from the account maturing.
The brochure offer
Two ads ran to the same audience with the same form. One asked people to enquire; the other offered the 2026 brochure.
- 36.6%
- Form completion, brochureAgainst 8.6% on the identical form with nothing to collect at the end.
- 10–15%
- The LinkedIn normThe brochure ran at more than double the top of that range.
- 73%
- Of all leads came from the brochure askThe brochure ad produced most of the account's leads.
- +39%
- Cost per lead, everything elseOther ads cost about 40% more per lead. Actual costs are confidential.
Only the offer changed, and it improved results more than any other test.
LinkedIn results
Starting with no paid presence on LinkedIn.
- 0.97%
- Click-through vs 0.52% medianNearly double the median across 150,000+ LinkedIn campaigns.
- 70%
- Cheaper clicks by the endWhat a landing page click cost in month seven versus month one.
- 81%
- CPM fall across the runWhat a thousand impressions cost in month seven versus month one.
- 16
- Campaigns across six objectivesSeven months on LinkedIn, with all spend tracked.
Landing page clicks, not LinkedIn's headline Clicks column. Median: AgencyAnalytics, January 2025. Spend and lead counts stay with the client.
3.1 million views, and 38% of them from search
TikTok already had an audience, so the focus was search. Destination videos were captioned with the questions people search for, which keeps older posts getting views.
- 38.1%
- Of views came from searchPeople searching for a destination found Thrifty's videos.
- 3.1M
- Views, organicJun 2025 to Jan 2026, with 25K profile visits and 29K likes.
- 7,200
- SharesShares are a strong engagement signal on TikTok.
June 2025 – January 2026.
TikTok ads for conversations
Each ad featured one destination, with the aim of starting a message conversation. The test ran for one week, measured by cost per conversation.
- Cheapest
- Qualified contact in the accountAveraged across all nine videos. Costs are confidential.
- 9
- Destination videos in one week's testEach measured by cost per conversation, so the best performers were clear within days.
- 43%
- Of conversations from the best videoBali and Thailand, at about the account's average cost per conversation.
TikTok's figures, 30 Jan – 6 Feb 2026. Bookings from those conversations were never tracked.
Google Ads
Google Ads reached people already searching for tours, at the lowest cost per click.
- ~99%
- Below the travel median cost per clickAgainst the $2.14 median in the 2026 benchmark set. The actual cost is confidential.
- 8.04%
- Account click-through rateAgainst a 9.32% search median. The display campaign carried 18.12% on its own.
- 6
- Campaigns, Jun 2025 to Feb 2026Search, display and Performance Max, each on its own job.
WordStream's 2026 US benchmarks. Most volume came from display and Performance Max, and South African clicks cost less, so part of the difference is the market.
The role of each channel
Each channel worked best at a different stage of the booking decision.
- TikTok organic content builds awareness and keeps getting views for months.
- TikTok ads start conversations, at the lowest cost per qualified contact in the account.
- Google Ads reaches people already comparing trips, with the cheapest clicks.
- LinkedIn sells larger, planned trips, with the highest cost per contact and the most serious enquiries.
- Content didn't transfer between channels: the destination video that started conversations on TikTok drew 0.10% click-through as a LinkedIn ad.
What didn't work
Brand awareness campaigns produced the most expensive clicks, ten times the cheapest month, and single-destination videos underperformed. Tracking problems on both platforms meant bookings couldn't be linked to specific ads.
What I'd do differently
I'd fix conversion tracking before spending the first rand. I could prove cost and reach on every channel, but not which one filled a tour.