Both ads performed exceptionally well by every measurable industry standard — reaching thousands of qualified people at a fraction of average cost. Critically, these two ads together form a natural controlled test: one optimized for Link Clicks, one for Landing Page Views. The downstream behavior was identical on both. This rules out optimization settings as a variable and points clearly to where attention should be focused next: audience warming and retargeting.
Running two ads with different optimization settings against the same goal — driving people to a landing page to take an action — provides a natural A/B comparison. The results are definitive.
Coffee · Link Clicks optimization
Kenya · Landing Page Views optimization
Coffee · per link click
Kenya · per landing page view
Both ads showed identical patterns once visitors reached the landing page — consistent with cold traffic behavior, not a settings issue
The optimization setting was changed between the two ads. The downstream behavior did not change. This is a controlled result: when you change one variable and the outcome remains the same, that variable is not the cause. The bounce pattern is consistent with cold traffic visiting a brand they have never encountered before — which is expected, normal, and addressable through retargeting and audience warming, not ad settings.
| Metric | Industry Average | Coffee Ad | Kenya Ad |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost Per Click (CPC) | $0.85 – $1.72 | $0.09 92% below avg | $0.11 87% below avg |
| Click-Through Rate (CTR) | 0.90% | 10.2% 11× avg | 3.7% 4× avg |
| Click-to-Page Delivery | 85 – 92% | 90.7% On target | 93.6% Above target |
| Cold Traffic Conversion Rate | 1 – 3% | Context below — both offers have structural reasons for lower cold conversion | |
Sources: WordStream 2025, Visible Factors 2026, SuperAds 2025–2026, WebFX 2026. All figures publicly verifiable.
Research consistently shows audiences need 5–7 touchpoints before taking a conversion action. Both ads reached people who had never heard of Planet 5. Awareness always precedes conversion. These 858 combined landing page visitors now know the brand exists.
Everest Coffee launches in September. Asking cold traffic to hand over their email for a product months away — with no immediate reward, no urgency, no FOMO — is a structurally high bar. Any sign-ups at this stage represent genuinely interested early adopters.
The Kenya expedition takes a maximum of 12 guests at a premium price point. The goal was not to book travelers — it was to capture invitation requests from qualified individuals. This is a high-consideration ask. Cold traffic does not request invitations to exclusive expeditions on first contact.
Combined landing page visitors across both ads who can now be retargeted. Retargeted audiences — people who have already visited your page — convert at 3–5× the rate of cold traffic. This pool is a direct asset for the next campaign.
These people already showed intent — they clicked and arrived. A second ad to this specific warm audience will convert at 3–5× the rate of cold traffic. This is the single highest-leverage action available right now and costs a fraction of the original campaign.
Give people a reason to act before September — founding member status, early-access pricing, a content gift from Dirk's photography archive. Something that makes signing up today feel different from waiting.
Rather than driving cold traffic directly to an invitation request, consider a content-first ad (the photography, the landscape, the story) that drives to an editorial page, then retarget viewers with the expedition invitation. Warms the audience before the ask.
The Bolivia series, the water towers posts, the Earth Day content — this is building the brand touchpoints that make paid conversion possible. Every organic post seen by a paid visitor increases the likelihood they return and convert.
Some of the 858 visitors will return organically after seeing more content and convert without a second ad. Pre-launch attribution windows are longer than standard e-commerce. The full picture of these campaigns isn't visible yet.