Case Study · Travel & Tourism
How We Cut Heavenly Lanka’s Cost Per Lead by Around Two-Thirds
Heavenly Lanka Vacations didn’t need more leads. It needed more of the right leads. Here’s how full-funnel Meta Ads, qualifying lead forms and Zoho CRM integration built a steadier, better-qualified sales pipeline.
A travel business that needed better leads, not just more of them
Heavenly Lanka Vacations specialises in curated Sri Lankan travel experiences for Australian travellers.
When OZ Media Digital began working with the business in July 2025, the campaigns were attracting enquiries, but many came from travellers who were unlikely to buy: budget-conscious backpackers and other prospects outside the company’s ideal customer profile.
Our objective: improve lead quality, lower acquisition costs, and give the Heavenly Lanka team more conversations with travellers who could genuinely become customers.
The problem wasn’t lead volume. It was qualified lead generation.
Before the campaign was restructured, Heavenly Lanka was typically generating only 2 to 5 qualified leads a week at approximately $50 per lead, with a significant share of enquiries that didn’t match the target customer.
Its ideal customers are primarily Australian:
Campaigns built around the actual customer
Rather than running generic Sri Lanka travel advertising across every audience, we developed different messaging and creative for each key customer group: professional couples, families, retirees and selected solo travellers suited to group tours.
A family planning an international holiday has different priorities from a retired couple considering a longer leisure trip, so we didn’t expect one message to work equally well for everyone.
A full-funnel Meta Ads structure
We structured advertising across the customer journey instead of expecting every prospect to convert after seeing a single ad.
Awareness
Introduced Heavenly Lanka and its Sri Lankan travel experiences to relevant Australian audiences.
Consideration
Kept engaging people who had shown interest in the destination, the business or its advertising.
Conversion
Showed higher-intent prospects stronger enquiry-focused ads, moving them towards a conversation about their trip.
The creative and message could then reflect where each prospect was in their decision.
Qualifying leads before they reached sales
One of the biggest changes was moving away from relying mainly on sending ad traffic to the website. We introduced customised Meta lead forms designed around Heavenly Lanka’s real qualification criteria.
Instead of collecting only a name, phone number and email, the forms captured:
- Expected travel dates
- Number of travellers
- Approximate budget
- Traveller type: couple, family or another group
- Attractions and experiences they were interested in
We continually tested and refined the questions to balance two competing goals: easy enough for genuine prospects to complete, yet detailed enough to show whether an enquiry was worth pursuing. Unsuitable enquiries were filtered out before they reached the sales team.
Illustrative example of the qualifying questions, not the live form.
Qualification didn’t stop at the lead form
Lead information was connected with Zoho CRM, so the Heavenly Lanka team received each prospect’s qualification details alongside their contact details.
Before the first conversation, the team could already see:
- Budget
- Travel period
- Number of travellers
- Traveller profile
- Travel preferences
Instead of opening every call with the same questions, the team had the context to prepare a suitable response and move genuine prospects towards a proposal more efficiently.
Feeding Meta better signals
As more qualified enquiries came through, we kept reviewing which combinations of audiences, creative, messaging and qualification criteria produced the strongest prospects.
The campaign wasn’t optimised for the highest possible number of cheap leads. The focus was on giving Meta stronger signals about the type of people Heavenly Lanka actually wanted to attract.
Creative testing paid off. In the June to August reporting period, among the ads that generated 40 or more leads, a guest-story video and a Sigiriya destination video were the most cost-efficient, at about $11.50 and $12.70 per lead, compared with roughly $15 for the broader general-audience ads.
Cost per lead by ad, 3 Jun to 25 Aug 2026
Source: Meta Ads Manager export for Heavenly Lanka’s primary ad account (AUD). Shows the ads that generated 40 or more leads in the period; cost per lead is spend divided by leads.
A far cheaper lead, and a steadier flow of them
Results began improving within the first month, and the campaign got progressively stronger as more conversion and lead-quality data became available.
Before OZ Media Digital
- Qualified leads2 to 5 / week
- Cost per lead~$50
- Lead qualityMany unsuitable enquiries
After optimisation
- LeadsMeta Ads Manager, Aug to Sep 2026~3 / day
- Cost per leadMeta Ads Manager, Jun to Sep 2026$15 to $17
- Leads qualifiedApproximate~90%
- Bookings from the pipelineApproximate~10 / month
Leads per week
~4 to 10×
Before: 2 to 5 qualified leads a week (bar shows the top of the range)
After: 89 leads ÷ 30 days × 7 ≈ 21 a week
Cost per lead
−65% to −71%
$3,840 ÷ 261 = $14.71
$1,555 ÷ 89 = $17.47
How to read this: the “before” leads figure counts qualified leads, while the “after” figure counts every Meta lead-form submission, of which Heavenly Lanka reports about 90% were qualified.
| Reporting period | Ad spend | Leads | Cost per lead | Leads per day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Jun to 25 Aug 2026 (84 days) | $3,840 | 261 | $14.71 | 3.1 |
| 6 Aug to 4 Sep 2026 (30 days) | $1,555 | 89 | $17.47 | 3.0 |
Source: Meta Ads Manager exports for Heavenly Lanka’s primary ad account (AUD). “Leads” are Meta lead-form submissions. The two periods overlap between 6 and 25 August, so they are shown separately, not added together. The “before” figures, lead-quality rate and monthly bookings are approximate and reflect Heavenly Lanka’s own records rather than the ad export.
Most importantly, Heavenly Lanka was no longer paying simply to generate names and phone numbers. It was generating more enquiries from the kind of traveller it could realistically serve and convert.
Speaking to travellers who want a holiday, not a checklist
One of the carousel ads we built for the campaign. Each slide answers a concern our ideal customer has before they’ll enquire: pace, personalisation, credibility and price. Swipe through the slides below.
Scroll or swipe →
“We previously worked with some of the so-called ‘top agencies’ for Meta and Google Ads, but they charged us a lot and never delivered the results they promised. Our cost per lead was very high, and the campaigns felt like wasted spend.
When I spoke with Isuru from OZ Media Digital, he carefully reviewed our Meta ad setup and account. He explained, with precision and clarity, the changes he recommended, and then carried them out. The results have been incredible: we are now getting a steady flow of qualified leads at just a fraction of our previous ad spend, with much lower average ad costs.
What really sets Isuru apart is that he treats your campaigns as if they were his own, like having a trusted friend looking after your marketing with honesty, attention to detail, and a focus on conversions. His communication is clear, his knowledge of ads is deep, and he genuinely cares about delivering outcomes.
As Heavenly Lanka Vacations (a group travel agency), we highly recommend OZ Media Digital to any business that needs real results (especially in Social Media Advertising), better ROI, and someone who truly has your back. We wish Isuru and the team every success.”
Heavenly Lanka VacationsGroup travel agency, Australia
More budget wasn’t the main reason performance improved
The campaign started at about $50 a day and later rose to around $60. The improvement didn’t come from throwing significantly more money at Meta. The larger change was the system behind the advertising.
Before
After
Each stage was designed to improve the quality of the next.
More leads do not automatically mean better marketing
A campaign generating $5 leads can perform worse commercially than one generating $30 leads, if the first group never becomes customers. That’s why we look beyond clicks, impressions and headline cost per lead.
For businesses where lead quality matters, we consider the whole customer acquisition system:
- Who you actually want as a customer
- Why they should respond to your advertising
- What creative and messaging will resonate
- How prospects should be qualified
- What information your sales team needs
- How advertising connects with your CRM
- Which leads become genuine opportunities
- How that data improves future ad decisions
The goal isn’t to make Meta Ads generate more form submissions. It’s to help advertising generate more commercially useful opportunities for the business.
Getting leads, but not enough customers?
If your Meta Ads or Google Ads generate enquiries but your team spends too much time chasing people who are unlikely to buy, more leads may not be the answer. The issue could be how your campaigns attract, qualify and hand over prospects.
We work with Australian businesses on campaign strategy, creative, lead qualification, conversion optimisation and CRM integration. Book a free Marketing Growth Consultation and we’ll look at where your lead-generation system can improve.
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