541
Total confirmed bookings in March
Total confirmed bookings in March
€2.99
Average cost per booking
Average cost per booking
€2.59
Average cost per conversion
Average cost per conversion
10x
More efficient than the €32 industry benchmark
More efficient than the €32 industry benchmark
Client & context
Lifestyle Group Malta is the premier F&B arm of db Group Malta, operating a portfolio of award‑winning restaurants, beach clubs and day‑life venues across the island, including Michelin‑listed AKI Malta and LOA Restaurant Malta, as well as TORA Restaurant Malta and Manta Restaurant Malta. With locations ranging from Valletta to Sliema and the coast, the group attracts a mix of tourists and high‑spending locals. In March 2025, Lifestyle Group came to DNA Creators with a clear brief: drive more confirmed bookings across four key venues, keep acquisition costs far below the European dining average (€32 per lead), and build a scalable, data‑led PPC engine that could handle Malta’s unique walk‑in culture.
The challenge
- Multi‑venue complexity: each venue had a different profile: TORA relied heavily on tourists, AKI and LOA drew a fine‑dining crowd, and Manta mixed sunbed seekers with restaurant guests. This demanded separate strategies, not a one‑size‑fits‑all campaign.
- Walk‑in distortion: in Malta, a large share of diners walk in rather than book online. Secondary conversions (phone calls, emails, event enquiries) were essential to capture true demand, but the group had never valued them in PPC before.
- Visual stagnation risk: early signals showed that venues with fresh imagery (AKI after a visual refresh earlier in the year) saw higher engagement, while TORA’s ageing creative was starting to drag down the group’s historically top‑performing campaign.
- Seasonal ramp‑up: Manta was heading into peak summer season with blended booking types (sunbeds vs tables), making clean performance measurement tricky without careful tracking.
Strategy & execution
We built a Google Ads engine that treated each venue as its own profit centre while using group‑wide learnings to shift budget in real time towards the highest‑efficiency opportunities.
01
Fluid budget allocation across venues
Rather than locking budgets equally, we analysed real‑time cost‑per‑booking data. Underperforming venue budget was dynamically shifted to winners. Over €634 of low‑efficiency spend was redirected, helping TORA capture extra demand at just €6.57 per booking from its high‑footfall tourist location. Meanwhile LOA, with a single tightly themed campaign launched mid‑month, was allowed to run at a lean €2.39 cost per conversion, delivering 202 conversions without overspending.
Fluid budget allocation across venues
Rather than locking budgets equally, we analysed real‑time cost‑per‑booking data. Underperforming venue budget was dynamically shifted to winners. Over €634 of low‑efficiency spend was redirected, helping TORA capture extra demand at just €6.57 per booking from its high‑footfall tourist location. Meanwhile LOA, with a single tightly themed campaign launched mid‑month, was allowed to run at a lean €2.39 cost per conversion, delivering 202 conversions without overspending.
02
Visual refresh as a performance lever
Previous experience with AKI had shown that updated, high‑quality venue imagery directly lifts click‑through and conversion rates on Google Ads. When we spotted TORA’s visuals stagnating, and saw its conversion rate dip, we immediately alerted the client and requested a priority refresh. For AKI, fresh visuals provided in May had already driven a +24% traffic surge and +10% bookings at a 10% lower cost compared to the previous month, proving the link between creative and profit.
Visual refresh as a performance lever
Previous experience with AKI had shown that updated, high‑quality venue imagery directly lifts click‑through and conversion rates on Google Ads. When we spotted TORA’s visuals stagnating, and saw its conversion rate dip, we immediately alerted the client and requested a priority refresh. For AKI, fresh visuals provided in May had already driven a +24% traffic surge and +10% bookings at a 10% lower cost compared to the previous month, proving the link between creative and profit.
03
Capturing walk‑in demand through secondary conversions
Understanding that many Maltese diners prefer phone calls or email enquiries, we set up full conversion tracking for calls, emails, and event requests alongside standard bookings. This uncovered 7 emails, 6 calls, and 3 event leads from Manta alone, conversions that a booking‑only lens would have overlooked. The group’s true cost‑per‑lead dropped even further when these were included, giving a realistic picture of PPC’s total impact.
Capturing walk‑in demand through secondary conversions
Understanding that many Maltese diners prefer phone calls or email enquiries, we set up full conversion tracking for calls, emails, and event requests alongside standard bookings. This uncovered 7 emails, 6 calls, and 3 event leads from Manta alone, conversions that a booking‑only lens would have overlooked. The group’s true cost‑per‑lead dropped even further when these were included, giving a realistic picture of PPC’s total impact.
04
Lean testing and seasonal preparedness
We launched LOA with a single high‑performing campaign and resisted the urge to over complicate it until we had enough data. For Manta, we acknowledged the temporary mix of sunbed bookings and set a “season‑aware” benchmark, forecasting a natural drop outside summer. This prevented panic spending and kept expectations realistic, while ensuring brand protection campaigns were ready as soon as new assets arrived.
Lean testing and seasonal preparedness
We launched LOA with a single high‑performing campaign and resisted the urge to over complicate it until we had enough data. For Manta, we acknowledged the temporary mix of sunbed bookings and set a “season‑aware” benchmark, forecasting a natural drop outside summer. This prevented panic spending and kept expectations realistic, while ensuring brand protection campaigns were ready as soon as new assets arrived.
Results
- 541 confirmed bookings across four venues at an average cost of just €2.99 per booking, a 10x efficiency gain versus the €32 European restaurant benchmark.
- 623 total conversions (bookings, calls, emails, event enquiries) at a blended cost of €2.59, with a total Google Ads spend of only €1,616.85.
- AKI delivered 197 bookings at €3.22 each, achieving +10% bookings at −10% cost vs the previous month after fresh visuals were introduced.
- LOA surged +49% in conversions with a 32% lower cost per booking, hitting €2.39 and proving that a lean, focused campaign can punch far above its weight.
- Manta captured 78 bookings at just €0.99 each, an exceptionally low cost, plus 12 additional secondary conversions (calls, emails, events) that would have been invisible without proper tracking.
- 62,068 impressions and 8,983 users brought into the venues’ websites, building a strong remarketing base for future campaigns.
Key Takeaways
- Venue‑fluid budgets beat fixed allocations: letting underperformers feed top performers kept the whole portfolio at a sub‑€3 average booking cost, far below industry norms.
- Creative is a conversion asset, not a background detail: AKI’s visual refresh delivered double‑digit improvements; TORA’s stagnation became an early warning system for future campaigns.
- In walk‑in cultures, secondary conversions are not “secondary”: Capturing calls, emails and event requests added a layer of demand that a booking‑only metric would have missed, revealing the true ROI of the campaigns.
- Start small and let the data scale you: LOA’s one‑campaign success and Manta’s lean spend showed that a disciplined, data‑first approach can outperform a spray‑and‑pray strategy, even with a fraction of the budget.