Destination weddings · Case study

Love Lord Howe

153 destination-wedding leads at $3.54 a pop on a $20/day Meta spend.

Services we ran

Meta Ads Google Ads Landing page CRO

$3.54

Meta cost per lead

153

Meta leads · 6 months

$33.67

Google cost per conversion

Danielle — owner of Love Lord Howe — on Lord Howe Island

The challenge

Love Lord Howe — turning "dreaming about it" into booked destination weddings.

Love Lord Howe started in 2021 as island picnics and grew into a full destination-wedding planner and event caterer. Google Ads was already working — but only for couples ready to book immediately. The bigger audience (couples dreaming, researching, mood-boarding their destination wedding) was getting ignored. We layered Meta Ads on top to inspire the top-of-funnel, then let Google catch them when they were ready.

The story

Bottom-funnel only was too narrow. Meta built the top of the funnel.

Destination weddings aren't impulse buys. Couples spend months dreaming before booking. Love Lord Howe needed a channel that reached them in that dreaming phase.

Client background

Love Lord Howe (founder: Danielle) — destination-wedding planning, island-picnic catering, event management based on Lord Howe Island, NSW. Genuine island local with relationships across every venue, vendor and accommodation.

Problem statement

Existing Google Ads caught the couples already Googling "destination wedding Lord Howe" — a small, tail-end audience. The much bigger market of couples still browsing wedding inspo on Instagram and Facebook was going unreached.

Solution provided

Add Meta Ads to inspire early-stage couples with the island's natural beauty. Keep Google Ads dialled for the ready-to-book searchers. One optimised landing page catching both audiences. $20/day Meta, ~$20/day Google, six-month run.

Channel 1 of 2

Meta Ads performance

6 creatives. 153 leads at $3.54 each.

$500 total spend. 153 destination-wedding enquiries. 33,234 impressions. This is what a visually-rich destination product can do on Meta when the creative earns the scroll-stop.

01 · Meta ad creatives

Island imagery did the selling. Copy stayed minimal.

Six feed-ad concepts built from Danielle's real wedding and picnic footage — ceremony setups, island-picnic table settings, dramatic landscape drone shots. Core hooks: "Destination Wedding Perfection Awaits", "Unforgettable Elopements Now Available on Lord Howe Island", plus a testimonial-driven variant pulling real bride quotes. All pointed at a short enquiry form.

Love Lord Howe Meta ad — Lord Howe Island Weddings, destination wedding perfection awaits

Love Lord Howe Meta ad — testimonial creative with real bride quote about wedding ceremony and picnic lunch

Love Lord Howe Meta ad — Unforgettable Elopements Now Available on Lord Howe Island

Love Lord Howe Meta ad — island reception table setting, destination wedding perfection awaits

Love Lord Howe Meta ad — Unforgettable Weddings Now Available on Lord Howe Island collage

Love Lord Howe Meta ad — island landscape and picnic setting 4-image grid

02 · Meta Ads Manager results

The creative that kept delivering: 96 leads at $3.30.

Ad 2 (the island landscape + reception carousel) ran away with 96 leads at $3.30 CPL on $317 total spend. Ad 5 (wedding + testimonial) pulled 32 leads at $4.36. Ad 4 pulled 23 leads at $3.31. Below-average quality ranking on some creatives — but we kept them running because the CPL was holding.

Love Lord Howe Meta campaign row — RM-Leads 2025, $20/day, 153 Facebook leads, 16,356 reach, $3.54 CPL, $542 spent — Meta campaign · $20/day · 153 leads · $3.54 CPL

Love Lord Howe Meta ad breakdown — Ad 2 96 leads, Ad 5 32 leads, Ad 4 23 leads — Meta · per-ad breakdown

Channel 2 of 2

Google Ads performance

279 clicks, 18 conversions at $33.67 cost per conversion.

Google Ads caught couples already searching "lord howe island wedding" and "destination wedding packages". High-ticket booking intent, higher CPL than Meta but dramatically higher lifetime value per enquiry.

01 · Winning search terms

"Lord howe island wedding" carried it — 22 clicks, 3 conversions, $19/conv.

The branded + destination phrase did the heavy lifting. "Whitsunday island wedding packages", "moreton island wedding", "destination wedding locations" filled in the long-tail demand. Tight keyword universe, clean match-type splits between exact and phrase.

Love Lord Howe Google Ads search terms — lord howe island wedding 22 clicks 3 conversions $19.81, whitsunday island wedding packages 3 conversions $1.59 — Google Ads · search term detail

02 · Google Ads dashboard

Feb 2025: 279 clicks, 18 conversions, $606 spend.

Steady month-over-month. The tight campaign structure means conversions hit even on quiet weeks. Love Lord Howe now has a reliable Google Ads account they can scale up or down seasonally.

Love Lord Howe Google Ads overview — 279 clicks, $33.67 cost per conversion, 18 conversions, $606 spend, February 2025 — Google Ads · Feb 2025 overview

The results

153 Meta + 18 Google conversions. One landing page, two funnels.

The Meta campaign was so strong it's still running on the same structure. Google Ads keeps hitting its 10+ conversions a month. Love Lord Howe now books weddings from Facebook stories 6 months before the actual wedding.

$3.54

Meta CPL

153

Meta leads

Google conversions (one month)

$500

Total Meta spend · 6 months

Landing page · You'll Love Lord Howe

Love Lord Howe landing page hero — You'll Love Lord Howe even more, aerial shot of the island — Landing page · destination wedding enquiry capture

Lessons learned

"High-ticket purchases aren't won at the bottom of the funnel. They're won where the daydreaming starts."

Couples don't decide on a destination wedding on a Saturday morning from a Google search. They decide on it from six months of Instagram posts, mood boards, and a single ad that made them stop scrolling. Meta built the top of Love Lord Howe's funnel for $3.54 a lead. Google closed the ones who got to "book now" first. Two channels, same landing page, zero wasted spend.