Last updated:
Aug 21, 2025
Much Better Adventures is an online platform connecting local, independent hosts with adventure travellers from around the world - and when questionable Meta performance threatened conversions, they chose Lunio to filter out low-quality traffic, protect budget efficiency, and significantly improve paid media performance.
Unlike traditional travel operators, Much Better Adventures don’t run tours themselves. Instead, they curate a handpicked portfolio of trusted local partners, each offering unique itineraries rarely found anywhere else - from snowshoeing in Svalbard, to hiking across the mountains of Kyrgyzstan.
To reach their niche, high-intent audience - travellers who want meaningful, guided experiences far off the beaten path - paid media plays a vital role. And driving Much Better Adventure’s paid media efforts is Head of Performance Marketing, Dan Bloomfield.
With organic growth becoming less reliable in an AI-saturated landscape, paid media has taken on greater importance - and now faces increased scrutiny to ensure every penny spent is delivering maximum value.
And with trips often being high-ticket purchases, reducing cost per acquisition and accelerating payback from first bookings has become a top priority.
“We’ve had to lean more on paid media than we probably thought we would this year. Meta’s always been strong for us on the inspiration side - showcasing trips visually - while search and remarketing capture the high-intent bookers.”
- Dan Bloomfield, Head of Performance Marketing at Much Better Adventures
Despite solid campaign fundamentals, performance on Meta wasn’t where it should’ve been. Cost per click and cost per landing page view were low - but those clicks weren’t converting.
“We were seeing low session durations, high bounce rates, and ultimately low conversion rates. It didn’t add up. Something was off. You expect some misclicks or uninterested users - but we also suspected a fair amount of data centre traffic and bots.”
- Dan Bloomfield, Head of Performance Marketing at Much Better Adventures
With Meta commanding the lion’s share of their paid budget, maintaining high traffic quality is non-negotiable.
But when performance metrics didn’t add up, Dan and the team suspected a high amount of invalid traffic was to blame.
To get a clearer picture - and cut wasted spend on low-quality clicks - they began searching for a solution to improve traffic quality and boost overall media efficiency.
Much Better Adventures had no prior experience with invalid traffic solutions. And after conducting thorough industry research, they found that Lunio ticked all the boxes when it came to choosing the most effective IVT solution for them.
“Lunio has a great reputation in the space. Being UK-based, long-established, and focused on performance - that made Lunio the natural choice. We looked at a few other options, but Lunio stood out as the market leader for what we needed.”
- Dan Bloomfield, Head of Performance Marketing at Much Better Adventures
Much Better Adventures began working with Lunio in mid 2024, following a quick and easy onboarding process. Within weeks, Lunio was actively protecting Much Better Adventures across Google, Meta, and Bing.
With IVT automatically filtered from their campaigns, Much Better Adventures can now recover budget that would’ve otherwise been wasted - and reinvest it into higher-quality traffic to boost overall efficiency.
They also rely on Lunio’s insights to evaluate new channels. When a new DV360 campaign showed early signs of poor traffic quality, Lunio flagged the issue quickly - enabling the team to cut spend before it snowballed into larger losses.
“Being able to instantly validate the traffic quality from a new channel is really powerful. Lunio helps us make decisions much faster than we would otherwise.”
- Dan Bloomfield, Head of Performance Marketing at Much Better Adventures
They also plan to expand Lunio coverage into future channels, like affiliate and partner marketing, from day one.
To quantify Lunio’s impact, Much Better Adventures ran an A/B test across Google campaigns. The results were clear - Lunio helped Much Better Adventures achieve:
Those numbers translate into significant real-world impact:
“Based on the savings and reallocations, we’re seeing around a 5x return on our Lunio investment. It’s essentially paying for itself five times over - and that’s just on Google. I suspect the real impact is even higher.”
- Dan Bloomfield, Head of Performance Marketing at Much Better Adventures
Beyond the numbers, Dan highlighted Lunio’s account support and ongoing product development as key reasons for their satisfaction.
“Our account manager, Sofie, has been brilliant. And it’s great to see Lunio isn’t just standing still. They’re always improving the tool, and constantly adding more value.”
- Dan Bloomfield, Head of Performance Marketing at Much Better Adventures
While they haven’t yet submitted refund requests using Lunio data, the team at Much Better Adventures sees that as a likely next step - particularly with Google, where evidence-backed claims have a higher chance of success.
Lunio has become an essential part of Much Better Adventures’ paid media stack - reducing wasted spend, improving traffic quality, and helping the team optimize every campaign with confidence.
“In performance marketing, you’ve got to be accountable for every penny. Lunio gives us the insight and protection we need to make our spend go further.”
- Dan Bloomfield, Head of Performance Marketing at Much Better Adventures
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