Overview
Heading into 2025, Bobby's Bike Hike was facing the same challenge confronting nearly every urban tour operator: rising paid media costs, a saturated Chicago tourism advertising landscape, and growing competition from OTAs bidding aggressively on tour-related keywords. Continuing to scale spend the same way would have meant accepting steadily declining returns. The smarter play was to use the previous year's performance data to identify exactly where every ad dollar should be deployed.
On Google Ads, the most significant change was a complete rebuild of the geo-targeting strategy. Analyzing 2024 data revealed that booking lead times were lengthening and out-of-market travelers were converting at a higher rate than local Chicago searchers -- a clear signal that the audience was planning trips earlier and that budget allocated to broader U.S. targeting would outperform hyper-local spend.
TOMIS launched a new Bike Tours – US campaign in March 2025 and shifted significant budget from local campaigns into out-of-market targeting. International advertising efforts were discontinued during the same period to concentrate spend on the highest-value U.S. travelers. The Branded search campaign was left structurally untouched -- but Meta-driven brand awareness fed it materially more demand, and the campaign began utilizing more of its existing budget cap as a result.
On Meta, the team rebuilt audiences and creative around two distinct traveler segments: out-of-market visitors planning Chicago trips, and local Chicago families looking for kids' summer programs. The youth summer camp targeting in particular became a major growth lever -- Meta turned out to be the ideal channel for reaching Chicago parents who wanted their kids outside, learning new skills, and exploring the city. Spend stayed flat year-over-year, but every dollar was deployed against sharper audiences and stronger creative than the year before.
Results
The data-driven geo-targeting strategy delivered a textbook "do more with less" outcome across both major paid channels.
On Google Ads, total spend was reduced by 19% year-over-year — yet conversion value grew 22% and ROAS saw a 51% efficiency improvement. The newly-launched Bike Tours – US campaign generated a 6.5x ROAS, essentially adding net-new revenue that didn't exist in 2024. The Food Tours – US campaign grew conversion value 106% year-over-year on the same out-of-market thesis. Branded search continued to defend the brand's most valuable demand at a 24x ROAS.
On Meta Ads, the results were even more striking. Spend stayed essentially flat year-over-year, but Meta-attributed revenue grew 119%, and Meta ROAS more than doubled, climbing from -- a 118.84% improvement. Cost per online purchase held steady, confirming the gain came from higher-value purchases rather than cheaper clicks. The youth summer camp targeting in particular drove meaningful incremental bookings from the local Chicago family audience.
The combined effect on the business was clear: with bookings up across the season -- even as total paid media spend dropped. Bobby's Bike Hike entered 2026 with a leaner, more profitable paid media engine and a foundation built for sustainable scale, not budget-driven growth.
For urban tour operators facing rising ad costs and increasingly competitive auctions, Bobby's Bike Hike Chicago is a benchmark example of how to use performance data to double down on highest-value markets -- and grow profitably without growing the budget.
