Why Mountain Imagery Drives Better Travel Ad Performance

As travelers plot their summer getaways, advertisers have a fresh opportunity to capture their audience’s attention and inspire action. But when it comes to choosing the perfect imagery, what works best — beach scenes, city skylines, or mountain landscapes?

New data from Smartly reveals why travel marketers should look to the mountains — literally — to drive conversions this season.

Mountains Outperform, Despite Less Spend

Marketers tend to gravitate toward warm beaches or buzzing cityscapes, and their ad spend reflects it. In our study, mountain imagery accounted for just 20.5% of total ad spend across five major travel advertisers. Yet, these underutilized visuals consistently outperformed in terms of cost per acquisition (CPA).

Mountains ranked as the most efficient imagery type for CPA across nearly every advertiser we analyzed, beating out both city and beach visuals.

Performance Highlights:

• CPA Efficiency: Mountain images delivered the lowest cost per acquisition.
• CTR (Engagement): City and beach visuals drove more clicks, but didn’t convert as efficiently.
• Cost of Conversion: Mountains outpaced both city and beach scenes on conversion value.

Why It Works: Balancing Awareness and Conversion

So what does this mean for your next campaign?

While beach and city scenes remain effective at driving clicks and top-of-funnel awareness, mountain imagery is the hidden gem when it comes to bottom-line performance. For advertisers focused on ROI and conversions, mountains are a strategic visual choice, and they’re not yet oversaturated.

The takeaway: use mountains to convert, and beaches or cities to engage. A balanced approach can help you build the funnel from both ends.

Behind the Data

This research was powered by Smartly’s AI-driven creative analysis platform, which categorized 8,578 Meta ads from five travel advertisers, including transport, accommodation, and experience brands. The data covered 2.98 billion impressions served across North America and Europe between January 1 and February 29, 2024.

We analyzed three creative categories (beach, mountain, city), normalizing results to avoid bias and excluding any ads with low classification confidence to ensure accuracy.

Ready to Elevate Your Travel Strategy?

Want to make the most of your ad spend this season? Smartly can help you build a creative strategy that blends performance and engagement, combining automation, insights, and personalization across every channel.

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