CPM down 43%for frames soldonly at the optician.
Bergman Eyewear has designed prescription frames and sunglasses for over 16 years. It has no online store and sells through partner opticians across Poland. The goal was to be the first brand women 30+ think of when they need new glasses. Below is how the campaign ran when no sale could ever appear in the ad account.
- -43%
- cost per thousand impressions (CPM)
- -41%
- cost per click (CPC)
- +747%
- more clicks, period not stated
- 11%
- of women 30+ in Poland reached, over 1.3M people
Glasses bought at a counter, ads judged far away from it.
No sale ever reached the dashboard
After seeing an ad, a buyer had to find a partner optician on her own. The purchase path got longer and harder to predict, and the client saw indirect signs of recognition in place of sales figures. Every month of spend had to be defended without the one number a finance team trusts.
An audience that tunes out performance ads
Women aged 30+ number around 12.5 million in Poland. The study describes them as resistant to the typical performance look and expecting consistent, high-quality communication that suits an aspirational product such as premium eyewear.
A feed crowded with fashion
On Instagram the brand competed for attention with premium fashion and lifestyle content. Looking good was the minimum. The material had to be remembered months later, at the moment she decides to buy new glasses.
Sales campaigns were off the table. Creators carried the message.
Reach and awareness campaigns only
No sales campaigns ran, because bergman.pl has no store to send anyone to. The account was steered on traffic and the cost of reaching people, the only signals it could see.
3-4 creators a month, briefed from the account side
Each month a small group of creators who fit the brand was brought in. The agency wrote the briefs and coordinated production, so the content came back usable as ads and in the same aesthetic as the brand creatives.
Creator content run as paid ads through whitelisting
The creators’ material went into paid campaigns from their own profiles. The study says the result read more like a recommendation than an advertisement, which matters for an audience that scrolls past anything shaped like a sales pitch.
Formats matched to the goal until the last month
Formats kept being tuned to the communication goal while the client’s spend went down. The best cost-effectiveness came in January 2024, the same month the collaboration ended and Bergman moved the work to its own new marketing team.
Clicks and impressions got cheaper. Sales stayed out of sight.
The study gives two cost figures, and neither comes with a period. Both measure the price of attention and both went down, so they can share one scale.
Both costs fell by almost the same margin, so the share of people clicking barely moved and the saving came from cheaper impressions. The study’s own title swaps the two figures and puts 43% on the click. Its results section and its summary strip put 43% on impressions, and this page follows them. Clicks up 747% and impressions up 778% stay off the chart. At these lower prices, growth that size would need a budget several times larger, while the study says spend on the client’s side was falling. The comparison windows behind those two figures are not published, so they sit apart from the cost figures.
Pick the proof before you pay for the first impression.
Write down what will count as proof before your first ad goes live, if your product sells in a shop you do not own. This campaign ended with cheaper impressions and a reach figure, and neither tells you whether one extra pair of frames left an optician’s counter. The study does not claim it did. The sale happened where no ad account could see it.
On your account, that means agreeing on a signal you can read before launch. Partner sales in regions with heavy spend compared with regions left dark give you an incrementality read without an online checkout. A code the creator hands to her followers gives you a smaller, noisier one. Choose the signal your retail partners will share with you, and get their agreement in writing before the budget moves.
This work was delivered by MTA Group, which Zero Fluff Digital is part of, by the same specialists who would work on your account. Every figure here comes from the case study MTA published, republished here with their consent. The reviews behind it are public and verified on Clutch, where clients rate the work rather than the agency describing itself.
Your buyers pay at a counter. Your ad account should still see it.
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