Three Open Dojo Days. Three languages. Fourteen regions. Registrations rose from 400 to 695. The key takeaway: the club drives success, not the advert.
Challenge
The SJV wants to boost the profile of judo and ju-jitsu to recruit new club members. This is the goal of the Open Dojo Days. For one week, dojos across Switzerland open their doors for free trial sessions.
The offer is local, but the campaign is national. It must direct interested people in 14 regions and three languages to the right club. It also needs to reduce the cost per registration with each edition, even though Meta advertising costs rise every year.
Solution
The Setup
Since the first edition in 2024, Mike Schwede GmbH has managed the media strategy and ad management. Worx Design delivers strategy and creation. The SJV recruits the clubs and provides them with posters, flyers, and digital assets.
The campaign runs on Meta, Google Search, YouTube, and programmatic networks. Each of the 14 SJV regions gets its own ads. Geneva residents see Geneva dojos. Bookings are handled via the anny platform, filterable by region, sport, and age.
Three Editions
2024: Around 400 registrations, German and French
2025: 600 registrations, Italian added for the first time
2026: 695 registrations from 98 dojos, dedicated campaigns for Ticino and Ju-Jitsu
Key Takeaways from Three Years
1. The club makes the difference, not the ad.
The click-through rate was between 1.0% and 1.2% in all 14 regions. The differences happen after the click. Ticino had 126 registrations with seven active clubs, half directly through the clubs. Eastern Switzerland had twelve clubs but half as many registrations. Five clubs delivered 30% of all registrations. More media spend does not compensate for inactive clubs.
2. Landing pages, registration, and tracking are critical.
Every step between the ad and the booking costs registrations. Without proper measurement, optimisation is blind. In 2024, the pixel captured only a fraction of the leads. Since then, we have improved the booking flow, landing page UX, and conversion tracking every year.
3. Lead Ads outperform the website funnel.
With Lead Ads, users fill out the form directly within Facebook or Instagram. No page changes, no drop-offs. A booking this way cost about half as much as one via the website.
4. Conversion from day one.
In 2024, we focused on branding before conversions, including digital billboards with QR codes. 408,500 impressions yielded 4 scans. Regions with billboards did not get more registrations. Similarly, the initial awareness phase in 2026 delivered almost no bookings. Today, algorithms find the right people without a warm-up phase.
5. Adults and Ju-Jitsu need a dedicated campaign.
A quarter of the registrations came from adults. For them, Ju-Jitsu was clearly ahead of Judo. In 2026, the separate Ju-Jitsu campaign was the most cost-effective and had the highest conversion rate.
6. Authenticity beats high production value.
The best-performing individual ads were simple regional lead forms. The strongest video was a testimonial from a mother. Real parents and children convince more than polished brand films.
Area:
Marketing/Communications
Technologies:
Digital marketing
Partner:
Worx Design
Outcomes
695 trial bookings in 2026, up 74% since the first edition
98 dojos across 14 regions, in three languages
Lead Ads halved the cost per booking compared to website conversions
10.6m impressions across four channels