Smart Hearing
CAC cut 42% in 60 days. two markets, one system
the brand
Smart Hearing sells nearly-invisible in-ear hearing aids in the UK. Modern Hearing is the US sister brand under the same parent. the buyer is 65+, cautious, and hard to reach on paid social. they don't respond to hype, and they can tell when an ad is talking down to them.
the numbers
-42% CAC · 2.4x ROAS · two regional creative tracks (UK British + US American)
the challenge
the product is premium, the reviews are excellent, but the creative was failing on two counts. the hearing aids looked too big on screen, even though they're actually tiny in real life. and the talent didn't look like the target buyer. a 65-year-old viewer could tell instantly when the "spokesperson" was a 35-year-old with smoothed AI skin. paid spend stalled at £80k a month because every scale attempt broke the CPA.
what we did
age-accurate creative.
we built two parallel AI spokesperson pipelines. British accent, British homes, British 65+ faces for Smart Hearing. American accent, American homes, American 65+ faces for Modern Hearing. no mixing. every frame felt like it came from the viewer's neighborhood.
the insight that changed the pipeline:
pristine pronunciation read as "commercial" to an older viewer. one AI variant with a deliberate natural stumble at the 4-second mark outperformed the polished cut by 19%. we built intentional imperfection into every script after that.
what didn't work first:
real elderly UGC creators. the shoots were expensive, the output was inconsistent, and the unit economics didn't scale. we killed the UGC-first approach in week three and moved to AI spokespeople exclusively. that's when the CAC started moving.
product framing.
we solved the "too big on screen" problem with close-up macro shots, side-by-side ear comparisons, and camera angles designed to emphasize how small the device actually is. if the viewer didn't notice it instantly, the ad worked.
trust-led pacing.
cuts slowed 20%. no transitions, no music-driven edits, no flashy movement. subtitles sized for older viewers, two lines max. every creative decision was made for the 65-year-old skeptic, not the 35-year-old strategist.
structured testing.
300+ variants in 60 days across both markets. the data decided which angles held up, and we scaled the winners simultaneously in the UK and US without cross-contamination between brand accents.
the result
within 60 days, CAC dropped 42% across both markets. ROAS climbed from 1.1x to 2.4x. by month three, Smart Hearing was running £180k/month in paid without the CPA breaking, and Modern Hearing was matching the performance at similar spend in the US. the brand scaled regions without scaling costs.