Hopper built a trend-responsive content machine that could go from concept to live ad in days.
The results were mindblowing. $850M revenue in 2024, $7.5B in bookings, and 35M users.
But here's the part most people miss: Hopper didn't win by having the biggest ad budget. They won by moving faster than everyone else and creating content that didn't feel like ads at all.
The Problem: Ad Fatigue Was Killing Performance
TikTok's algorithm is brutal. Post the same ad creative too many times, and your CPA (cost per acquisition) skyrockets as users tune out your content.
Hopper faced a critical challenge: how do you scale TikTok ads without burning through your budget on fatigued creative?
Their competitors were stuck in traditional ad production cycles; weeks to conceptualize, shoot, edit, and launch. By the time their ads went live, trends had already moved on.
They needed something different: a scalable content creation process that could tap into trends while they were still hot.
The Solution: Partner with Agencies That Move at TikTok Speed
Hopper partnered with two specialized agencies that understood the assignment: Airtraffic and InBeat.
These weren't traditional ad agencies pumping out polished 30-second spots. They were trend-responsive content studios that could:
- Monitor TikTok and YouTube for emerging viral trends
- Cast creators within hours
- Film and edit travel-themed UGC ads
- Deliver resized video ads across multiple formats
- Do all of this within a short window to capitalize on trends before they died
Airtraffic alone wrote, filmed, and edited hundreds of travel-themed UGC ads for Hopper's Flight, Hotel, and Rental Car campaigns.
The key insight? Trends have a shelf life measured in days, not weeks. The faster you can produce content that rides a trend, the more value you extract before everyone else copies it.
The Format: UGC Ads That Don't Look Like Ads
Hopper's creative strategy was simple: make ads that feel native to TikTok, not like interruptions.
Their UGC ads featured:
- Real travelers (or creators who looked like real travelers) discovering flight deals
- Authentic reactions to price predictions and savings
- Screen recordings showing the app's interface in action
- Trend integration that made the content feel current and relatable
These weren't polished tourism board commercials. They were relatable, and designed to blend seamlessly into users' feeds.
The Scalable Creator Network: Always Fresh Creative
The genius of Hopper's approach was building a scalable pipeline of creators who could produce high-performing content on demand.
By working with agencies that maintained relationships with top-performing creators, Hopper could:
- Launch multiple creative variations simultaneously
- Test different hooks, angles, and CTAs
- Rotate out fatigued content before CPAs spiked
- Keep their ad accounts fresh with new faces and formats
This creator network became their competitive moat. While competitors were locked into slow production cycles with in-house teams or traditional agencies, Hopper could launch 10 new ads in the time it took others to launch one.
The Data Advantage: Why Hopper's Product Made This Strategy Work
But here's the part that often gets overlooked: Hopper's content strategy worked because their product was genuinely differentiated.
They built a data-driven price prediction engine that could forecast airfare with 95% accuracy up to a year in advance.
The app analyzed:
- 8 billion airfare price quotes daily
- Trillions of historical prices going back years
- Real-time consumer demand signals
- Flight availability and pricing volatility
This meant users could set up a "trip watch" and get notified when prices were predicted to hit their lowest point—saving an average of $150 per year on air travel.
This product differentiation gave their content actual substance. They weren't selling generic "book flights here" ads. They were selling a tool that genuinely helped people save money through smarter booking timing.
When your UGC creators have a real value prop to communicate, the content writes itself.
The company went from 40 employees to over 120, raised $82M CAD ($61M USD), and positioned itself to become "the No. 1 travel app in every country across the globe."