Team KF.
An acquisition system for people afraid to walk in.
Team KF is a Dublin martial arts gym with world-class coaching and a genuinely welcoming community — but a conversion path that hadn't been built for the person most likely to hesitate at the door. This case study is a strategic reconstruction: the research is real, the system is designed to be deployed, but the campaign itself was not run in market.
Who Team KF are.
Team KF is a Swords, Dublin-based martial arts gym founded by Irish MMA pioneers Tom King and Chris Fields. Operating since 2016, it positions itself around quality coaching, dynamic training programmes and a genuinely competitive pedigree — with teamwork and sportsmanship as its core values.
The core brand equity lies in its lineage. Founded by Irish MMA pioneers, Team KF leverages authentic combat-sport success to sell everyday fitness and self-defence — bridging the gap between casual enthusiasts and world-class athletes.
Digital presence. A Wix-built site, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. The website is fairly minimal — informational, not conversion-focused. Facebook and Instagram appear to do more acquisition work than the site itself.
- Chris FieldsFormer Cage Warriors Middleweight World Champion
- Tom King3rd-degree BJJ black belt · 4× European medalist
- Aisling DalyIreland's first female UFC fighter & BJJ black belt
- Cathal PendredFormer Cage Warriors Champion
Elite coaching, hesitant customers.
Potential beginners were interested in martial arts, but many never took the first step. Fear of intimidation, uncertainty and misconceptions surrounding combat sports created a psychological barrier the existing website simply wasn't designed to overcome.
The site provided information but not conversion. There was no dedicated beginner landing page, no reviews on-site, no frictionless booking. The commercial problem wasn't awareness. It was converting hesitant interest into action.
"How do we reduce a nervous beginner's anxiety enough that they book a free trial — and turn that trial into a paying member?"
Before writing a single ad.
Every recommendation in this campaign traces back to something a real customer actually said. Research covered Google reviews, Facebook reviews, Reddit threads, competitor gyms and keyword demand across Dublin.
Recurring themes: welcoming, elite coaching, no ego, family atmosphere, community.
Strong emotional language around belonging and long-term membership.
Beginner fears: getting hurt, being judged, ego-driven gyms, walking in alone.
Most competitors sell classes; few sell the emotional transformation beginners want.
"I felt welcome from day one. No egos."
"More than just a place to train."
"If you're thinking about trying MMA — this is the place to start."
What they were really buying.
- Fear of looking stupid in front of experienced fighters
- Fear of getting hurt
- Fear of slowing everyone else down
- Fear of ego-driven, aggressive fight gyms
- Being too unfit, too old, or too out of shape
- Confidence in themselves — on and off the mat
- Belonging to a community that keeps them coming back
- Fitness, but with a purpose
- Learning practical self-defence
- Access to elite coaching and real transformation
People weren't buying martial arts.
They were buying what martial arts made them feel.
The strategy therefore shifted from selling classes to selling emotional transformation. Every downstream decision — keywords, ad copy, landing page, offer — was designed around this single insight.
Architecture built from research.
- Goal
- Leads
- Network
- Search only
- Location
- 15km · Swords
- Language
- English
- Budget
- €20/day
- Bidding
- Max Conversions
Combat sports search demand is finite. A modest daily budget captures high-intent searches efficiently, with room to scale once CPA is proven.
Every headline has a job.
15 headlines split across four psychological roles, each mapped back to research. None are filler.
Nervous about starting? Everyone begins somewhere. Join friendly beginner classes and book your free trial today.
Transform your fitness, gain confidence and learn self-defence from elite coaches, all at your own pace.
Train alongside other beginners in a supportive community — no experience needed.
Book your free trial today and discover why members describe Team KF as family.
Purpose-built for the hesitant beginner.
Team KF's existing site provided information but wasn't structured to convert. This landing page was designed against a single objective: reduce anxiety enough that a nervous beginner books a free trial.
Hero copy leads with the emotional barrier — not the offer. Trust is stacked early. Objections are handled before they surface. Every scroll depth exists for a reason.
View live landing page
Frames the emotional barrier before the offer
Coaches, reviews, community — front-loaded
Age, fitness, safety, cost — all answered
Multiple frictionless entry points
Every KPI has a reason.
Performance marketing isn't measuring conversions. It's understanding what the numbers imply — and what action they should trigger.
The only metric that maps to revenue.
Signals ad relevance and headline resonance.
Acquisition must remain profitable at scale.
Measures how well the page converts qualified traffic.
Rewards relevant ads with lower CPCs.
Ensures we're not leaving demand on the table.
Campaigns are managed, not launched.
- Search term reports
- Negative keyword expansion
- A/B testing headlines
- Device performance
- Geo bid adjustments
- Ad schedule optimisation
- Landing page experiments
- Quality Score improvements
- Consumer research
- Psychological positioning
- Google Ads strategy
- Conversion optimisation
- Landing page design
- Performance measurement
- Commercial thinking
This case study presents a fully designed acquisition system based on real consumer research and competitive analysis. The strategy, campaign architecture, landing page and measurement framework were built as a portfolio piece and were not deployed in market. All projected performance figures are illustrative targets, not historical results.
This project wasn't about creating adverts.
It was about designing an acquisition system capable of turning hesitant prospects into paying customers.