A consumer membership brand
Cut paid CAC by 67% by fixing the conversion rate, not chasing CPL.
+120%
Paid click-to-lead conversion rate, trough to recovery
−67%
Tracked paid CAC, $166 to $55
+236%
Weekly purchases attributed to paid
The Result
Paid CAC, monthly trendline across continued engagement
From the brand's scorecard. Ad spend over total paid purchases, nine-month window later in the engagement.
What was broken
A backend reindex six months prior had quietly broken the destination, dropping the paid click-to-lead rate from 65% to 18%. The prior agency had kept optimizing for CPL on top of a funnel that no longer converted, which sent the algorithm chasing cheaper clicks into a leakier and leakier path.
What we did
Diagnosed the break.
Walked twelve months of daily data backwards to the inflection point. Single week. A backend reindex Meta had quietly deprioritized.
Optimized for Conversion Rate, not CPL.
Reset the goal so the algorithm was paid for finding buyers, not the cheapest clicks. Higher CPL in the short term was the price of fresh buyer signal.
Fixed the funnel.
Cut checkout load times and simplified the path to purchase, so the opt-ins the algorithm started finding could actually complete.
Implemented the Creative Engine.
Fresh creative every three to four days. Broad audience reorganization, casting the widest net the budget would carry.
Sharpened the message.
Refocused all ad copy on the single feature customers actually bought for, then tested sub-features and emotional angles underneath it.
The Lever
Paid click-to-lead conversion rate
Three months before engagement and three months into the work. The metric that moved first when the optimization goal was reset.
The Proof
Paid cost per lead, same window
CPL collapsed because the rate recovered. It is the byproduct, not the lever.
Paid Snapshot, initial recovery
Same audience, same product, same offer. Different lever.
Where they started
Where we took it