Solved: Ad Account Structure for Geneva (Step-by-Step Fix)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some of my thoughts on ad account structure. It’s a question that comes up a lot, and tbh most of the advice out there is either too generic or focuses on the wrong things. People get obsessed with campaign naming conventions and forget what actually drives results.

You mentioned struggling with a structure specifically for Geneva, which is understandable, but I'm going to suggest we reframe that a bit. The fundamental principles of a powerful account structure don't really change whether you're in Geneva, London, or New York, because they’re based on human psychology, not geography. What changes is your targeting, your messaging, and your understanding of the local customer's specific problems. Get that right, and the structure almost builds itself. Let's get into it.

We'll need to look at the "Geneva Fallacy" first...

I see this a lot. A business owner or marketer thinks, "My customers are in Geneva, so I need a 'Geneva' ad strategy." It feels logical, but it's a trap. It leads you down a path of looking for some secret local tactic when the real gold is in universal marketing principles applied with local intelligence.

Think about it. Does a finance director in Plainpalais have a fundamentally different decision-making process than one in Zurich? Not really. They both experience professional pain points, they both search for solutions when that pain becomes unbearable, and they both need to trust a provider before they buy. The core journey is the same.

Your account structure shouldn't be based on geography. It should be based on your sales funnel. It should mirror the journey a complete stranger takes to becoming a loyal customer. We call these stages Top of Funnel (ToFu), Middle of Funnel (MoFu), and Bottom of Funnel (BoFu). Your campaigns should be neatly organised into these three buckets.

• ToFu (Top of Funnel): This is where you talk to people who have never heard of you. These are your cold audiences. The goal here isn't to make a hard sale, it's to make them aware that you understand a problem they have.
• MoFu (Middle of Funnel): This is for people who've shown some interest. They've visited your website, watched a video, or engaged with a post. They know who you are. The goal is to build trust and demonstrate your expertise.
• BoFu (Bottom of Funnel): These are your hottest prospects. They've added something to their cart, visited your pricing page, or started a checkout. They're on the verge of buying. The goal is to get them over the finish line.

This funnel-based approach is universal. It works because it aligns with how people actually buy things. The "Geneva" part comes in when you decide who to put into the top of this funnel. That’s a targeting question, not a structural one. You layer your Geneva (or Canton of Vaud, or specific postcodes) targeting on top of this solid foundation. Trying to build the foundation around the location is like building a house starting with the wallpaper. It just doesn't work and you'll waste a tone of money.

I'd say you need to define your customer's nightmare, not their demographic...

This is probably the single biggest piece of advice I can give you, and it has a much bigger impact on your ad spend efficiency than any campaign naming convention. Most businesses define their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) with sterile demographics. For a B2B company in Geneva, this might look like:

"Our ICP is a C-level executive, aged 40-55, working in the financial services sector in Geneva, with a company size of 50-200 employees."

This tells you absolutely nothing useful for writing ads that convert. It's a description of a person, not a problem state. It leads to generic ads that say things like "Efficient financial solutions for your business" which get completely ignored because they speak to no one.

A powerful ICP is built on pain. It’s a nightmare. It’s the specific, urgent, expensive, career-threatening problem that keeps your ideal customer awake at night. You need to become an expert in their professional hell. For that same financial services company, a pain-based ICP sounds like this:

"Our ICP is a Head of Compliance at a mid-sized private bank who is terrified of the upcoming FINMA audit. They know their team's manual reporting process is riddled with errors and they have nightmares about a critical mistake leading to a multi-million franc fine and reputational damage for the bank, and potentially their job."

See the difference? Now you have everything you need. You know their fears (fines, job loss), their frustrations (manual processes, errors), and their desires (security, confidence, a smooth audit). Your ads can now speak directly to that nightmare. You aren't selling "financial software"; you're selling "FINMA-proof peace of mind."

This process of defining your customer by their pain is the absolute foundation. Before you spend another franc on ads, you need to do this work. Forget personas. Map out the nightmare.

You probably should structure your account around the funnel...

Okay, with the ICP nightmare defined, we can now build the actual account structure around the ToFu, MoFu, BoFu framework. This provides clarity and allows you to control your budget and messaging at each stage of the customer journey. This is how we structure accounts for clients, from B2B SaaS to eCommerce, and it works.

Here’s a breakdown for a platform like Meta (Facebook/Instagram), but the logic applies to Google, LinkedIn, etc.

Stage 1: ToFu (Top of Funnel) - Prospecting Campaigns

Goal: Introduce your brand to new, relevant people who have never heard of you. You are fishing in a big sea for people who resonate with the 'nightmare' you solve.

Campaign Objective: Don't use "Reach" or "Brand Awareness." This is a classic mistake. You're telling the algorithm to find the cheapest people to show ads to, who are almost certainly not buyers. Always, always optimise for a conversion event, even at the top of the funnel. This could be a "Lead," "View Content," or even a "Purchase" objective. You're training the pixel from day one to find people who take action.

Audiences to Test:

• Detailed Targeting: This is your starting point. Based on your pain-based ICP, find interests, behaviours, and job titles that align. If you sell project management software to marketing agencies, you’d target interests like "Asana," "Trello," people with job titles like "Marketing Manager," or who follow industry leaders like "HubSpot." Keep your ad sets thematically grouped.
• Lookalike Audiences: Once you have data, this becomes your most powerful tool. But you need to be strategic. Start with a lookalike of your highest-value audience. A 1% Lookalike of your "Past Purchasers" list is infinitely more valuable than a 5% Lookalike of "All Website Visitors." Prioritise lookalikes in this order: past customers -> initiated checkouts -> add to carts -> high-quality leads -> website visitors.

Structure:

• Campaign: 1x ToFu Prospecting Campaign (e.g., "CH - Prospecting - Conversions")
• Ad Sets: Create separate ad sets for each audience you want to test. For example:
  • Ad Set 1: Lookalike (1%) - Purchasers
  • Ad Set 2: Interests - Competitor Software (e.g., Asana, Monday.com)
  • Ad Set 3: Interests - Industry Publications & Tools (e.g., HubSpot, MarketingProfs)
• Ads: Run 3-5 different ads within each ad set. Test different angles of the "nightmare." Test different formats (image, video, carousel).

For one B2B software client, we focused our Meta Ads on highly relevant audiences instead of broad interests. This single change allowed us to generate 4,622 new registrations at an incredibly low cost of just $2.38 per registration, proving that quality targeting at the top of the funnel is what truly drives efficient results.

Stage 2: MoFu (Middle of Funnel) - Retargeting Warm Audiences

Goal: Nurture the people who have shown interest but haven't converted yet. You need to build trust and handle their objections.

Campaign Objective: Again, "Conversions" or "Sales." You want them to take the next step.

Audiences to Target:

• Website Visitors: People who've visited your site in the last 30-90 days (but haven't purchased).
• Video Viewers: People who've watched a significant portion (e.g., 50% or more) of your video ads. This is a highly engaged audience.
• Social Engagers: People who've liked, commented, or saved your posts on Facebook or Instagram.

Structure:

• Campaign: 1x MoFu Retargeting Campaign (e.g., "CH - Retargeting MoFu - Conversions")
• Ad Sets: Segment your audience by their level of intent or the time since their last visit.
  • Ad Set 1: Website Visitors (Last 30 Days) - Exclude Purchasers & Cart Abandoners
  • Ad Set 2: Video Viewers (50%+, Last 90 Days) - Exclude Purchasers & Cart Abandoners
• Ads: Your messaging here needs to be different. Don't just show them the same ad. Show them a customer testimonial, a case study, or an article that addresses a common objection. You're building your case.

Stage 3: BoFu (Bottom of Funnel) - Closing the Deal

Goal: Convert your hottest prospects who are on the brink of buying.

Campaign Objective: "Conversions" or "Catalog Sales." No exceptions.

Audiences to Target:

• Added to Cart / Initiated Checkout: People who've abandoned their cart in the last 7-14 days. This is your lowest-hanging fruit.
• Viewed Product / Pricing Page: People who have shown very high intent but didn't add to cart.

Structure:

• Campaign: 1x BoFu Retargeting Campaign (e.g., "CH - Retargeting BoFu - Conversions")
• Ad Sets:
  • Ad Set 1: Cart Abandoners (Last 7 Days)
• Ads: Be direct. Remind them what they left behind. Maybe offer a small incentive like free shipping to nudge them over the line. Use scarcity ("Limited stock") or urgency ("Offer ends soon") if it's genuine. For eCommerce, Dynamic Product Ads are a must here.

This three-campaign structure keeps everything clean. It allows you to allocate budget intelligently, sending most of it to ToFu to feed the funnel, while ensuring you have enough for MoFu and BoFu to convert the interest you generate. It prevents audience overlap and lets you tailor your message perfectly to where the customer is in their journey. This is the 'best practice' that actually matters.

You'll need the math that unlocks growth...

One of the biggest reasons people feel like they're "wasting ad spend" is because they have no idea what they can actually afford to pay for a customer. They chase a low Cost Per Lead (CPL) without knowing if a £10 lead is good or a £100 lead is a bargain. This is where calculating your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) becomes non-negotiable.

LTV tells you the total profit you can expect to make from a single customer over the entire course of your relationship. Once you know this number, everything else falls into place. The formula is simpler than it looks:

LTV = (Average Revenue Per Account Per Month * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

Let's break it down:

• Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What's an average customer worth to you each month? Let's say it's 500 CHF.
• Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue after costs of goods/service? Let's say it's 75%.
• Monthly Churn Rate %: What percentage of customers do you lose each month? Let's say 5% of your customers cancel.

The calculation would be:

LTV = (500 CHF * 0.75) / 0.05

LTV = 375 / 0.05 = 7,500 CHF

So, in this example, each customer you acquire is worth 7,500 CHF in gross margin to your business. This is your north star. Now, we can work backwards to figure out what you can afford to spend. A healthy business model often aims for a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. This means you can afford to spend up to 7,500 / 3 = 2,500 CHF to acquire a new customer and still have a very profitable business.

Suddenly, that 200 CHF lead from LinkedIn doesn't seem so expensive, does it? If your sales team closes 1 in 10 of those leads, your CAC is 2,000 CHF, which is well within your profitable range. This math frees you from the tyranny of cheap leads and allows you to invest confidently in acquiring high-quality customers.

Use the calculator below to figure out your own LTV. Play with the numbers. This is the most important financial metric for your advertising.

And finally, your offer is probably broken...

I have to be brutally honest here. After auditing hundreds of ad accounts, I can tell you that the number one reason campaigns fail is not the bidding strategy, the targeting, or the account structure. It's the offer. A great structure cannot save a bad offer.

The most common failure point in B2B advertising is the "Request a Demo" or "Contact Us" button. It's an incredibly arrogant Call to Action. It assumes your prospect, a busy decision-maker, is excited to schedule a meeting to be sold to. It's high-friction and offers zero immediate value. It positions you as just another commodity vendor.

Your offer's only job is to provide a moment of undeniable value—an "aha!" moment that makes the prospect sell themselves on your solution. You must solve a small, real problem for free to earn the right to solve their whole problem for money.

What does a good offer look like?

• For SaaS Companies: The gold standard is a free trial (no credit card required) or a freemium plan. Let them use the product. Let them feel the transformation. I worked on a campaign for a B2B SaaS company that generated 1,535 trials purely through Meta ads because they had a seamless, value-packed free trial. The product did the selling for them.
• For Service Businesses: You need to "productise" your expertise. Don't offer a "free consultation." Offer something tangible. A free, automated website SEO audit. A 15-minute 'Data Health Check' that flags issues in their database. For us, its a free 20-minute strategy session where we audit failing ad campaigns. We provide real value, for free, upfront.
• For eCommerce: The offer is more straightforward but still needs thought. It could be a compelling discount for first-time buyers, free shipping, or a bundle deal. We worked with a cleaning products company and saw a 633% return by focusing our ads on a powerful introductory offer bundle.

Fix your offer before you fix your campaigns. Make it so good, so valuable, and so low-risk that your ideal customer would feel silly saying no. A great offer makes your ads work ten times harder.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

So, to bring this all together, here is an actionable plan. This isn't just a set of instructions; it's a strategic framework for thinking about your ad accounts. Stop worrying about Geneva-specific tactics and start implementing a customer-centric, funnel-based structure. This is what will stop you from wasting ad spend and start driving predictable growth.

And once you're running, your focus should shift to Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). This is the ultimate measure of efficiency. Are you making more money than you're spending? The calculator below will help you keep track.

I know this is a lot to take in. It's a fundamental shift from tweaking settings to thinking like a strategist. Building this kind of structure, defining your ICP's nightmare, crafting irresistible offers, and continuously optimising based on the data takes time and expertise. It's not something you can just set and forget.

While this guide provides the blueprint, the execution can be complex. Consistently finding winning audiences and creating ads that resonate requires constant testing and deep experience. Many businesses find that partnering with an expert who lives and breathes this stuff allows them to get results faster and avoid costly mistakes along the way.

If you'd like to chat through your specific situation and see how these principles could be applied to your business in more detail, we offer a completely free, no-obligation 20-minute strategy session where we can review your current setup and provide some actionable advice.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh