Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some of my initial thoughts on the situation with your Meta ads. It’s a common problem, and one that trips a lot of people up when they're first seeing some success.
You’ve done the hard part – you've found an ad that gets clicks and has a high CTR. But from what you’ve said, it sounds like your optimising for the wrong thing, which is why you're seeing a huge gap between what Meta reports and what you're actually getting in the bank. We can definitely fix that.
TLDR;
- Your current tracking is misleading. You're optimising your ads for 'clickers', not actual trial users, which is why there's a huge discrepancy.
- You absolutely MUST move your `start_trial` conversion event to fire after a user successfully enters their credit card details.
- Don't fear a higher Cost Per Acquisition (CPA). A £50 CPA for a real, paying-intent user is infinitely better than a £5 CPA for someone who just fills out a form.
- Understanding your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) is the only way to know what you can truly afford to spend on ads. I've included an interactive LTV calculator below to help you figure this out.
- Once tracking is fixed, you need to restructure your targeting to focus on audiences with higher intent, moving from broad interests to lookalikes of your best customers.
The Real Problem: You're Paying Meta to Find Non-Customers
Here’s the brutally honest truth about ad platforms like Meta. The algorithm is an incredibly powerful, but also an incredibly literal, machine. Right now, you've told it: "Find me people who are most likely to click a 'Sign Up' button on my landing page." And it's doing that job perfectly. It's finding you the best button-clickers in the world.
The problem is, a "button clicker" is not a customer. It's not even close. You are paying the world's most sophisticated advertising engine to find you an audience of people who are good at filling out the first step of a form but have little to no intention of ever giving you their credit card details. This is a classic case of what we call optimising for a vanity metric. It looks good on the surface (wow, 7 trials reported!) but does nothing for your actual business growth.
When you set your campaign objective to "conversions" and point it at that initial click, you're essentially running a glorified traffic campaign. The algorithm seeks out the users who are cheapest to persuade to take that first, low-commitment action. These are often not the same people who will take the final, high-commitment action of starting a paid trial. You're fishing in the wrong pond entirely.
Let's visualise the drop-off you're experiencing. It probably looks something like this:
Your ad is delivering people to the top of this funnel. But the money is made at the bottom. You need to tell Meta to ignore the first three steps and focus only on finding people who will complete the last one.
We'll need to look at your tracking and campaign objectives...
So, to answer your question directly: yes, it would be much, much better to track the trial after the entire process is completed. It's not just an improvement; it's a fundamental change that will shift your entire strategy from guessing to knowing.
Here’s what you need to do, step-by-step:
1. Create a New Custom Conversion: In your Meta Events Manager, you need to create a new custom conversion. Let's call it "Activated Trial" or "Real_Start_Trial". The rule for this conversion should be based on the URL of the thank-you page that a user sees *only* after they have successfully submitted their credit card details and activated the trial. If you don't have a unique thank-you page URL, you'll need to get your developer to fire a custom event pixel at that specific moment. This is non-negotiable.
2. Change Your Campaign Objective: Duplicate your existing, successful ad campaign. Don't edit the original one – you want to keep that data for comparison. In the new campaign, at the ad set level, change the "Conversion Event" you're optimising for from your old, inaccurate `start_trial` event to your new, highly-valuable "Activated Trial" event.
3. Brace for Impact: When you turn this new campaign on, your reported metrics are going to look "worse" at first. Your Cost Per "Activated Trial" will be significantly higher than the cost per "button click" you were tracking before. Instead of 1-2 trials a day with Meta reporting 7, you might get 1-2 trials a day with Meta reporting... 1-2. The numbers will finally match reality. This is a good thing! You are now paying for results, not clicks. Your CPA might jump from £5 to £50, but that £50 represents a real potential customer, whereas the £5 represented noise.
I remember one B2B software client we worked with had this exact problem. They were getting hundreds of "registrations" at about $2.38 each, but none were converting into active users. We switched their tracking to a deeper event in their funnel – completing the onboarding process. The cost per result shot up, but their actual customer sign-ups tripled within a month because the ad algorithm was finally hunting for the right kind of person.
I'd say you need to understand the numbers that actually matter
The fear of a higher CPA is what holds most businesses back. The question isn't "How low can my CPA go?" but "How high a CPA can I afford to acquire a great customer?". The answer to that is your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).
Most SaaS founders I talk to don't have a proper handle on this, but it's the single most important metric for scaling with paid ads. It tells you exactly how much you can spend to get a customer and still be profitable. Without it, you're flying blind, probably turning off campaigns that are actually profitable in the long run.
The formula is pretty straightforward:
LTV = (Average Revenue Per Account * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate
Let's break that down with an example. Say your monthly pricing is high, maybe £200/month. Your gross margin is 85% (pretty standard for software). And you lose about 5% of your customers each month (your churn rate).
LTV = (£200 * 0.85) / 0.05 = £170 / 0.05 = £3,400
In this case, each customer you acquire is worth £3,400 in gross margin to your business over their lifetime. A healthy LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio is typically 3:1. This means you can afford to spend up to £1,133 (£3,400 / 3) to acquire a single customer.
Suddenly that £50 CPA for a real, activated trial doesn't seem so scary, does it? It looks like an incredible bargain. This is the maths that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth.
Here, play around with this calculator with your own numbers to see what your LTV is and what your target CAC should be. It might surprise you.
Customer Lifetime Value (LTV): £3,400
Recommended Max Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC at 3:1 ratio): £1,133
You'll need a proper audience strategy...
Once your tracking is fixed and you're optimising for real, activated trials, your entire approach to audiences needs to mature. At a £20/day budget, you can't afford to test everything, so you need to be smart and prioritize.
A lot of people just throw a few interests into an ad set and hope for the best. That's a surefire way to burn cash. You need a structured approach that moves people through a funnel and uses Meta's algorithm to your advantage. Here is how I would typically structure and prioritise audiences for a SaaS business:
SaaS Audience Prioritisation Framework
| Funnel Stage | Audience Type | Priority & Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bottom of Funnel (BoFu) - Highest Intent | Retargeting: -> Initiated Checkout but didn't complete (Last 14 days) -> Visited Pricing Page (Last 30 days) |
Priority 1. These are your hottest leads. They are one step away from converting. Hit them with ads that overcome objections, offer social proof (testimonials), or highlight a key benefit they might have missed. Small audience, but highest conversion rate. |
| Middle of Funnel (MoFu) - Engaged | Retargeting: -> All Website Visitors (Last 90 days, excluding converters) -> Engaged with Instagram/Facebook Page (Last 90 days) -> Watched 50% of your video ads (Last 90 days) |
Priority 2. These people know who you are but weren't ready to commit. Remind them of the problem your software solves. Show them different use cases or features. The goal is to bring them back to the site to reconsider. |
| Top of Funnel (ToFu) - Prospecting | Lookalike Audiences (LAL): -> 1% LAL of Activated Trial users -> 1% LAL of highest LTV customers (if you can upload a list) -> 1-3% LAL of Website Visitors |
Priority 3. This is your best tool for scaling. Once you have at least 100 "Activated Trial" conversions, create a 1% lookalike audience in your primary target country. This tells Meta to find people who share characteristics with your best users. Far more effective than guessing with interests. |
| Top of Funnel (ToFu) - Prospecting | Detailed Targeting (Interests/Behaviours): -> Interests in competitor software -> Interests in niche publications/influencers your ICP follows -> Behaviours like "Small business owners" |
Priority 4. This is where you started, and it's still useful for testing, but it should be your last resort once lookalikes are available. Focus on interests that signal a specific, urgent pain point. Don't target "Business"; target "Users of [Competitor X]" or "Followers of [Niche Industry Guru]". |
With your tiny budget, you'll want to focus your £20/day on ONE ad set in the "Top of Funnel" section to start. Once you have enough trial data, you should build a lookalike audience of those trial users – that will be your goldmine. You can then allocate a small part of your budget (maybe £5/day) to a separate retargeting campaign for your BoFu/MoFu audiences combined.
You probably should have a message they can't ignore...
Fixing your tracking and targeting is the technical part. But it won't matter if your ad creative and message are weak. Your ad needs to stop the scroll and speak directly to the painful problem your ideal customer is experiencing right now.
Too many SaaS ads talk about features. "Our platform integrates with X and has Y capability." Nobody cares. They care about their own problems. You need to sell the outcome, not the tool.
A great framework for this is the Before-After-Bridge.
Before: Describe their current world of pain. Acknowledge their frustration in vivid detail.
After: Paint a picture of the dream scenario, where that pain is gone.
Bridge: Introduce your software as the simple bridge to get them from the pain to the dream.
Let's imagine your software helps small businesses with cash flow forecasting. Your ad copy shouldn't be "Get our advanced cash flow forecasting tool." It should be:
(Before) -> Staring at your bank balance, just guessing if you can make payroll next month? Another sleepless night spent worrying about a surprise bill wiping you out.
(After) -> Imagine knowing, with certainty, exactly where your business will be in 3, 6, even 12 months. Making confident hiring decisions and spotting cash gaps before they ever become a crisis.
(Bridge) -> [Your Software Name] is the bridge. Connect your accounts in 5 minutes and get a clear, predictable view of your financial future. Start your free trial today and turn anxiety into confidence.
This kind of messaging pre-qualifies your audience. People who don't have that "sleepless night" problem will just scroll past. People who *do* have that problem will feel like you've read their mind. They are far more likely to click, and far, far more likely to actually activate a trial because you've already established that you understand their world.
I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:
This is a lot to take in, I know. It's a shift from just "running ads" to building a proper customer acquisition system. The good news is that you're already seeing signs of life with a flawed setup. Once you implement these changes, you'll be working with real data and can start to scale predictably. Here’s the action plan:
| Step | Action Required | Why It's Important |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Fix Tracking | Create a new custom conversion event (`Activated_Trial`) that fires ONLY after a user successfully enters their credit card details. | This aligns your ad optimisation with your actual business goal (getting committed users), not just clicks. |
| 2. Relaunch Campaign | Duplicate your current ad set and change the optimisation goal to your new `Activated_Trial` event. Do not edit the old one. | This tells Meta's algorithm to find people likely to complete the trial, not just start a form. You'll get fewer, but much higher quality, conversions. |
| 3. Calculate LTV | Use the calculator and your business metrics to determine your Customer Lifetime Value and your maximum affordable Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). | This gives you the financial confidence to invest in a higher (but more accurate) CPA, which is essential for scaling. |
| 4. Prioritise Audiences | Once you have 100+ `Activated_Trial` conversions, create a 1% Lookalike audience. Prioritise this over broad interest targeting. | Lookalikes of your best customers are the most powerful tool for finding new customers efficiently and will outperform interest targeting almost every time. |
| 5. Refine Messaging | Rewrite your ad copy using the "Before-After-Bridge" framework to focus on your customer's pain points and desired outcomes. | This attracts higher-quality clicks from people who genuinely have the problem your software solves, increasing your post-click conversion rate. |
As you can see, this goes beyond just flicking a few switches in Ads Manager. It's a strategic process that involves understanding your business economics, customer psychology, and the technical nuances of the ad platform. Many founders find this overwhelming to manage alongside building their actual product, which is perfectly understandable.
Getting this foundation right is often where working with an expert can make a huge difference. We've managed many SaaS campaigns, like one where we took a client from a £100 CPA down to just £7 for a medical job matching platform, or another where we generated over 5,000 software trials at $7 each. The difference was implementing a robust system like the one I've outlined above.
If you’d like to have a chat and walk through your ad account together, I'd be happy to offer you a free, no-obligation 20-minute strategy session where we can look at your specific setup and build a clear roadmap for you. It might be the most valuable 20 minutes you spend on your marketing this month.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh
