Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out and sharing your campaign details. It’s good you're asking these questions now rather than later.
Honestly, getting 5 leads for €91 is a decent start, a lot of people do far worse when they first dip their toes in. But the questions you're asking—about scaling, creatives, and conversion rates—are exactly the right ones, though I think you might be asking them a bit to early. The real work isn't about tweaking the small things right now, it's about building a solid foundation so that when you *do* have enough data, you can scale confidently without setting your money on fire.
I've put together some of my thoughts for you below. It goes a bit deeper than your specific questions because, frankly, the answers to those questions depend on things you need to sort out first. We'll cover why you need to ignore your instincts to scale right now, how to figure out what a lead is *really* worth to you, and how to build a system that actually finds you profitable customers, not just cheap clicks.
TLDR;
- Stop thinking about scaling. With only 5 conversions, your data is statistically meaningless. Scaling your budget now is pure gambling. You need at least 25-50 conversions before you even consider it.
- Your €18 Cost Per Lead is irrelevant without knowing your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). We'll show you how to calculate this. An €18 CPL might be incredibly profitable or a complete waste, but you can't know without the right numbers.
- Forget your CPC. A low Cost Per Click means nothing if those clicks don't convert into paying customers. Focus on Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
- The real levers for improvement are your offer, your message, and your landing page. Before you touch targeting or budgets, you need to make sure your core message is speaking directly to the "nightmare" of your ideal customer.
- This letter includes an interactive Customer Lifetime Value Calculator to help you understand your real profit margins and a Budget Scaling Flowchart to guide your decisions once you have enough data.
We'll need to look at why your numbers don't mean anything... yet
This might sound harsh, but it’s the most important thing you need to understand right now. With only 5 conversions, you don’t have data. You have an anecdote. The Meta algorithm is smart, but it’s not a mind reader. It works by analysing patterns in the users who convert and then finding more people like them. With only five data points, it has almost nothing to work with. It's like trying to predict the Premier League winner after the first match of the season—it's just guesswork.
This is what’s known as the 'learning phase'. During this period, the algorithm is experimenting wildly, showing your ads to different pockets of people within your target audience to see what sticks. Performance will be all over the place. One day you might get two leads for €10, the next you might spend €20 and get nothing. This is completely normal. Your job during this phase is to have patience and feed the machine enough budget to gather at least 25, and ideally 50, conversions within a 7-day period. Only then does the algorithm exit the learning phase and begin to stabilise. Only then do your numbers—your CPL, your CTR, your conversion rate—start to become reliable indicators of actual performance.
So, to answer your first question directly: Should you increase your daily budget? Absolutely not. Increasing the budget now would be like throwing petrol on a fire you haven't learned to control yet. Any significant change to the budget (usually more than 20% in a day) can reset the learning phase, forcing the algorithm to start its guesswork all over again. You'd be undoing the little progress you've made. For now, your only job is to let it run and wait for more conversion data to come in. Patience is the most underrated skill in paid advertising.
Continue running. Wait for more data.
Troubleshoot ads, landing page, or targeting.
Increase budget by 15-20% every 3-4 days.
I'd say you need to know what a customer is actually worth
Your second blind spot is focusing on your Cost Per Lead (CPL). You said you’re happy with €18 per lead. My question is, why? How did you arrive at that number? Is it just a feeling, or is it based on a clear understanding of your business's economics? Because an €18 CPL could be fantastic if one in five leads becomes a €500 customer. But it’s a disaster if one in twenty leads becomes a €200 customer. Without knowing what a customer is worth over their lifetime, your CPL is a meaningless vanity metric.
To give you some perspective, we've managed campaigns for a wide range of consumer services. I remember one of our best consumer services campaigns for a home cleaning company where we achieved a cost of just £5 per lead. For other services in more competitive markets, like an HVAC company we currently work with, leads can cost around $60. Your €18 CPL falls somewhere in the middle, which highlights why knowing your own numbers—your profit per customer and your lead-to-customer conversion rate—is so critical to judging performance.
This is where we need to calculate your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). This figure tells you the total profit you can expect to make from an average customer. Once you know this, you can work backwards to determine the maximum you can afford to spend to acquire that customer (your Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC) and, from there, your maximum allowable CPL.
Let's make some assumptions for your laser therapy business:
- Average Revenue Per Customer (ARPC): Let's say a full course of treatment costs €400.
- Gross Margin %: After your time, equipment costs, rent, etc., let's say your profit margin is 70%.
- Lead-to-Customer Rate: How many leads do you need to speak to to get one paying customer? Let's assume it's 20% (1 in 5).
The math is simple:
Profit per Customer = ARPC * Gross Margin % = €400 * 0.70 = €280
A common rule of thumb is to aim for a 3:1 LTV:CAC ratio. This means you want your profit to be at least three times what you spent to acquire the customer. So:
Maximum Target CAC = Profit per Customer / 3 = €280 / 3 = ~€93
And finally, since you convert 1 in 5 leads:
Maximum Target CPL = Maximum Target CAC * Lead-to-Customer Rate = €93 * 0.20 = €18.60
In this hypothetical scenario, your current CPL of ~€18 is right on the edge of your maximum target. It's not "good," it's just "acceptable." If your lead-to-customer rate was lower, say 10% (1 in 10), your maximum target CPL would plummet to €9.30, and your current campaign would be losing you money on every new client. See how crucial these numbers are? You need to stop guessing and start calculating.
Use the calculator below to plug in your own numbers. This isn't just an exercise; it's the foundation of a predictable growth strategy.
You probably should fix your message before you fix anything else
Now, let's talk about your second question: creatives and your low CPC. You need to delete CPC from your vocabulary. It is the ultimate vanity metric. It tells you how many people clicked, not how many people were qualified or interested enough to become a lead, let alone a customer. I have seen campaigns with CPCs under €0.20 that produced zero sales, and campaigns with CPCs of €5 that generated a 10x return. Your CPC is irrelevant. Your Cost Per Lead is what matters, and even more so, your eventual Cost Per Paying Customer.
Since your ads are generating leads at a potentially acceptable cost, the last thing you should do is change them. "Refreshing creatives" is something you do when performance drops, a phenomenon known as ad fatigue. With 218 clicks, you are nowhere near ad fatigue. Don't fix what isn't broken, especially when you don't have enough data to know if it's truly working yet.
Instead of thinking about *refreshing* creatives, you should be thinking about *strengthening* your message. You aren't selling "laser therapy." Nobody wakes up in the morning wanting to buy laser therapy. You are selling a solution to a nightmare. The nightmare is the morning cough, the shortness of breath walking up stairs, the fear of a doctor's diagnosis, the social stigma, the thousands of euros literally going up in smoke every year. Your ideal customer is living in a state of pain and frustration.
Your ad's only job is to enter the conversation already happening in their head. A powerful framework for this is Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS).
- Problem: State the nightmare directly. Grab their attention with a pain they recognise instantly.
- Agitate: Pour salt on the wound. Remind them of the consequences and frustrations of not solving the problem.
- Solve: Introduce your service not as a feature ("laser therapy") but as the clear, simple bridge away from the pain.
Here’s how that might look for you:
Headline: Tired of Trying to Quit Smoking (And Failing)?
Ad Copy: "Another failed attempt with patches that itch and gums that taste awful? You know you need to quit. You feel it in your chest every morning and see it on your bank statement every month. But willpower alone isn't cutting it. Our proven, pain-free laser therapy helps eliminate cravings in just a few sessions, giving you the physical edge you need to finally break free. Stop the struggle. Find out how it works."
See the difference? We’re not talking about the technology. We're talking about their life. This is the kind of messaging that gets qualified people to click. It pre-qualifies them by speaking directly to their pain, meaning the leads you get are more likely to understand the value of what you offer and be ready to invest in a solution.
You'll need a landing page that actually converts
This brings us to your final question about improving your conversion rate. The single biggest lever you can pull here, long before you start testing a hundred different audiences, is your landing page. Your ad makes a promise, and your landing page is where you fulfil it. If there's a disconnect between the two, or if the page itself is weak, you'll pour money down the drain.
I haven't seen your page, but here are the most common mistakes I see that kill conversion rates for service businesses:
- Lack of a Single, Clear Call-to-Action (CTA): What is the ONE thing you want a visitor to do? Is it "Book a Free Consultation"? "Download a Guide to Quitting"? "Call Us Now"? Your entire page should be singularly focused on driving them to that one action. Remove distracting links, social media icons, and multiple offers.
- Weak Social Proof: People considering a health-related service are looking for trust signals. Where are your testimonials? Before-and-after stories from real clients (with their permission, of course)? Any certifications or press mentions? Video testimonials are particularily powerful. Without proof that you've helped others solve this exact problem, you're just another anonymous website asking for their money.
- Focusing on Features, Not Benefits: Your page shouldn't be a brochure for laser therapy. It should be a sales letter for a new life. Don't just say "painless procedure"; say "Quit without the painful withdrawal symptoms." Don't just say "quick sessions"; say "Get back to your day in under an hour." Translate every feature into a tangible benefit for the customer.
- An Unclear Offer: The path to becoming a customer needs to be crystal clear. The "Request a Demo" button is the classic B2B mistake, but the service equivalent is a vague "Contact Us" form. What happens when they fill it out? What is the first step? A much better offer is something that provides immediate value or lowers the barrier to entry, like a "Free 15-Minute Quit-Smoking Assessment Call." It feels less committal and more valuable to the prospect.
Fixing your landing page is the highest-leverage activity you can do. A 1% increase in your landing page conversion rate can have a bigger impact on your profitability than finding a slightly cheaper audience on Facebook. Fix the bucket before you pay to fill it with more water.
(€18 CPL / €0.42 CPC) / 5 leads * 218 clicks = 23 clicks per lead
(Assuming 1 in 5 leads convert)
This is the main advice I have for you:
To wrap this all up, your focus for the next month shouldn't be on scaling or minor tweaks. It should be on establishing a baseline of predictable performance. Below is a table outlining the exact steps I'd recommend you take, in order.
| Priority | Action | Why It Matters | Metric to Watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Immediate | Do Nothing To The Ad Account. Let the campaign run at its current €15/day budget without any changes. | You need to gather at least 25-50 conversions to exit the 'learning phase' and get statistically relevant data. Any changes will reset this process. | Number of Conversions |
| 2. This Week | Calculate Your LTV and Target CPL. Use the calculator and your real business numbers to define your key financial metrics. | This turns advertising from a guessing game into a predictable system. You'll know exactly what a lead is worth and whether your campaigns are truly profitable. | Max. Target CPL |
| 3. Next 1-2 Weeks | Overhaul Your Landing Page. Implement strong social proof, a single clear CTA, and benefit-driven copy that mirrors your ad's message. | This is your biggest lever for improving conversion rate. A better landing page makes every euro of ad spend work harder, lowering your CPL without touching the ads. | Landing Page Conversion Rate |
| 4. Once You Have 50+ Conversions | Analyse and Plan Scaling. Review your stable CPL against your target CPL. If profitable, begin increasing the budget by no more than 20% every 3 days. | This is the correct, methodical way to scale. It minimizes risk and avoids shocking the algorithm, allowing you to grow spend while maintaining profitability. | Cost Per Lead (CPL) |
As you can probably tell, running paid ads effectively is a lot more involved than just setting up a campaign and watching the clicks come in. It requires a deep understanding of business economics, customer psychology, and the technical nuances of the ad platforms. It's a full-time job to stay on top of what works.
Getting it wrong means not just wasted ad spend, but also missed opportunities and a lot of frustration. Getting it right means building a predictable, scalable engine for customer acquisition that can transform your business.
If you'd like to have a chat about how we could apply a more robust strategy to your business and take the day-to-day management off your plate, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can review your account and landing page together and give you a clear roadmap for what we'd do next. It's often the quickest way to get clarity and see what's truly possible.
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh
