Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out about your campaigns. It sounds like you've hit a scaling plateau, which is a really common problem but a frustrating one. You've found something that works, but every time you try to push the spend up, the returns just drop off a cliff. It’s a classic sign that your current strategy has reached its natural limit.
I’m happy to give you some initial thoughts. The truth is, the tactics that get you to your first £10k or £20k in spend are completely different from the ones that will get you to £100k and beyond. It requires a fundamental shift in how you think about your customers, your maths, and your messaging. Let's get into it.
TLDR;
- Your obsession with maintaining a static ROAS is the very thing preventing you from scaling. Profitable growth requires a different metric.
- You need to stop guessing and calculate your true Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). This number will tell you exactly how much you can afford to spend to acquire a customer. We've included an interactive calculator for this below.
- Your ideal customer profile (ICP) is not a demographic; it's a specific, expensive, career-threatening nightmare. You need to target the pain, not the person.
- The ads and audiences that got you here won't get you there. Scaling means systematically moving from hot, high-intent audiences to colder, broader ones with messaging tailored for each.
- The most important piece of advice is to shift your focus from short-term ROAS to a long-term LTV:CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) ratio. This is the mathematical key that unlocks aggressive, intelligent scaling.
We'll need to look at the only number that truly matters for scaling
Right now, you're stuck in what I call the ROAS trap. You're trying to keep a short-term metric stable while fundamentally changing the inputs (i.e., spending more money). It’s like trying to drive faster while refusing to press harder on the accelerator. It just doesn't work.
When you increase your budget, ad platforms like Meta and Google have to find new people to show your ads to. They start with the low-hanging fruit—the people most likely to convert. But as you spend more, you exhaust that core group and start reaching people who are less aware, less motivated, and more expensive to convert. Your ROAS will inevitably drop. This is not a sign of failure; it is a mathematical certainty of scaling.
The question isn't "How do I keep my ROAS the same?" The question is "How high can my Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) go while my business remains profitable?" The answer to that lies in its counterpart: Lifetime Value (LTV).
LTV tells you the total profit you can expect to make from a single customer over the entire duration of their relationship with your business. Once you know this number, you know your 'permission to spend'. Forget ROAS for a second. The real metric for growth is the LTV to CAC ratio. A healthy B2B or SaaS business aims for a ratio of at least 3:1. This means for every £1 you spend to acquire a customer, you get £3 back in lifetime profit.
Let's calculate yours. Most businesses have no real idea what their LTV is, so they make decisions in the dark. Below is a simple calculator to give you a solid estimate.
Suddenly, that campaign with a dropping ROAS but a CAC of, say, £500, doesn't look so bad when you know each customer is worth £10,000 to you. You can afford to spend £3,333 to get them. This is the maths that unlocks aggressive scaling. Without it, you're flying blind and will always pull back on spend too early.
I'd say you need to redefine your customer from the ground up
Your plateau isn't just a maths problem; it's a targeting problem. You've likely exhausted the obvious audience. The people who were already looking for a solution like yours have been found. Scaling requires you to find people who don't even know they have a problem yet, or at least don't know a solution like yours exists.
To do this, you must stop thinking about demographics. "Companies in the finance sector with 50-200 employees" is a useless descriptor. It tells you nothing about their motivations, fears, or daily frustrations. It leads to generic ads that get ignored.
Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is not a person; it's a problem state. It's a nightmare. Your job is to become an expert in that nightmare.
- For a cybersecurity SaaS, the nightmare isn't 'needing better security'; it's the CTO waking up in a cold sweat imagining their company's name in a headline next to the words "data breach."
- For a project management tool, the nightmare isn't 'disorganised projects'; it's the Head of Operations terrified of losing a major client because of a missed deadline her team could have prevented.
Once you define the nightmare, you can find where these people congregate to talk about it. What niche podcasts do they listen to on their commute? What industry newsletters do they actually read? What influencers do they follow on LinkedIn or Twitter? What software tools do they already use and pay for (HubSpot, Salesforce, etc.)? These are your new targeting interests. You target the pain, and the right people will find you. This work is hard, which is why most people don't do it. But it's the only way to break through the plateau.
Result: Low relevance, high competition.
Result: Emotional hook identified.
Result: Specific, actionable targeting options.
Result: High-relevance ad that cuts through noise.
You probably should fix your offer before you spend another pound
Now we get to the biggest failure point I see in B2B advertising: the offer. I can almost guarantee your main call to action is something like "Request a Demo" or "Book a Call". This is one of the most arrogant offers you can make. It presumes your prospect, a busy decision-maker, has nothing better to do than schedule a meeting to be sold to. It's high-friction, low-value, and immediately positions you as a commodity.
To scale, your offer must deliver undeniable value upfront. It needs to give the prospect an "aha!" moment that makes them sell themselves on your solution. You need to stop generating "Marketing Qualified Leads" (MQLs) for a sales team to chase and start creating "Product Qualified Leads" (PQLs) who are already convinced.
- If you're a SaaS company: The gold standard is a free trial or a freemium plan. No credit card. Let them use the product and experience the transformation firsthand. The product itself becomes your best salesperson. I've worked on software campaigns where simply switching from a demo to a free trial has halved the cost per acquisition, allowing us to double the ad spend profitably. One campaign we managed for a medical job matching SaaS reduced the CPA from £100 down to just £7 by optimising the offer and funnel.
- If you're a service business: You are not exempt. Bottle your expertise into a tool or asset that provides instant value. A marketing agency could offer a free, automated SEO audit. A data analytics firm could provide a free 'Data Health Check'. For us, as an agency, it's a free 20-minute strategy session where we audit failing ad campaigns. You have to solve a small, real problem for free to earn the right to solve the whole thing.
Fixing your offer is the highest leverage activity you can do. A better offer increases your website conversion rate. A higher conversion rate means you make more money from the same amount of traffic, which directly increases your affordable CAC and allows you to bid more aggressively to reach more people. It’s a virtuous cycle.
You'll need a new messaging framework for new audiences
The ad copy and creative that worked on your initial, high-intent audience will fail miserably as you scale to colder audiences. People who are problem-aware and solution-aware respond to feature-led ads. People who are unaware they even have a problem need a completely different approach. Your message needs to create the demand, not just capture it.
Stop listing features. Instead, use proven copywriting frameworks that speak directly to the customer's "nightmare".
1. Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS):
- Problem: State the nightmare directly. "Are your cash flow projections just a shot in the dark?"
- Agitate: Pour salt in the wound. Make them feel the pain. "Are you one bad month away from a payroll crisis while your competitors are confidently raising their next round?"
- Solve: Introduce your product as the clear, obvious solution. "Get expert financial strategy for a fraction of a full-time hire. We build dashboards that turn uncertainty into predictable growth."
2. Before-After-Bridge (BAB):
- Before: Paint a picture of their current, painful reality. "Your AWS bill just arrived. It’s 30% higher than last month, and your engineers have no idea why. Another fire to put out."
- After: Describe the dream scenario, the world with your solution. "Imagine opening your cloud bill and smiling. You see where every dollar is going and waste is automatically eliminated."
- Bridge: Position your product as the bridge to get them there. "Our platform is the bridge that gets you there. Start a free trial and find your first £1,000 in savings today."
This kind of messaging shifts the focus from what your product *is* to what it *does* for the customer. It creates an emotional connection that is far more powerful than any feature list, especially for audiences who aren't actively searching for you.
A systematic approch to finding new audiences
So, you have your LTV, you know your ICP's nightmare, your offer is compelling, and your messaging is sharp. Now, where do you actually find these new people to show your ads to?
You need a structured, tiered approach to audience testing. Too many advertisers just throw a bunch of random interests into one campaign and hope for the best. That's a recipie for wasted spend. You need to think like a funnel.
Here’s how I prioritise audience testing for platforms like Meta, moving from highest intent to broadest reach. You should master each level before moving to the next.
Tier 1: Bottom-of-Funnel (BoFu) - The Warmest Audiences
These are people who already know you and have shown strong interest. Your goal here is to convert them, not make them aware. These should always be your first priority and run in their own campaign.
- Retargeting: People who have added a product to their cart, initiated checkout, or visited your pricing page in the last 14-30 days. These are your hottest leads.
- Previous Customers: Don't forget your existing customer base. Upselling or cross-selling to them is often the cheapest way to generate revenue.
Tier 2: Middle-of-Funnel (MoFu) - The Engaged
These people have interacted with your brand but haven't taken a high-intent action yet. The goal is to nurture them and move them to BoFu.
- Retargeting: All website visitors from the last 90 days (excluding the BoFu audiences).
- Video Viewers: People who have watched 50%+ of one of your video ads.
- Social Engagers: People who have liked, commented on, or shared your posts on Facebook or Instagram.
Tier 3: Top-of-Funnel (ToFu) - The Great Unknown
This is where scaling happens. These are cold audiences who have never heard of you. Your LTV calculation gives you the confidence to spend money here. You need to test relentlessly to find pockets of profitable users.
- Lookalike Audiences: These are your most powerful ToFu tool. Create lookalikes based on your best customers first. Prioritise them in this order:
- Lookalike of your highest LTV customer list.
- Lookalike of all purchasers.
- Lookalike of people who initiated checkout.
- Lookalike of people who added to cart.
- Lookalike of all website visitors.
- Detailed Targeting (Interests/Behaviours): This is where your "nightmare" research pays off. Test audiences based on the specific software, influencers, publications, and competitors your ICP follows. Group related interests into themed ad sets and test them against each other.
The key is to have separate campaigns for each funnel stage (ToFu, MoFu, BoFu). This allows you to allocate budget effectively and tailor your messaging. Your BoFu ads can be direct and offer-driven. Your ToFu ads must use the PAS or BAB frameworks to educate and create awareness. This systematic structure prevents you from showing the wrong message to the right person and is fundimental to scaling without your performance falling apart.
I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:
Scaling ad spend profitably isn't about finding a single "hack." It's about building a robust, strategic system. It involves shifting your mindset from short-term wins to long-term value, understanding your customer on a deep psychological level, and being disciplined in your testing and campaign structure. Here is the main advice I have for you:
| Area of Focus | Problem | Recommended Action | Why it Matters for Scaling |
|---|---|---|---|
| Metrics & Maths | Obsessing over short-term ROAS is preventing you from spending enough to grow. | Calculate your true LTV and start making decisions based on a 3:1 LTV:CAC ratio. | It gives you a clear ceiling for your acquisition costs, providing the confidence to spend more on colder, more expensive audiences. |
| Audience Targeting | You've likely saturated your obvious, high-intent audience. | Redefine your ICP based on their "nightmare" problems, not demographics. Find where they go for solutions (podcasts, newsletters, etc.). | This unlocks dozens of new, highly-relevant (but less obvious) targeting options that your competitors are likely ignoring. |
| The Offer | A high-friction "Request a Demo" call to action is killing your conversion rate. | Switch to a value-first offer like a no-card free trial, a freemium plan, or a free automated tool/audit. | A higher conversion rate makes every click more valuable, increasing your affordable CAC and allowing you to outbid competitors. |
| Ad Creative & Messaging | Your current ads are likely feature-focused and won't resonate with colder audiences. | Adopt copywriting frameworks like Problem-Agitate-Solve and Before-After-Bridge to create emotionally resonant ads. | This allows you to create demand instead of just capturing it, which is essential for winning over people who don't yet know they need you. |
| Campaign Structure | A disorganised "test everything" approach leads to wasted spend and unclear results. | Implement a tiered campaign structure (ToFu, MoFu, BoFu) with separate budgets and tailored messaging for each stage. | This provides a systematic, repeatable process for testing new audiences and efficiently moving them from unaware prospects to paying customers. |
This is a lot to take in, I know. But implementing even one or two of these strategic shifts can be enough to break through your current plateau. Doing all of them transforms your advertising from a cost centre into a predictable, scalable growth engine.
This kind of strategic overhaul can be difficult to manage alone, especially when you're also running a business. This is where expert help can make a huge difference. An experienced agency can bring pattern recognition from hundreds of other accounts, helping you avoid costly mistakes and accelerate the path to profitable scale.
If you'd like to chat through your specific situation in more detail, we offer a free, no-obligation 20-minute strategy session where we can look at your campaigns together and identify the single biggest opportunity for growth.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh