Solved: What steps to take to scale CBO campaign?

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts on how to break through that plateau you're hitting with your Meta ads. It's a really common problem, but the solution isn't always about just duplicating what's sort of working or throwing more ads into the mix. The real gains usually come from a shift in strategy, not just tactics.

Let's get straight into it.

First, we need to talk about that 3-4% conversion rate...

I saw you mentioned the "3-4% recommended in my industry". Honestly, you should probably forget that number right now. It's almost certainly a vanity metric that's doing more harm than good, because it's making you question a campaign that might actually be on the right track, just not optimised yet.

In my experience running hundreds of campaigns, from software to eCommerce, a "good" conversion rate is all over the place. It depends entirely on what you're selling, who you're selling it to, the price, the country, and what you're even counting as a 'conversion'. A simple email signup is totally different to a £500 product sale.

Let's just look at some rough numbers so you can see what I mean. These are based on averages we see across many accounts.

For something like a lead or a signup:

In developed countries (UK, US, etc.), you might pay £0.50 - £1.50 per click. A decent landing page might convert 10-30% of that traffic. The maths on that means your cost per conversion would be anywhere from £1.60 to £15. That's a massive range. If your landing page converts at the low end (10%) and your CPC is high (£1.50), your conversion rate for the ad click is obviously lower, and your costs are higher.

Now what if you're selling a product (eCommerce)?

The numbers change completely. An eCommerce store often sees a site-wide conversion rate of 2-5%. So that same traffic from before now gives you a cost per purchase of £10 to £75 in a developed country. All of a sudden your "just under 2%" conversion rate doesn't sound so bad, does it? It could be perfectly healthy, depending on your product's price.

The point is, stop worrying about a generic benchmark. The only numbers that matter are *your* numbers. The real question isn't "what's my conversion rate?" but "what is my Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and is it profitable?". To figure that out, you need to know what a customer is actually worth to you. We'll get to that in a bit.

I'd say your real problem isn't the ad, it's the audience structure...

You're asking about duplicating ads and adding variations, which are valid tactics. But doing that without a solid campaign structure is like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. You're busy with activity, but you're not fixing the underlying issue that's stopping you from scaling.

At £60/day, you have enough budget to start building a proper funnel structure. I see so many accounts that are just a messy collection of adsets testing random things. What you need is a methodical system. I'd priortise audiences based on how close they are to buying from you. It usually looks something like this:

ToFu (Top of Funnel - Cold Audiences): These are people who've never heard of you.
-> Detailed Targeting (Interests, Behaviours)
-> Lookalike Audiences (once you have enough data)

MoFu (Middle of Funnel - Warm Audiences): People who've shown some interest.
-> Website Visitors
-> People who watched a % of your videos
-> People who engaged with your Facebook/Instagram page

BoFu (Bottom of Funnel - Hot Audiences): People who are close to converting.
-> Added to Cart
-> Initiated Checkout
-> Viewed specific product pages

Right now it sounds like you're operating entirely at the ToFu stage with your broad and interest adsets. The next logical step isn't just to make more ToFu ads, but to build out your MoFu and BoFu campaigns. You need to be retargeting everyone who clicks on your initial ads but doesn't convert. These people are much more likely to convert than a cold audience, which will improve your overall CPA and allow you to spend more at the top of the funnel.

When it comes to your interest targeting, you also have to be really specific. This is a common mistake. Let's say you're selling a tool for Shopify store owners. Targeting an interest like "eCommerce" or "Amazon" is far too broad. You'll hit millions of people who just shop online. Instead, you'd want to target interests that only your ideal customer would have. Think: people who are admins of a Facebook retail page, or people with interests in 'Shopify', 'WooCommerce', or even competing software. The goal is to pick interests that a non-customer is *unlikely* to have. This pre-qualifies your audience before they even see the ad.

You're probably thinking about your customer all wrong...

This brings me to a deeper point. The reason most targeting is too broad is because the business hasn't properly defined its Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). And I don't mean "mums aged 30-45 who live in suburbs". That's a demographic, and it tells you nothing useful for writing ads.

You have to define your customer by thier nightmare. What is the urgent, expensive, career-threatening problem they are facing that your product or service solves? What keeps them up at night?

-> For a B2B SaaS company selling a project management tool, the ICP isn't 'CTOs at tech companies'. The nightmare is 'the head of engineering is terrified of her best developers quitting because they're frustrated with a broken workflow'.

-> For a service business selling financial advice, the ICP isn't 'small business owners'. The nightmare is 'a founder who's one bad month away from a payroll crisis and can't sleep because of cash flow anxiety'.

-> For an eCommerce brand selling high-quality kitchen knives, the ICP isn't 'home cooks'. The nightmare is 'someone who loves cooking but feels constantly frustrated and amateurish because their cheap knives are ruining their ingredients and making prep work a chore'.

When you define the problem this deeply, everything else becomes easier. Your ad copy writes itself because you're speaking directly to their pain. And your targeting gets sharp because you can identify the niche podcasts they listen to, the specific influencers they follow, or the SaaS tools they already pay for. You stop targeting 'business owners' and start targeting 'people who like the My First Million podcast and have an interest in HubSpot'. That's how you find your people.

Before you spend another pound on ads, I'd take a step back and do this work. Get brutally honest about the specific, painful problem you solve. This is the foundation of any scalable ad account.

Let's do the maths on what you can actually afford to spend...

Okay, so let's go back to the idea of ignoring generic conversion rates. The only way to scale confidently is to know your numbers inside out. Specifically, your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). This tells you how much a customer is worth to you over their entire relationship with your business. Once you know that, you know how much you can afford to spend to acquire them (your Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC).

The calculation is pretty simple. You need three bits of info:

1. Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): How much you make per customer, per month (or year, depending on your model).
2. Gross Margin %: Your profit margin on that revenue.
3. Monthly Churn Rate: The percentage of customers you lose each month.

Here's a worked example. Let's imagine a subscription service:

In this example, every customer you acquire is worth £1,400 in gross margin. A healthy business model often aims for a 3:1 LTV:CAC ratio. This means you could afford to spend up to £1,400 / 3 = ~£466 to acquire a single customer and still have a very profitable business. Suddenly that £60/day budget feels different, doesn't it? If your current CPA is, say, £50, you're not just 'doing okay', you're doing brilliantly, and you have a huge amount of room to scale before you become unprofitable.

This is the maths that frees you from the tyranny of cheap leads and low conversion rates. It allows you to make smart, aggressive decisions to grow.

You'll need a message they can't ignore...

Once you know your customer's nightmare and what you can afford to spend, you need to craft an offer and a message that stops them scrolling. The number one reason campaigns fail, even with the right targeting, is a weak offer.

Your ad needs to speak directly to the pain. We often use a simple but powerful framework called Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS).

-> Problem: State the nightmare you identified. "Are your cash flow projections just a shot in the dark?"
-> Agitate: Pour salt on 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, simple solution. "Get expert financial strategy for a fraction of a full-time hire. We build dashboards that turn uncertainty into predictable growth."

Notice how this is so much more compeling than just "Fractional CFO Services". It sells a good night's sleep, not an accounting service.

Another great framework is Before-After-Bridge.

-> Before: Describe 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: Paint a picture of the dream state. "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 from chaos to control. Start a free trial and find your first £1,000 in savings today."

Your current winning ads are probably already doing some of this instinctively. But by consciously applying these frameworks, you can create new variations that are even more powerful and start to really understand *why* your ads are working, which is the key to creating more winners.

So, this is what I recommend you do now...

That was a lot of information, I know. It's a big shift from just thinking about the next ad variation. To make it more concrete, here’s a summary of the main advice I have for you. This is the path from being stuck at £60/day to having a scalable advertising machine.

Implementing this kind of strategic overhaul isn't a small task, and getting the details right is where the real results come from. It’s the difference between an account that spends £60/day and one that can profitably spend £600 or £6,000 a day. This is exactly the kind of strategic work we do for our clients, moving them from tactical confusion to strategic clarity.

If you’d like to have a chat and walk through your ad account together, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can take a direct look at your campaigns and give you some specific, actionable feedback on the spot.

Hope this has been helpful regardless.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh