Challenge: After six months of testing and soft-launching a niche digital product for music production and sound engineering, the brand sought to scale sales through paid advertising. Until this point, sales were primarily driven by organic content and email marketing. With no prior experience in paid media, the goal was to generate new user acquisitions while maintaining a cost-per-acquisition (CPA) capped at 25% of the product’s price point. The main strategy focused on acquiring users for a 30-day free trial, as 30% of trial users typically converted to paid customers.

Setting Up Clear Goals and Target Metrics A target CPA was established, aligning with the brand’s budget constraints. The initial objective was to maximize free trial signups while staying below the CPA target.

Lookalike Audiences: Using the brand’s existing customer and email subscriber lists, 1%-3% lookalike audiences were created for cold prospecting, targeting users most likely to convert.

Interest-Based Audiences: Two distinct interest-based ad sets were developed:

Retargeting Audiences: Dynamic value-based user lists retargeted website visitors who didn’t sign up for the trial and trial users who didn’t convert within 30 days.

Creative Development Three creative tiers were implemented to align with different stages of the user journey:

Optimization and Scaling Campaigns were actively optimized to scale top-performing audiences, refine targeting, and reduce CPA. Budget pacing and ad performance were closely monitored to maximize returns.

Results: Month 1: Successfully delivered over 150 free trial signups at 50% below the target CPA.

Months 2-4: Continued optimization led to a CPA reduction of up to 70% below the original target. Based on this success, the strategy expanded to target direct product purchases, achieving impressive results:

Monthly Average Conversions: 420 purchases 155 free trial users converting to paid users through email nurturing (35% conversion rate).

Revenue Generated (2024): $177,502

Average ROAS: 3.3

Leveraging lookalike audiences can effectively scale niche products by targeting highly relevant prospects.

Structuring creatives to match the user journey ensures a cohesive and effective ad experience.

Combining dynamic retargeting and email automation boosts trial-to-paid conversion rates, maximizing long-term revenue.