SYNTHETIC DATA · Vaultly is a fictional company. Every customer, euro and result on this page is generated by a seeded simulator.
ABADE · Strategy · Data · Growth

Paid acquisition review · Jan 2025 – Jun 2026

Where Vaultly's paid media pays back, and where it does not

TikTok Ads bought the cheapest signups and the most expensive customers. Google Ads buys paying customers for the least. March 2026 was a Meta Ads problem. Four decisions follow.

01 · Executive summary

Paid media pays back, but short of target, and one channel test went wrong

Paid investmentEUR 380kJan 2025 – Jun 2026: 39,681 signups and 1,023 paying customers
Cost of a paying customerEUR 300against EUR 9.58 per signup: only a few signups ever pay
Lifetime value per euro1.88xtarget 3x · the spend is earned back in 8.4 months
TikTok Ads testEUR 699per paying customer, 2.2x Meta Ads. Stopped in Nov 2025
March 2026+40%rise in cost per signup against the month before, driven by Meta Ads

The short version

  1. Paid media buys customers at EUR 300 each and earns 1.88x that back over their lifetime: it pays back, but short of the 3x target.
  2. Google Ads is the best channel (EUR 256 per customer); the TikTok Ads test was the worst (EUR 699), despite the cheapest signups.
  3. March 2026 was a Meta Ads problem, not a seasonal one: cost per signup +42% on the same month last year.

02 · Month by month

One weak month, and the calendar does not explain it

Investment is always shown next to what it bought. December's cost also rose, but there is no earlier December to compare it with; March 2026 has one, and it stands out.

March 2026 was the weak month: cost per signup rose 40% on the month before

Bars: monthly investment (the coloured bar is the weak month). Line: what one signup cost.

Against the same month last year, Mar 2026 stands out: +42% per signup, against -11% to +16% for the other months

Each calendar month against the same month a year earlier, so seasonality cancels out.

Meta Ads lost 28% of its signups in Mar 2026 while its spend rose 11%

Change in signups in March 2026 against the month before, by channel, with the change in its investment.

Meta Ads cost per signup jumped 53% in Mar 2026; Google Ads rose 12%

Cost per signup by channel and month. TikTok Ads ran for three months only.
Every month in numbers
MonthInvestmentvs prev.SignupsCost per signupvs prev.vs last yearPaying customersPaid CACvs prev.
Jan 2025EUR 8,4291,143EUR 7.3737EUR 228
Feb 2025EUR 13,027+55%1,365EUR 9.54+29%50EUR 261+14%*
Mar 2025EUR 16,583+27%1,972EUR 8.41-12%69EUR 240-8%*
Apr 2025EUR 19,458+17%1,882EUR 10.34+23%54EUR 360+50%
May 2025EUR 19,399-0%1,984EUR 9.78-5%*64EUR 303-16%*
Jun 2025EUR 18,748-3%1,817EUR 10.32+6%*63EUR 298-2%*
Jul 2025EUR 17,608-6%1,640EUR 10.74+4%*46EUR 383+29%*
Aug 2025EUR 18,002+2%1,778EUR 10.12-6%*60EUR 300-22%*
Sep 2025EUR 26,356+46%3,606EUR 7.31-28%85EUR 310+3%*
Oct 2025EUR 27,326+4%3,316EUR 8.24+13%84EUR 325+5%*
Nov 2025EUR 31,166+14%3,017EUR 10.33+25%82EUR 380+17%*
Dec 2025EUR 19,764-37%1,388EUR 14.24+38%47EUR 421+11%*
Jan 2026EUR 22,151+12%2,580EUR 8.59-40%+16%96EUR 231-45%
Feb 2026EUR 23,271+5%2,736EUR 8.51-1%*-11%108EUR 215-7%*
Mar 2026EUR 25,422+9%2,128EUR 11.95+40%+42%78EUR 326+51%
Apr 2026EUR 24,726-3%2,414EUR 10.24-14%-1%*not yet
May 2026EUR 24,478-1%2,475EUR 9.89-3%*+1%*not yet
Jun 2026EUR 24,288-1%2,440EUR 9.95+1%*-4%*not yet

* too few events to read the change, shown but not highlighted. Paying customers and CAC need a complete 90-day window, so the latest months show "not yet".

03 · Channel by channel

The cheapest signup is not the cheapest customer

From impressions to paying customers and the recurring revenue they bring, per acquisition channel, over Jan 2025 – Jun 2026.

ChannelInvestmentImpressionsClicksCTRCPCSignupsCost per signupPaying customersPaid CACNew MRR per EUR 100LTV / CACPayback
Google AdsEUR 113,2315,914,703150,2042.54%EUR 0.759,350EUR 12.11354EUR 256EUR 16.622.65x7.3 mo
Meta AdsEUR 254,38540,147,152521,4221.30%EUR 0.4926,646EUR 9.55651EUR 312EUR 14.261.66x8.6 mo
TikTok AdsEUR 12,5862,781,74057,7952.08%EUR 0.223,685EUR 3.4218*EUR 699*EUR 7.660.69x*18.2 mo

* fewer than 30 paying customers or cancellations: directionally useful, too small to rank on. Coloured: the cheapest and most expensive paid CAC, and the best lifetime value per euro.

TikTok Ads bought the cheapest signups (EUR 3.42) and the most expensive customers (EUR 699)

Left: what a free signup costs. Right: what a customer who pays costs, with its 95% range.

Where both samples are large (BR, MX, US), Google Ads buys a paying customer for less than Meta Ads in 3 of 3

Paid CAC (EUR) by channel and market. Cells on a small sample are shown with * but not coloured.

04 · Unit economics

What a customer is worth against what it cost

Lifetime value per euro of acquisition. Above 1x a customer pays for itself; 3x is the planning target that leaves room for overheads and error.

No channel clears 3x; Google Ads comes closest at 2.65x

By channel: lifetime gross margin per euro of acquisition, with the months it takes to earn the spend back.

By country, US and DE clear 3x; paid customers in CO, PE and AR are worth less than they cost

By market: the same ratio, all paid channels together. Bars show the range from the paying-customer count.

05 · Recommendation

Four decisions for the next quarter

In order of money at stake and confidence. Each one says how to check that it worked.

Keep TikTok Ads off until it can show paying customers, not signups

Why
The Sep–Nov 2025 test spent EUR 12,586 for 3,685 signups, the cheapest of any channel (EUR 3.42 each), and only 18 paying customers: EUR 699 each, 2.2x Meta Ads. The sample is small, but even its most favourable reading (EUR 442) is worse than Meta Ads.

How to act and check
A relaunch needs a target written in paying customers (CAC under EUR 312) and a stop rule after 30 paying customers.

Move budget from Meta Ads to Google Ads in BR, MX, US, in steps

Why
Google Ads buys a paying customer for EUR 256 against EUR 312, and those customers stay longer: 2.65x lifetime value per euro against 1.66x. It is cheaper in all 3 markets where both channels have enough customers to compare.

How to act and check
First step: 20% of the Meta Ads budget there, about EUR 2,395 a month. At today's averages that adds up to EUR 2,361 of lifetime gross margin per month. That is a ceiling, not a forecast: search demand is finite, so the extra euros will cost more than the average. Hold the step if the Google Ads CAC on the new budget passes EUR 312.

Treat March 2026 as a Meta Ads incident, and put an alert on it

Why
Meta Ads lost 28% of its signups while its spend rose 11%, so its cost per signup jumped 53%. Google Ads moved +12%. Against the same month last year the gap is +42%, so it is not seasonality. The month cost EUR 326 per paying customer.

How to act and check
Check creative fatigue and conversion tracking first. Alert when a channel's cost per signup rises more than 25% month over month on more than 30 signups.

Fix price or retention in CO, PE, AR before buying more customers there

Why
Paid customers in these markets are worth less than they cost (lifetime value per euro below 1x), while US and DE clear 3x. Cheap signups there do not survive to revenue.

How to act and check
Hold their budgets flat; test local pricing or onboarding, and re-read LTV/CAC on the next mature cohort.

Method

How the numbers were built

Definitions, rules and limits
  • Data. Everything here is synthetic: a fictional company (Vaultly, freemium B2B SaaS, 8 countries), generated by a seeded simulator with invented parameters. It demonstrates the method, not a real market.
  • Signup vs paying customer. Cost per signup = investment / free accounts created. Paid CAC = investment / customers who paid within 90 days of signing up. Only months whose 90-day window is complete count (March 2026 is the latest), so a young month never looks cheap because its customers have not converted yet.
  • Lifetime value. Monthly revenue per paying customer × 80% gross margin / monthly churn, over the last 12 months, measured on the customers each channel brought in. LTV/CAC is lifetime gross margin per euro of acquisition. Payback = CAC / monthly gross margin per customer.
  • Rates are ratios of sums. CTR = total clicks / total impressions, never an average of daily or campaign rates.
  • Small samples. A number marked * rests on fewer than 30 events (signups, customers or cancellations), or its change sits inside 1.96 Poisson standard errors. It is shown, but never highlighted or used for a headline. CAC ranges are exact Poisson 95% intervals on the customer count.
  • Attribution. Platform-attributed signups, one touch, no incrementality test. A channel's CAC is what the platform claims, which can flatter retargeting and brand search.
  • Sources. Every query is one file in sql/ (catalog); the same analysis as a written report in REPORT.md; full tables in RESULTS.md, data model in SCHEMA.md. The pipeline run behind this page passed 72 of 72 data-quality checks.
Beyond acquisition: retention, usage and the upgrade model

Cohort active-user retention by months since signup

Share of each signup cohort still active, by months since signup.

Hold-out lift by score decile (10 = highest propensity)

Upgrade-propensity model: how much more likely the top-scored free users are to upgrade.

Usage concentration: cumulative share of volume by share of users (heaviest first)

Free usage is concentrated: a minority of users produce most of the volume.