Example output
Four businesses, four very different strategies
The same engine, four fictional companies. Switch between them, change the risk appetite or budget, open the channel branches — everything is live.
Paid growth strategy · Ledgerly
Start with Google Search and LinkedIn Ads — but fix tracking & attribution first.
People already search for solutions like yours — search captures that intent at the moment of need. You can afford up to ~€1,760 per demo (comfortable economics). At €5,000/month and a balanced risk appetite, expect first signal in 5–7 weeks and a clear scale/fix/stop decision by week 12.
Readiness: Fix foundations first
Your next three moves
- 1Fix tracking & attribution: define one primary event: Booked demo
- 2Launch Google Search with “High-intent solution terms” at ~€2,270/month
- 3Decide at week 9: keep anything at or below ~€780 per demo, stop anything above €1,560
What not to do
- ✕Don't start with YouTube: No video capacity — YouTube is not an option until you can produce it.
- ✕Don't start with Meta (Facebook / Instagram): Without job-title targeting, Meta reaches business buyers only loosely — best used for retargeting here.
- ✕Don't spread €5,000 across more than 3 channels
- ✕Don't judge results before ~€2,340 spend per campaign or 5 weeks
Monthly budget
€5,000
Core channels
Google Search and LinkedIn Ads
Target per demo
≤ €780
Expected / month
~6 demos
Risk appetite
Monthly budget
€5,000
Results needed in
Change any assumption — the whole strategy below recalculates instantly.
Your business
You sell software and earn through a subscription of about €10,000/year. A typical customer stays for ~3 years, so they're worth ~€30,000 in revenue — ~€24,000 in gross profit at ~80% margin.
Your customer
You sell to finance and operations decision-makers at mid-size companies. They become customers by booking a demo or sales call, usually over 1–3 months. So the event ads must optimise for is: “Booked demo”, with “Qualified opportunity” as the quality signal. In your words: “CFOs and finance leads at 50–500 person tech companies who've outgrown spreadsheet approvals”.
Your market
Your buyers actively search for solutions like yours — demand already exists to capture. Some competitors advertise. You sell in Europe and the UK & Ireland.
Your economics
You can afford up to ~€1,760 per demo, well above the typical €150–€600. The economics give you room to learn. Expect about 6 demos a month at your budget.
Your foundations
Your website has a clear offer, and tracking is visits-only. Nobody owns paid ads yet. You can produce static creative, not video.
Your ambition
In the next 90 days you want to find one repeatable channel, with a balanced risk appetite, expecting results within 1–3 months, on €5,000/month that can grow gradually. Longer term: expand into new segments or markets.
Your paid acquisition, as a tree
The trunk is your business. Each branch is a part of the system that has to work — foundations, channels, economics, measurement and team. Click a node to see what it means for you.
How €5,000/month is split
How to read this
- Core — where most of the budget goes now.
- Test — a fixed, small budget to learn whether it can become core.
- Layer — retargeting that supports the core channels.
- Later — fits you, but not at this budget or risk level yet.
- Avoid — poor fit for your business right now.
Switch risk appetite above to see the mix shift. Exclude a channel inside its card to re-plan without it.
Why it fits you
- + People already search for solutions like yours — search captures that intent at the moment of need.
- + Search leads typically close better than social leads because the buyer came looking.
Why it may not
- No major concerns.
Why it matters for your plan: Ad platforms optimise towards the event you track. Without a reliable "Booked demo" event, you can't tell what works.
How to fix it · 1–3 days
- →Define one primary event: Booked demo
- →Track a secondary event: Qualified opportunity
- →Install Google Tag Manager + GA4
- →Send CRM stages back to platforms (offline conversions)
- →Test every event end to end by converting yourself
This is a common place founders bring in help — a few hours from a specialist usually saves weeks.
Month 1
€2,000
Mostly foundations; small launch at the end
Month 2
€5,000
Full budget; optimisation and tests
Month 3
€6,250
Scale winners if targets are met
Launch progress
Tick tasks off as you go — saved in this browser only.
Weeks 1–2
Fix the foundations
Weeks 3–5
Launch Google Search and LinkedIn Ads
Weeks 6–9
Optimise, then test Microsoft Ads (Bing)
Weeks 10–12
Decide: scale, fix or stop
Customer worth
€24,000
gross profit over lifetime
Max cost per customer
€8,000
12-month payback
Max per demo
€1,760
22% become customers
Market check
Comfortable
typical €150–€600
- A customer is worth ~€30,000 in revenue over ~3 years, or ~€24,000 in gross profit at ~80% margin.
- With a balanced risk appetite we target 12-month payback, so the most you should pay per customer is ~€8,000.
- About 22% of demos typically become customers, so each demo is worth up to ~€1,760.
- At €5,000/month and ~€780 per demo, expect around 6 demos and 1.3 customers a month once campaigns have learned (usually month 2).
- That is too few for platforms to optimise on automatically — judge on trends and lead quality, not daily numbers.
Simulate it
Your funnel each month
Cost per demo
€300
CAC (cost per customer)
€1,364
Gross profit ÷ CAC
17.6×
CAC payback
0.7 months
Healthy
Gross profit per customer is 3×+ CAC. Room to scale carefully.
Recommended route
Freelance Google Search and LinkedIn Ads specialist
~15 hours a week of specialist work; you supervise with the KPI framework (~1 hour a week).
Time needed vs available
| Responsibility | Owner |
|---|---|
| Budget, targets and stop rules | You |
| Tracking & integrations | Your developers |
| Campaign build & optimisation | Freelancer |
| Creative | Your designer |
| Landing pages | You / team (no-code) |
| Weekly review | You + whoever runs ads (30 min) |
Hiring brief
Role needed
Google Search, LinkedIn Ads and Microsoft Ads (Bing) specialist with B2B lead-gen experience
Fixed-scope setup (2–3 weeks), then monthly management with 30 days' notice.
Required skills
- –Hands-on Google Search: brand and optimisation
- –Hands-on LinkedIn Ads: core audience and optimisation
- –Hands-on Microsoft Ads (Bing): imported google campaigns and optimisation
- –Tracking: Google Ads conversion for "Booked demo" (directly or imported from GA4); Enhanced conversions (hashed email) to recover lost signal
- –B2B lead quality and CRM feedback loops
- –Plain-language reporting to a non-specialist
What to ask them to do
- –Audit or set up tracking before any spend
- –Present the campaign structure in writing before building
- –Commit to a target of ~€780 per demo and explain how they'd reach it
- –Build everything in accounts you own
- –Send a weekly 5-line update: spend, results, changes, learnings, next
What not to let them do
- –Launch more channels than this plan recommends
- –Own your ad accounts or billing
- –Optimise for clicks, reach or engagement
- –Change structure weekly without a reason
- –Report platform numbers without reconciling to your CRM or sales
Expected deliverables
- –Tracking plan and verified events
- –Campaign structure document
- –Creative/copy for the first tests
- –Week-6 and week-12 reviews with scale/fix/stop recommendations
Interview questions
- –How would you structure the first Google Search for us?
- –How would you track "Booked demo" end to end?
- –Is ~€780 per demo realistic? Why?
- –What would make you tell us to stop spending?
- –Show me an anonymised weekly report
- –Tell me about a test that failed and what you changed
Reporting expectations
- –Weekly: spend, conversions, cost per conversion vs target, notable changes
- –Monthly: CAC, customer quality, learnings, next month's plan
- –Live access to accounts and a shared dashboard
Check a proposal you've received
What did the agency or freelancer propose?
Proposal risk
0%
Tick what you've been pitched
| KPI | Target | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Spend vs planDelivery | €5,000/month ±10% | Pacing problems hide performance problems |
| Cost per clickEfficiency | €2.00–€15 | Price of attention in your market |
| Click-through rateEfficiency | 0.8–1.5% (social), 4–8% (search) | Is the ad relevant to the audience? |
| Landing page conversionEfficiency | 2.5%+ | The biggest lever on cost per conversion |
| Cost per demoOutcome | ≤ €780 | Your weekly headline number |
| Demo → customer rateOutcome | 22%+ | Quality check — cheap but useless conversions show up here |
| CAC (cost per customer)Outcome | ≤ €8,000 | What it actually costs to win a customer |
| CAC paybackOutcome | 12-month payback | How fast spend comes back as gross profit |
| Tracking matchHealth | Platforms within 20% of CRM/backend | If numbers disagree, decisions are guesses |
Tracking plan
page_view + UTM sourceEvery visit → GA4
demo_bookedCalendar confirmation → All ad platforms
opportunity_qualifiedSales qualifies (CRM) → Offline conversion import
deal_won (value)Contract signed → Offline conversion import
Your weekly dashboard
You don't have a single view of performance yet. Free tools (Looker Studio + GA4 + a CRM export) are enough to build this in a day.
UTM convention
utm_source={platform} · utm_medium=paid_{search|social|video} · utm_campaign={objective}_{audience}_{yyyymm} · utm_content={creative-id}Not enabled in this public prototype. When live, Claude reviews this rule-based draft and adds product-specific ad angles, business risks, validation questions and adjustments — the judgement rules cannot encode.
Early prototype. Built from operator rules and rough market ranges (EU/US), not guarantees. Do not enter confidential data.