Every vertical has its own maths, its own policy traps and its own definition of a good result. Here is what running Meta Ads for a eCommerce brand in this space actually involves.
Trial signups are easy to buy and mean nothing on their own. The money is in trial-to-paid conversion and month-three retention. Optimising toward signups trains the algorithm to find people who like free things.
What I report on: Cost per trial that converts to a retained paying subscriber at day 90.
App install campaigns report cheap installs that never activate. Attribution across app and web is genuinely difficult. Free trial optimisation is the single most common expensive mistake in this category.
Same vertical, different costs and rules depending on the market you sell into.
Benchmarks in USD, plus what CCPA and CPRA in California, with a growing patchwork of state privacy laws in Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah and Texas means for your tracking.
Benchmarks in GBP, plus what UK GDPR and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations means for your tracking.
Benchmarks in AUD, plus what the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles means for your tracking.
Every market is listed on the Meta Ads hub, or see how Google Ads works for Subscription apps.
Because you optimised for signups. The platform found people willing to sign up, which is a different group from people willing to pay. Move the optimisation event to activation or first payment.
Server-side events tying app activity back to the ad click. Without it you are attributing on guesswork, and budget decisions follow the guesswork.
Cost per retained subscriber at day 90, not cost per install. Everything before that number is a proxy that can be gamed.
Only if lifetime value is known and retention is measured. If you cannot say what a subscriber is worth at month six, paid acquisition is a very expensive way to find out.
Bring your numbers. I will tell you what I would change first, whether or not you end up working with me.
Book a free strategy call →Meta creates demand, Google captures it. Running one without the other usually means paying twice for the same customer — once to introduce them, once to close them.
How Meta and Google work together for subscription apps, what each is responsible for, and how the budget gets split between them.
The same market from the other side of the funnel — different intent, different costs, different job to do.
Not sure which channel is letting you down? A written review tells you where the money is actually going before you commit to anything.