Strategies for Reducing Advertising Costs

Simple strategy to reduce LinkedIn Ads CPM 58% (this will help you reach more ICP prospects without extra budget) – Many B2Bs drive up their own CPMs and pay more than they should to reach prospects. They'll run multiple campaigns to the same audience using the same campaign objective (usually lead gen). This sends a signal to the algorithm that their audience is more valuable and more in-demand than it actually is. You artificially increase competition and CPMs rise. (& it was totally avoidable) Most B2Bs do this with good intentions. They want to promote multiple messaging strategies and products and treat them as separate "campaigns". The problem is that ad platforms aren't designed to operate that way. Instead, you should create one consolidated campaign per audience, per advertising objective. You then mix creative from different "campaigns" into that consolidated ad platform campaign. Unlike Meta, Linkedin distributes impressions fairly evenly across ads. You can moderate how often your audience sees ads related to different messaging strategies and products based on how much creative you use. For example: Let's say you have 6 ads for one product and 4 ads for another. Product 1 will get ~60% of impressions. Product 2 will get ~40% of impressions. – The reason this strategy works is that it limits competition for your ICP targeting so you pay a fraction of the CPM. We recently rolled this out for a client and immediately saw a 58% decrease. From $132 down to just $55. As an added bonus, having more ads in the consolidated campaign also improved deliverability which drove up CTRs. So we ended up reaching more users and getting more clicks, making campaigns ~3X more efficient. This approach also makes budget pacing, optimisation and reporting WAY easier. So you save time and headaches as well as budget. – Here's the harsh reality: Marketers love ideating new campaigns. But having too many campaigns on ad platforms artificially drives up competition so you spend more than you should to reach your audience. If you want to drive down ad costs and get more efficient cost per acquisition: Consolidation and simplification is the name of the game. – P.S. Share your LinkedIn Ads optimisation tips in the comments 👇

I got this message from a SaaS senior marketing manager. Sound familiar? Expectations are higher than ever but your budget has been cut. You're fighting an uphill battle. Here are some things I'd focus on in 2025 to: 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝗽𝗶𝗽𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗮𝗱 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱 1️⃣ SEO: I'd find product/solution pages that are ranking in positions # 6-20 for 'buyer-intent' keywords. (Example: your "fitness club billing software" page is ranking #12 for "gym billing software".) Look up the URL's ranking on the first page in Ahrefs for that keyword and check how many referring domains each url has backlinking to them. Find the median. Build backlinks to your page to catch up to the median. Focus on backlinks from real websites with US traffic, high DR, and topical relevance (ex. a blog post on "how to automate your fitness business") This will push your page to the Top 5 results where you will capture traffic for a keyword that interested prospects would search for. 2️⃣ SEM: On average our Google Ads audits uncover 27% of wasted ad spend. Fixing bid strategies and quality scores would result in a ton of additional MQL's for the same budget. Run a report to identify keywords you spent money on with no conversions and keywords that drove conversions that cost more than 2x your average lead cost. Start your analysis there. 3️⃣ Your Website: It might seem counterintuitive to invest in a website when budgets are tight, but hear me out. If your site is outdated it hurts the brand credibility and lowers conversion rates. Besides having visuals look legit and help your brand stand out, make sure your messaging resonates with your target audience. (Check out Anthony Pierri 🎸's content for frameworks you can follow) Your SQL's will increase. 4️⃣ Customer User Testing: When budgets are tight, you can’t afford to waste resources. Test your messaging, CTAs, and landing pages with your target audience. You may uncover insights that end up lifting your conversion rates by double digits (aka more leads, same spend). Tools like Wynter are great for this, and you can reduce costs by supplementing their audience panels with your own. 5️⃣ Leverage Existing Customers: Your best leads often come from happy customers. Invest in advocacy programs, case studies, and referral incentives to tap into this high-converting audience without spending big. 6️⃣ Cut the Dead Weight: Audit your tech stack and marketing spend. Are there tools you’re paying for that aren’t delivering? Are there campaigns running out of habit rather than strategy? (Example: Just told a CMO to stop spending money on SEO. They were paying an agency $4k/month for over a year and had nothing to show for it. "they're doing keyword research and blogs for us". Ok cool, but those blogs drove no demo requests, what's the point?) --------- 🔔 'Follow' me, I share what I see working in b2b marketing and SaaS.

We cut CAC from $120 to $42 in 3 weeks for a DTC fitness brand. Here’s how: This brand came to me frustrated. They had a solid product, compelling creative, and solid traffic but their CAC was stuck at $120. Here’s what we discovered (and what we did differently): 1. The campaign structure was bloated. Too many overlapping ad sets. Too much budget split across too many experiments. So we collapsed their structure into 3 high-intent buckets: → Prospecting (cold) → Warm retargeting → Bottom-funnel converters 2. Their creative was polished—but not persuasive. Their top-performing ad? A raw customer video shot on an iPhone with messy subtitles. We shifted the creative strategy to: → Problem > product > payoff → Real humans > polished models → 3-second hooks that stop scrolling 3. Audience quality was off. They were targeting interests too broadly (fitness, gym gear, wellness). Instead, we tested layered signals: people who had visited competitors’ websites, clicked on fitness ads, and interacted with high-LTV lookalike cohorts. 4. Final lever: Cost cap bidding. We tested Meta’s cost cap strategy after week 2 to throttle CAC at $45. Results: stable CPMs, fewer fluctuations, and 3X more efficient retargeting. The results? ✓ CAC went from $120 → $42 in 3 weeks ✓ 3.8X ROAS on the same budget ✓ Same spend, but 2.5X more conversions This wasn’t magic. It was surgical ad optimization, creative testing, and strategic bidding. ↳ Be honest: If you knew your CAC could be cut in half without gimmicks or discounts, would you… A) Apply the right strategy? B) Keep blaming the platform? Drop your letter (A/B) below ⬇️

5 things you can do today that cut campaign waste by 40%. None require new tools: After managing $20M+ in ad spend, I've learned that prevention matters more than any optimization we currently have. The data is clear on what works: 1/ Protect your audience quality ↳ Audience fatigue doubles your costs ↳ Use frequency caps on all campaigns   ↳ Address overlap issues early with exclusions ↳ Your budget works harder when targeting is precise 2/ Prioritize creative testing ↳ 3-5 creative variations minimum ↳ Dark, clean creative without cluttered text ↳ Address creative fatigue before it hits ↳ Poor creative prevents campaign scalability 3/ Monitor performance regularly ↳ Daily optimization checks (key is consistency) ↳ Budget reallocation counts if metrics shift ↳ Automated rules for basic adjustments ↳ Monitoring increases campaign growth factors 4/ Stay data connected ↳ Guessing increases campaign risk by 50% ↳ Regular performance analysis matters ↳ Use analytics, test hypotheses, maintain insights ↳ Quality of data beats quantity 5/ Manage your bidding strategy ↳ High bids without strategy damage campaign performance ↳ Target optimal CPC ranges when possible ↳ Testing, patience, and strategy when needed ↳ Smart bidding feeds performance centers Why these work: Each prevents a different path to budget waste. Which of these 5 areas do you want to focus on first? #MediaBuying

Everyone's obsessed with more. More ad spend. More campaigns. More content. But here's the problem: True marketing impact isn’t about spending more. It's about maximizing what you already have. It's having: Less wasted budget. Less vanity metrics. Less disconnected strategies. Less reliance on paid channels. The most effective marketing people I know use the following strategies: 1. AI Integration (The Right Way) ↳ Automate repetitive tasks first ↳ Focus AI on data analysis, not just content ↳ Redirect savings to strategic initiatives Result: 30% cost reduction in operational tasks 2. Channel Attribution Evolution ↳ Stop spreading budget across every platform ↳ Double down on channels with proven ROI ↳ Test new channels with 10% of budget max Result: 2x impact from focused spending 3. In-house vs. Agency Balance ↳ Build core competencies internally ↳ Use agencies for specialized projects ↳ Hybrid teams for scalable results Result: 40% better resource utilization 4. Content Repurposing Strategy ↳ Create once, distribute everywhere ↳ Optimize existing high-performers ↳ Stop chasing every new format Result: 3x content ROI without added cost 5. Customer Retention Focus ↳ It's 5x cheaper to keep than acquire ↳ Invest in existing customer journey ↳ Build community, not just campaigns Result: 25% increase in customer lifetime value The winning formula isn't about having the biggest budget. It's about being the smartest with what you have. What's your best budget optimization tip? Share below ⬇️ Repost to your network or follow Carolyn Healey for more content on marketing strategy.

I dropped my apparel client's CPA by 36% with 3 strategies. 1. Partnership ads → Ran ads as "Creator x Brand" instead of just from the brand page → Whitelisted through micro-influencers with followers that match the brand's icp → People trust people more than brand ads 2. Increased creative volume on best performers → Client was producing 10 ads/month → Scaled to 60 ads/month focusing on concepts that already worked 3. Landing page revamp with listicle pages → Switched from traditional product pages to listicles → "5 reasons this jacket is perfect for fall" style pages → Educated before selling, warmed people up before showing the product CPA dropped from $42 to $27 in 6 weeks. No fancy optimization, just better creative distribution, authentic voices, and landing pages that actually converted cold traffic.

We helped Fortune Foods reach 3 million more people while cutting their media costs by 25%. Here is how we did it. Most brands face the same dilemma: reach more people or save money. Our work with Fortune Foods proved you can do both. Fortune Foods operates in India's competitive edible oils market. They needed to build awareness across tier 1, 2, and 3 cities. The challenge was standing out among countless competitors without inflating their marketing budget. Here's what we did differently: We used Programmatic to unify their media buying across YouTube, SonyLIV, and ZEE5. Instead of managing separate campaigns on each platform, we centralized everything. The strategy was simple but powerful: We implemented frequency control to avoid showing the same ad to the same person multiple times across different platforms. This eliminated wasted impressions and reduced audience fatigue. By streamlining the approach, we removed the overlap that most brands ignore. The results were clear: ● 26% increase in incremental reach at zero additional cost ● 25.5% savings in media spending ● 3 million more people reached without extra budget This partnership proved that smarter media planning beats bigger budgets. Fortune Foods is now rolling out this framework across all their campaigns. The lesson for anyone running marketing campaigns: efficiency isn't about spending less, it's about spending smarter. Have you unified your media buying across platforms?

Would you prefer to acquire more customers at your target average cost, even though some might be unprofitable? Or would you prefer fewer customers, but with guaranteed profitability on each one? This is a crucial decision when it comes to shaping your advertising strategy on platforms like Meta. If you opt for more customers at your target cost average, then cost caps may be the right strategy for you. By setting a cost cap, you can average out the cost of acquiring customers over time. Some customers will be profitable, while others might not be, but overall, you’ll hit your target cost per acquisition (CPA). This approach works well when you’re aiming for volume and are willing to tolerate some level of inefficiency in customer acquisition. On the other hand, if your focus is on repeatable unit economics, where each customer must be profitable, then bid caps in Meta might be the better approach. By implementing a bid cap, you ensure that you’ll never pay more than a specific amount to acquire a customer. This strategy is ideal for businesses that need to maintain strict profitability and can't afford the risk of unprofitable customers. So, how do you determine your bid cap? It depends on a few key factors: Average Order Value (AOV) – the average value of each sale. Margin % – your profit margin on each sale. Lifetime Value (LTV) – if you’re in a subscription-based model or if you have high customer repeat purchase rates, then applying an LTV factor can help you determine a more precise bid cap. Ultimately, understanding these variables will allow you to optimise your strategy to either scale with a bit of risk or guarantee profitability on each customer. It's all about finding the right balance for your business goals.

Disney just spent $1 billion on AI. Not to replace animators. To solve a problem most studios ignore: variations cost almost as much as originals. Creating 10 variations of a marketing asset used to require full production cycles. Review meetings, approval chains, render time, team coordination. Now: prompt-driven generation from existing asset libraries. Cost per variation dropped from thousands to dollars. Here's how to do this in your business: 1. Audit where you're manually creating variations Pull reports on content production for the last quarter. Filter for derivative work: social posts, email variations, ad formats, localized content. Calculate hours spent on variations vs original content. Most teams waste 40-60% of production time on derivatives. 2. Build pre-approved asset libraries Create folders of brand-approved visuals, copy templates, and style guidelines. Get legal and compliance sign-off once on the entire library. Tag assets by use case, audience, and channel. This eliminates per-output review cycles. 3. Use APIs, not standalone AI tools Connect AI directly into your CMS, DAM, or social scheduling platform. Avoid tools that require exporting and reformatting outputs. Integration should remove steps, not add them. Test: if AI adds more than one click to your workflow, it's wrong. 4. Constrain before you scale Limit which assets AI can access in phase one. Start with lowest-risk content: social variations, email subject lines, ad copy. Expand permissions only after you've proven the review process works. Constraints reduce verification overhead by 80%. 5. Shift from per-output to per-library review Stop reviewing every AI-generated asset individually. Review and approve the source library once. Monitor outputs with spot-checks, not line-by-line edits. Your team should validate systems, not outputs. 6. Measure marginal cost reduction Track cost per variation before and after AI implementation. Include team hours, tool costs, and review cycles. Target: 70-90% reduction in marginal production costs. If you're not seeing this, your integration is wrong. Why this works: Creative teams aren't threatened, they're empowered to experiment more. The bottleneck was never ideas. It was the cost of executing variations. Solve execution cost by removing production barriers, not people. Found this helpful? Follow Arturo Ferreira.

If your Facebook ads are too expensive… It’s probably not your budget. It’s not your niche. It’s not even your product. It’s your structure. Here’s how we took a client from $115 cost per purchase down to $55 while scaling spend above $2K/day: 1. Kill campaign clutter. The client had 25+ campaigns running. Lookalikes. Interests. Bid caps. Cost caps. Retargeting. It was chaos and none of it was working. We replaced all of it with one campaign. → One product → One country → One broad ad set → One clear objective Simplicity scaled. Complexity killed performance. 2. Use existing proven creatives. We launched 6 ads using existing post IDs from past top spenders. No new angles. No guessing. Just riding proven momentum already in the account. No one talks about this but it works extremely well when first taking over a messy ad account. 3. Rebuild your testing infrastructure. We rebuilt the creative system from scratch: • Defined 6–12 ad concepts • Each concept = 1 ad set • Each ad set = 3 variations (split by 1 visual element only) Video example: same script, same hook, different first 3 seconds. Image example: same copy, different background. We ran 3–4 concepts per week to maintain velocity. 4. Creative strategy starts with research. Most people write angles based on vibes. We write angles based on data: → Reddit threads → TikTok comments → Competitor reviews → Customer feedback → Site copy + heatmaps → Even YouTube comment sections We build angles around what people actually say, not what we think sounds good. 5. Once you win, scale with control. We found a $55 CPP winner. Then scaled 20% a day. All with structured budget increases with proven creatives. Now we’re pushing toward $1M/month while staying below the $70 CAC target the client hired us to hit. The biggest mistake most brands make? They throw more spend at broken foundations. We simplified the structure, fixed the strategy, and let the creative carry the weight. If your CAC is too high, don’t scale harder. Scale smarter. Follow me Nick Theriot for more content like this.