Subscriptions are won
after the trial.
A subscription business is paid on the months a customer stays, not on the day they sign up. The ad platforms see the signup. They rarely see the first payment, and almost never month six. Buying the cheapest trial is how accounts end up efficiently acquiring people who leave.
These guides are for apps, digital products, and memberships bought by a person on a card. They start with the operator playbook, then settle the two questions that decide most budgets: what the ads should optimize toward, and how much a subscriber is worth paying for given how long they stay.
The billing system is the anchor throughout. It is the one ledger that records what customers actually paid, refunded, and kept.
Paid acquisition for subscription apps and digital products.
Subscription businesses inherit an ecommerce playbook that does not fit them. The platforms optimize toward an event on day one, while the money arrives over months. This guide covers the metric order, trial design, the signal to send the platforms, cohort reading, and payback.
Free trial or paid: what your ads should optimize toward.
A no-card trial produces cheap trial starts. A card-required trial produces expensive ones that pay. The ad account cannot tell the difference unless you tell it, and the way you tell it is the event and value you send.
Subscription payback: what you can afford per subscriber.
Payback is the month a subscriber has earned back what they cost. Working it out takes a cost per paying subscriber, a monthly contribution, and a retention curve, and it turns every budget conversation into a question the business can actually answer.
SaaS marketing metrics that matter.
Median B2B SaaS CAC payback now sits around 15-16 months — a different world from the 12-month rule of thumb. The metrics that matter, current benchmark ranges, and how to derive paid media targets from them.
More Subscription growth findings, as we land them.
The tests that worked and the hooks converting right now — sent when we find something worth your time.
Reading is the cheap part.
Optimize for pipeline, not form fills.
Google Ads for subscription software and SaaS: intent-tiered keywords, trial and payment events sent back to Google, and CAC payback as the target, not cost per signup.
View serviceMeta will sell you signups. We buy activated users.
Meta ads for consumer subscription software and SaaS: optimized to activation and first payment rather than signups, with creative that teaches before it asks.
View servicePaid acquisition that answers to payback, not MQLs.
A PPC agency for subscription software and SaaS: Google, Meta, TikTok, Microsoft, and LinkedIn run against paying customers, self-serve and sales-led handled distinctly.
View service