Case Study
Launching US paid acquisition and cutting merchant lead costs by 42 percent
Building campaigns for merchants shoppers and app users.
Four15 helped launch US paid acquisition for an international buy-now-pay-later platform. The assignment covered both sides of the business: attracting retailers that could offer the payment service and reaching shoppers who would use it. Getting the program live required campaign strategy, legal approvals, platform access, CRM integration and app measurement.
By the May 2019 review, Facebook campaigns had generated 557 merchant lead forms at $26.48 each. The May 21 call notes recorded 246 month-to-date leads at $18.05 each, down from $31.20 for the same period in April—a 42% reduction in reported cost per lead.
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Selected documented result
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Performance
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Merchant lead forms reported in the May QBR
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557 at $26.48 each
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Merchant cost per lead in matched month-to-date reports
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$31.20 to $18.05
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Consumer purchases attributed to clicks from July 1–29 ads
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10,091 at $2.67 each
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September Facebook app campaign purchase value
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$157,356 on $19,990 spend
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Results are separate historical campaign snapshots and should not be added together. Merchant forms are not confirmed active retailers. Purchase figures are advertising attribution; purchase value is shopper transaction value, not the payment provider’s own revenue.
At the January 30 pre-kickoff meeting, the team was still defining access, landing-page feedback, conversion events and the fields that forms needed to pass into Salesforce. A signed contract and risk assessment were required before platform access. Creative then needed legal review, and merchant form tracking depended on client development work.
Four15 organized the program around distinct objectives. Merchant acquisition needed business-oriented messaging, relevant shopping-platform audiences and leads the sales team could work. Consumer campaigns needed separate goals for app downloads, registrations and purchases. Brand searches could attract both groups, so the team had to distinguish retailer intent from consumer demand.
That structure became a working program across Google, Facebook and LinkedIn, followed by Apple Search Ads. Four15 built campaigns, coordinated tracking and creative requirements, and established separate merchant and consumer reporting. The engagement developed from initial setup into acquisition tests, retailer promotions and app campaigns over the following months.
Facebook lead ads gave the team an effective way to collect merchant interest while website tracking was being improved. Four15 helped connect those forms to Salesforce through Zapier; March notes confirm that forms were reaching the CRM. Subsequent work addressed attribution fields, form referrals and campaign information so sales feedback could inform media decisions.
We tested merchant benefits, creative formats and platform-specific messages for ecommerce businesses. The May QBR identified lead-generation ads as the strongest merchant format, while highlighting the need to validate lead quality. The program produced 557 forms at $26.48 each, and the matched month-to-date comparison showed cost per lead falling 42%.
Four15 developed retailer promotions and coordinated campaigns for the platform’s shopping event. Reporting separated prospecting from remarketing instead of treating every attributed purchase as a newly acquired customer. For July 1–29, the sales report recorded 10,091 purchases within a seven-day click window on $26,932.92 in spend, or $2.67 per click-attributed purchase.
The team also tested where shoppers landed. A cosmetics retailer’s payment-specific page recorded $1.59 per attributed purchase versus $2.07 for its homepage, a 23% lower reported cost. The notes later identified co-branded retailer creative as a successful approach.
App work required a different measurement plan. Four15 worked through Firebase events, first opens, registrations and purchase reporting, then separated operating systems and prospecting from existing-user audiences. We recommended first purchase as the eventual customer-acquisition measure, while registrations served as an interim optimization goal.
The May QBR recorded 3,704 app first opens on $7,730.40 in spend, approximately $2.09 each. In September, Facebook app campaigns reported about 1,913 registrations and $157,356 in attributed purchase value on $19,990 in spend. Apple Search Ads separately reported 3,597 new downloads at approximately $4.47 each.
Four15’s contribution was a functioning acquisition program with demonstrated merchantlead efficiency, consumer purchase activity and app acquisition results. The work connected enterprise launch requirements with practical testing: which audiences to reach, what creative to use, where to send traffic and which outcomes to measure.
The client’s internal teams and other agency partners also contributed. These results describe the campaigns and reporting in the supplied engagement record; they do not assign the company’s broader growth to paid media alone.