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How I Spent $40K on Ads and Quadrupled my $ ($30k/month SaaS App)
Steven Cravotta's deep dive on paid ads: put \$1 in, get \$3–4 out. A four-phase process (build → optimize funnel → scale → analyze) took Puff Count from ~\$3k to \$30k+/mo. Key numbers: \$21 CAC, ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mGDwL4SmhQ
How I Spent $40K on Ads and Quadrupled my $ ($30k/month SaaS App)

TL;DR

Steven Cravotta's deep dive on paid ads: put $1 in, get $3–4 out. A four-phase process (build → optimize funnel → scale → analyze) took Puff Count from ~$3k to $30k+/mo. Key numbers: $21 CAC, ~$70–71 LTV, the golden 1:3 ratio.

The four phases

  1. Setup — build a marketable product; build an organic creative library on TikTok for $0 first.
  2. Optimize the funnel — for every 10 users, ≥1 must pay or paid ads never work. Optimize product first (UX, features, retention, support), then onboarding (survey adds sunk-cost time, captures leads, drives the aha moment). A/B test paywalls in Superwall.
  3. Scale on paid ads — ad platforms need data; feed them by optimizing up the funnel one event at a time: video views → link clicks → installs → trials → subscriptions. Starting at “find me subscribers” with no data is hopelessly expensive.
  4. Analyze & scale winners — track LTV and CAC, scale the cheapest-subscriber campaign, always test new demographics/lookalikes, expand from US → global (300M audience) while it stays profitable.

Key insight

  • Each subscriber keeps paying after you stop spending, so a “2x” headline ROAS understates true LTV-based returns.
  • Don’t stop organic posting — it’s free.

Tools

TikTok Ads, Facebook Ads (event manager / waterfall of events), AppsFlyer, RevenueCat, Superwall.

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