A mobile subscription offer using carrier billing (charge to phone bill, no card required) run into Egypt over two weeks — 890 confirmed subscriptions at $1.90 CPA, $1,691 total spend.
The task
The request came from a partner who wanted to enter the geo fast, without a long ramp-up. We needed to launch a carrier-billing mobile subscription offer into Egypt in a way that met the tightened regulatory and platform controls on this offer type, without losing volume.
We worked the "Mobile Subscription" vertical in the Egypt market. Payment model — CPA per confirmed subscription, main sources — Mobile traffic.
How we did it
We split the work into several parallel tracks.
- Made creatives and landers transparent on price and cancellation terms — both a compliance requirement and a way to reduce complaints and chargebacks compared with the more vague earlier version of the same offer.
- Targeted at the device level: bet on older, lower-spec Android devices, which converted noticeably better than flagships.
- Added double subscription confirmation via SMS instead of a one-click flow.
What went wrong
The bottleneck turned up somewhere we didn't expect. A one-click flow, tested earlier in the campaign, produced more volume upfront but led to a higher rate of cancellations and complaints downstream — and platform and regulatory scrutiny of carrier billing offers has increased markedly in recent years.
Added double SMS confirmation — a step that initially cost some volume but noticeably cut cancellations and complaints. Net 30-day subscription value ended up higher with this extra step than with the one-click flow.
The result
The result was a controllable volume with predictable economics. Over the two weeks: subscriptions — 890, cpa — $1.90, spend — $1,691.
Over two weeks: 890 confirmed subscriptions at $1.90 CPA and $1,691 total spend — with double SMS confirmation and a focus on budget Android devices.
What we took away
- In carrier billing, the barrier is not trust in the payment itself, but clarity about what the charge is for and how to cancel.
- An extra confirmation step that lowers volume upfront can raise net subscription value over time.
These numbers belong to one specific setup, geo, and buying period. Economics will differ on another offer or in another season — we always recalculate them before launch.