A CPA dating offer run into South Africa via Facebook over three weeks — switching the creative approach from staged photos to UGC-style clips nearly halved the cost per sign-up.
The task
By the start, the advertiser had confirmed demand but no controllable volume. The goal was to scale a dating offer in South Africa beyond a single starter ad set without CPA creeping up — a competitive market where the initial staged, stock-style creatives fatigued fast.
We worked the "Dating" vertical in the South Africa market. Payment model — CPA per sign-up, main sources — Facebook, Mobile targeting.
How we did it
We split the work into several parallel tracks.
- A starter Facebook ad set with broad 24–40 targeting optimized for sign-ups, using three staged creatives in a typical stock dating-photo style.
- In parallel, five short UGC-style clips were shot specifically for this market — first-person, selfie-style, conversational subtitle copy, no studio lighting.
- The new creatives were launched in a separate ad set with identical targeting, to compare CPA apples-to-apples without mixing in the old set's learning history.
What went wrong
Not everything went according to plan. The starter set with stock-style creatives landed at $7.30 CPA — nearly double the target, with frequency on the active audience climbing faster than expected.
Budget was gradually shifted to the UGC ad set as its lower CPA was confirmed, while the stock-style set was kept running on a minimal budget as a hedge against the new creatives fatiguing.
The result
The result was a controllable volume with predictable economics. Over the three weeks: sign-ups — 720, cpa — $3.80, vs. week-one cost — −48%.
Over three weeks: 720 sign-ups, $3.80 CPA — 48% below the first week's cost on stock-style creatives.
What we took away
- In competitive dating markets, UGC-style creative almost always beats staged studio photos on cost per sign-up, even with identical targeting.
- Testing a new creative direction in a separate ad set, rather than swapping creatives inside the old one, keeps the CPA comparison honest.
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.