Case Study · Crescent Funded
$11.40 cost per challenge for a Pakistan-based prop firm in PK + GCC markets
Pakistan-based prop firm scaled across PK + UAE + Saudi markets via Sharia-compliant challenge architecture, Urdu-native creative, and local-payment-method integration. CPA $19 → $11.40 in 90 days.
The Client
Who they are.
Crescent Funded is a Pakistan-headquartered Forex prop firm offering trader-funding challenges to retail Forex traders in Pakistan, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. Founded by two Karachi-based ex-broker traders, the firm built its differentiation around a Sharia-compliant challenge tier (swap-free, no overnight-rollover interest) that no major US/EU prop firm offered at the time. They came in spending around PKR 2.5 lakh per month on Meta with a $19 blended cost per challenge purchase, persistent ad-account stability issues from running creative through unwarmed BMs based in Pakistan, and no localization across their GCC markets.
The Challenge
The starting point.
Rebuild acquisition for a regionally-focused prop firm with three constraints stacked on top: a regulatory environment in Pakistan that requires careful messaging around trading and capital risk, a price-sensitive retail audience (Pakistani traders cannot fund $200+ challenges at Western volume), and an underserved Sharia-compliant tier that competitors barely marketed. The infrastructure had to handle Pakistani payment methods that no global gateway supports cleanly, plus expansion into UAE and Saudi where buyer behavior and channel mix diverge meaningfully.
Constraint 1: Pakistan regulatory tone: SECP guidance on financial-products advertising, no "guaranteed" language
Constraint 2: Price-sensitive PK audience: cannot anchor on $200+ challenge fees the way US/EU prop firms do
Constraint 3: Payment methods: Easypaisa, JazzCash, NayaPay, Pakistani bank transfer (none supported by Stripe/PayPal)
Constraint 4: Sharia-compliance authenticity: needed real scholar review on tier mechanics, not just marketing language
The Strategy
What we actually did.
Five operational pillars built around regional fit, language authenticity, and payment-infrastructure depth.
Sharia-compliant challenge tier as the lead offer
Repositioned the Sharia-compliant tier (swap-free, no overnight interest, scholar-reviewed mechanics) from a buried option to the lead offer in PK and Saudi markets. Real scholar attestation surfaced in the creative and on the landing page. This single repositioning lifted that tier from roughly 14% of purchases to 62% across the engagement, and dropped tier-level CPA by 28% because the differentiation reduced ad-fatigue on the warm audiences.
Urdu-native creative for Pakistan (not Hindi-translated, not English-only)
Built an Urdu-native creative pipeline rather than translating English scripts or repurposing Hindi creative from Indian campaigns. Cultural framing, Pakistani trading vernacular (specific term usage that differs from Indian Hindi), and local trust signals (Karachi-based founders on camera, scholar attestation, Easypaisa logo). Urdu-native creative outperformed both Hindi-translated and English-only variants on every metric tracked.
Local payment-method integration at checkout
Wired Easypaisa, JazzCash, NayaPay, and direct Pakistani bank transfer into the checkout flow as first-class payment options, not afterthought additions. Pakistani retail traders do not have international cards at scale. Adding local payment methods lifted PK checkout CVR by 41% versus the international-card-only baseline. Same principle applied in UAE (Mada, local cards, crypto) and Saudi (Mada, STC Pay).
Anti-detect ops + warmed BM stack hardened for the region
Pakistani IP origin attracts heavier Meta automated review than Western markets. Built and warmed Meta BMs through Dolphin and AdsPower with isolated profiles, dedicated residential proxies matched to target-market GEO (US/UK for cold prospecting on global audiences, regional for retargeting), and isolated payment methods per BM. Result: zero account-disable incidents across the 90-day engagement despite running aggressive prop firm creative.
TikTok prospecting layer for younger PK + GCC traders
Added TikTok as a top-of-funnel prospecting layer specifically for the 18-30 segment in Pakistan and UAE where Meta CPMs were rising faster than performance held. TikTok delivered top-of-funnel discovery at meaningfully lower CPMs in PK and pulled a different audience cohort than Meta in UAE. Combined Meta + TikTok stack scaled monthly challenge volume 3.5x.
Results
The transformation.
90-day engagement. Cost per challenge dropped from $19 to $11.40 (40% reduction). Monthly volume scaled from roughly 140 to 485+. The Sharia-compliant tier captured 62% of all purchases. Zero ad-account incidents.
Down 40% from $19 baseline. Averaged across PK, UAE, and Saudi cohorts.
Up 3.5x from baseline (~140/mo). PK alone reached 218/mo at $8.20 CPA.
From ~14% baseline. Single biggest differentiator vs Western-prop-firm competitors in PK + KSA.
First-cycle challenge revenue only. Excludes profit-split and re-challenge LTV.
After Easypaisa + JazzCash + NayaPay integration vs international-card-only baseline.
Across 90 days. Warmed BMs + anti-detect + GEO-matched proxies + payment isolation.
What we'd do next
The next chapter.
Phase 2 would expand into Bangladesh (bKash + Nagad as payment rails, Bengali creative), add Kuwait and Bahrain to round out the GCC coverage, build a referral mechanic where funded Pakistani traders earn discount codes to share with their networks (Pakistan retail trading is heavily community-driven), and layer in a YouTube content presence in Urdu that feeds organic discovery + paid retargeting.
Need prop firm or finance acquisition in Pakistan, GCC, or South Asia?
Regional prop firm acquisition needs an operator who knows the payment infrastructure, the language nuances, the regulatory tone, and the compliance constraints. Pakistan-based, regional-network active. Book a 15-min call.
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