Case Study · Confidential. Payment Solutions Platform

Cut B2B FinTech CPL from $310 to $185 across 4 international markets

Brand positioning + paid acquisition for a payment platform serving UK, Canada, UAE, and Australia. Infrastructure-first messaging. not promotional claims.

Industry:Payment Platform

Channels:Meta Ads · Google Ads

Timeline:12 months · UK · CA · UAE · AU

$310 → $185

CPL reduction

60%+

Lead acceptance rate

$2K–$6K

Onboarding value / client

The Client

Who they are.

A confidential B2B FinTech offering payment gateway services, debit cards, and digital banking infrastructure. Target buyer: merchants and platforms in regulated markets requiring local compliance and integration support. Average new-merchant onboarding value: $2,000–$6,000 first year.

Google Ads search campaigns across UK Canada UAE and Australia

The Challenge

The starting point.

Build brand positioning and paid acquisition simultaneously across 4 international markets. each with distinct payment cultures, compliance frameworks, and trust thresholds. Infrastructure reliability and compliance had to be the brand promise; promotional claims would invite regulatory scrutiny. Previous CPL was running $310 with low lead acceptance. sales team was rejecting most inbound as "not a fit."

Constraint 1: Compliance: zero promotional claims, no rate quotes in creative

Constraint 2: Four distinct markets simultaneously. UK, Canada, UAE, Australia

Constraint 3: Sales team capacity: only accepts merchants matching specific GMV + vertical fit profile

The Strategy

What we actually did.

Three foundational moves. The brand work and the acquisition work had to align. paid ads couldn't promise what brand positioning hadn't earned.

Brand positioning around infrastructure + compliance

No "lowest rates" or "fastest payouts" claims. Built positioning around merchant value: regulatory compliance, regional integrations, and human onboarding support. Trust signals (regulator licenses, partner logos, named integrations) replaced promotional copy.

Audience segmentation by GMV + vertical fit

Built lookalike audiences seeded specifically from merchants in the sales team's "ideal customer" tier. not all converted leads. The algorithm learned what high-fit merchants look like, not just any merchant who clicked an ad.

Funnel restructuring with Keitaro tracking

Implemented Keitaro tracking + CRM API integrations to segment merchant leads by region and intent level. Reduced unqualified traffic by 40% by routing low-intent inquiries to nurture-only paths instead of the sales team.

CRM pipeline showing merchant acquisition with vertical-fit segmentation

Results

The transformation.

CPL came down 40%. Lead acceptance climbed past 60%. Sales team stopped wasting time on unqualified inbound. The brand carried weight in compliance-sensitive markets.

$310 → $185

Cost per lead

40% reduction via funnel restructuring + segmentation.

60%+

Lead acceptance rate

Sales team accepting majority of inbound. was previously well below 30%.

$90K–$140K

Monthly spend managed

Across 4 markets simultaneously.

$2K–$6K

New-merchant onboarding value

First-year value per acquired client.

UK · CA · UAE · AU

Markets

Each with localized compliance language.

What we'd do next

The next chapter.

Phase 2 would extend to LinkedIn ABM targeting payment-ops decision-makers at named target merchants, a quarterly compliance newsletter for SEO + relationship-building, and a referral channel built off the existing top-10% LTV merchant base.

Marketing a regulated B2B FinTech product internationally?

These markets need brand work that respects compliance and acquisition that respects sales-team capacity. Book a 15-min call to walk through your current setup.

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