Scaling Figo past the category leader
Figo Pet Insurance came to the program with cost-per-purchase running as high as $840 under previous management, against a $300 target. The work reset efficiency first, then scaled monthly spend nearly 4x without giving it back.
- Policy purchases over the engagement year
- 3x
- Annual average cost per purchase, against a $300 target
- $210
- Insurance policies purchased in the year
- 24,000
- Monthly spend growth, $250K to about $1M
- 4x
The challenge
A real CPL goal, and a mandate to scale
The brand was growing fast with budget to deploy, but the number that mattered was fixed: a $300 cost per lead. The mandate was to scale spend hard without breaking that goal.
Efficiency is easy to hold at small budgets and easy to lose the moment spend climbs, so scale and CPL usually pull against each other.
The strategy
Full-funnel, every dollar judged against $300
- Full-funnel channel mixSearch, social, and programmatic ran together, with brand-awareness channels added mid and top of funnel to build demand ahead of conversion.
- Every dollar graded on CPLNew spend earned budget by holding the $300 goal through GPS tracking, not by looking busy in a dashboard.
- Brand-awareness in growth marketsMid- and top-of-funnel demand generation aimed to overtake the category leader on branded search.
The results
- Monthly spend, up from $250K
- $1M
- Cost-per-lead goal held while scaling
- $300
The result
Spend up 4x, goal intact
Monthly spend scaled from $250K to about $1M with the $300 CPL intact, and the brand-awareness investment showed up where it counts: branded search demand surpassed the category leader in several states.
The challenge
Cost per purchase had run away from the target
Under previous management, cost per purchase reached $840, close to three times Figo's $300 target. Spend was aggressive and the return on it was not there.
The brief was not simply to cut cost. It was to expand budget by nearly 4x while holding cost per purchase in a healthy range, across a search, social, and programmatic mix that had been running as separate silos with no attribution clarity between them.
The reset
From $840 to $210 against a $300 target
- Previous agency peak cost per purchase
- $840
Nearly 3x Figo's own target, with budget still scaling.
- First month under Conduit
- $291
Below target inside the first month, before the full strategy was deployed.
- Annual average achieved
- $210
30% below the $300 target across the full year.
Cost per purchase came down as spend went up, which is the part of this program that is genuinely uncommon at scale.
How it ran
Streamline, upgrade, scale
- A unified seven-platform mixGoogle Ads, Microsoft Ads, Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, and programmatic display run as one system rather than seven parallel silos, so audiences were not being bought twice.
- Creative and audience testing before scaleA/B testing on creative and audience combinations identified what actually converted, and budget followed the winners rather than the assumptions.
- Budget scaled in validated incrementsMonthly spend moved from $250K toward $1M in stages, with performance analyzed at each threshold before the next increase. Aggressive spending without that discipline is what produced the $840 baseline.
- Cross-platform retargetingHigh-intent audiences were re-engaged across the mix rather than within a single channel, which is where a meaningful share of the purchase volume came from.
Inside the Meta program
What the channel review actually showed
- The carousel was the durable winnerIt was the longest-standing creative and continuously drove the most cost-effective purchases. It had the most successful learning phase, which let the platform gather data and deliver against the best opportunity.
- Winning ad sets were left alone on purposeThe two top carousel versions traded places month to month, so the ad set holding them kept the highest budget allocation and was deliberately not edited, to avoid resetting the learning phase.
- Creative was separated by ad setSplitting creative across ad sets gave real control over where budget moved, shifting toward top performers and away from expensive versions on cost per purchase and cost per qualified action.
- Diminishing returns were managed, not ignoredWhen results showed spend outrunning efficiency, budget was reduced to find the point where performance held, paired with turning off underperforming ad sets so the remaining budget was not spread thin.
What carried the result
Four things worth taking from this program
- Multi-channel integration is the differentiatorA seven-platform strategy reached pet owners at stages no single channel covers, and produced purchase volume none of them delivers alone.
- Real-time optimization is not optional at scaleContinuous adjustment to bids, targeting, and creative is the mechanism that kept cost per purchase in range while budget grew 4x.
- Strategic scaling beats aggressive spendingEach budget threshold was validated before the next. Skipping that step is what produced an $840 cost per purchase under previous management.
- Transparency is what unlocks the next increaseUnified reporting gave Figo's team the visibility to keep scaling. The reporting model, not just the tactics, is what made the growth sustainable.
The signal in the search data
Figo’s awareness skyrockets compared to competitors.
As mid- and top-of-funnel spend scaled, the branded search people actually typed shifted state by state from the category leader to Figo. The map replays that shift.
States where Figo leads branded search awareness
Source: branded search awareness by state, before and after the scale-up. Tile map is a directional illustration of the shift.
