Confidential / Kajabi MKTNG 2019/2020 / Meta Ads Audit / June 9 to July 8, 2026

$285,000 a month in additional revenue.
Zero new budget required.

This audit identifies exactly where $410,944 in monthly ad spend is being systematically under-deployed, and quantifies what happens when it isn't. Every number below comes directly from the account's own last-30-day delivery data.

Data integrity note: All figures are platform-reported, sourced directly from Meta Ads Manager (June 9 – July 8, 2026). Conversion figures have not yet been cross-verified against Kajabi's backend trial activation data. Where this distinction is material, it is flagged explicitly. Source: Meta Marketing API.
Amount spent, last 30 days
$450.8K
10 campaigns / 46 ad sets / 476 ads
Trial starts attributed (platform-reported)
484
Every single one from retargeting audiences
Cost per trial, conversion campaigns only
$356
What the dashboard shows
Cost per trial, full system cost
$849
What the business actually pays
Price spread, identical audience across 4 campaigns
3.7×
$179 vs $667, same people, same month
Spend producing zero attributed trials
$99.9K
22% of budget, warming campaigns
Trials available, same budget re-arranged
733–1,158
At prices this account already paid last month
Conservative year-one revenue upside
$285K/mo
+357 trials × 40% conversion × $2,000 LTV
01 / The machine as it runs today

Four layers of spend. One output that matters. One price the dashboard hides.

The account runs a textbook funnel: buy attention, warm the audience, convert to trials. The structure is logical. The problem is that three of the four layers are paying to reach the same people the fourth layer is already converting, and the business is paying for all four.

Spend by layer, last 30 days. Source: Meta Ads Manager
Layer 30-day spend Optimized toward Trials attributed Audience type
Prospecting $138,855 Landing page views + video plays 0 New Accounts Center accounts
Warming $99,883 Content views (1-day view attribution) 0 Retargeting, same pools as conversion
Webinar leads $39,828 Lead form completions 2,497 leads @ $15.95 New Accounts Center accounts
Conversion $172,206 Trial starts 484 Retargeting only
System total $450,772 484 trials
The two numbers that define this audit What the ads dashboard reports: $172,206 spent on conversion campaigns ÷ 484 trial starts = $355.80 to acquire each trial
What the business actually paid: add the $99,883 warming spend and $138,855 prospecting spend that fed those same trials = $849.06 to acquire each trial
The gap: $849 − $356 = $493 per trial the dashboard never shows. Across 484 trials, that's $238,738/month of spend that looks invisible because it sits in different campaigns.
Payback math, $2,000 blended year-one value per paying customer Trial → paid 30% 40% 50%
Customer acquisition cost at dashboard price ($356/trial) $1,186 $890 $712
Customer acquisition cost at full system price ($849/trial) $2,831 $2,123 $1,699
Payback period at dashboard price 7.1 mo 5.3 mo 4.3 mo
Payback period at full system price 17.0 mo 12.7 mo 10.2 mo
The core problem At the full system price, this account only clears a 12-month payback if trial-to-paid runs above ~42% or the plan mix skews heavily toward Growth and Pro tiers. The account looks healthy or upside-down depending entirely on which of its own numbers you read. That ambiguity is what this audit resolves.
02 / The seven leaks

Seven specific problems. Each one priced from the account's own data.

Leaks 1 and 2 are the primary opportunities, they are additive and drive the recapture scenarios in Section 3. Leaks 3 through 7 are the structural mechanisms that cause Leaks 1 and 2 to exist.

# The problem Revenue at stake Additional trials Type
1 Four campaigns bid on the same 8 audiences simultaneously, the same audience costs up to 3.7× more than it needs to $199K/yr foregone +249 Additive, zero assumptions
2 $99.9K/month optimizes toward "content views" at frequency 22–37 on audiences the conversion campaigns are already paying to convert, zero trials attributed $173K–$340K/yr foregone +216 to +425 Additive, budget reallocation
3 No campaign has ever been pointed at cold audiences and asked to find a stranger who starts a trial, all 484 trials are bought twice $238.7K/mo invisible Untested upside Structural gap
4 Duplicate ad sets of the same audience run with different expansion settings, the expanded version wins every pair, but the losing configuration still receives budget $38.7K/mo at 2–3× proven price ≈ +132 Mechanism inside Leak 1
5 476 ads built from ~60 creatives, each re-uploaded per ad set, so no ad ever accumulates the signal history its combined spend paid for. 20+ instances ranked in the bottom 35% for quality Auction tax on $172K/mo Multiplier Signal fragmentation
6 The four conversion campaigns use three different attribution windows, then their costs are compared as if they measure the same thing $172K/mo allocated on rigged comparisons Decision quality Measurement failure
7 Three trial offers run to the same audiences simultaneously, graded on trial starts rather than paying customers, the cheapest paying customer is currently unknown ±$17K/mo default mis-allocation Compounds 1 + 6 Offer clarity
Leak 1 / Self-competition +249 trials/month left on the table

The account bids against itself for the same audiences. The same person costs up to 3.7× more depending on which campaign wins the auction.

Best vs. worst price paid for identical audiences, last 30 days. Source: Meta Ads Manager
Audience 30-day spend Trials bought Blended price Best price achieved Trials at best price Foregone
Pricing page viewers (30d) $34,907 133 $262 $154 227 −94
Site visitors (30d) $37,484 95 $395 $324 116 −21
Deep content engaged (60d) $32,978 81 $407 $260 127 −46
Multi-page visitors (90d) $31,833 59 $540 $456 70 −11
Churned users $21,848 63 $347 $179 122 −59
Checkout leads (90d) $13,156 53 $248 $186 71 −18
Total $172,206 484 $356 $235 733 −249
What happens if you just stop the self-competition Take the same $172,206 and route each audience to the one campaign that already proved it could win that audience cheapest: 733 trials instead of 484 (+249 trials, +51%)
Those extra 249 trials, at a 40% conversion rate and $2,000 average year-one customer value = $199,200/month in revenue the account is currently leaving on the table
Put another way: the account is overpaying by $58,466 every month just because four campaigns are bidding against each other for the same people.
The audiences are proven. The creatives convert. The arrangement of which campaign is allowed to bid determines the price, and right now four campaigns outbid each other for pools as small as 2,013 Accounts Center accounts.
Leak 2 / The $100K warming loop 22% of budget → 0 trials

Three campaigns spend $99,883/month showing ads 22 to 37 times to the same Accounts Center accounts the conversion campaigns are already paying to convert. Zero trials are attributed to this layer.

Frequency vs. trials attributed, warming vs. conversion layer. Source: Meta Ads Manager
What that $99,883 could buy instead Right now: $99,883 buys 407,000 "content views" from people who were probably already going to visit kajabi.com anyway. Trials started from this spend: zero
If that same money were redirected to the conversion campaigns at the worst price they've ever paid: 216 additional trial starts
At the best price those campaigns have achieved: 425 additional trial starts
The revenue that represents at a 40% conversion rate and $2,000 year-one value: $172,800 to $340,000 per month
The 1-day view "content view" event is nearly self-fulfilling: an Accounts Center account already navigating to kajabi.com scrolls past an ad and the campaign takes credit. The layer reports 148,311 content views at $0.55 each as a success metric while contributing nothing the business can bank. This is the single largest reallocation opportunity in the account.
Leak 3 / No cold-audience trial campaigns $238.7K/month invisible

Not one campaign has ever been set up to find a stranger and convert them directly to a trial. Every trial start is bought twice: once to create the audience, once to convert it.

Layer30-day spendOptimization eventTrialsAudience type
Prospecting, traffic$76,267Landing page views0New Accounts Center accounts
Prospecting, video$62,588Full video plays0New Accounts Center accounts
Warming ×3$99,883Content views (1-day view)0Retargeting
Conversion ×4$172,206Trial starts484Retargeting only
System$410,944484$849/trial full system
The trial-start pixel has been active since 2023. It has never been pointed at cold traffic while spending. The delivery system has never been asked to solve the account's actual problem on new customers. This is not a leak to patch, it is an entirely untested market. Its potential is not included in the recapture scenarios below because it has no observed price yet. Everything in Section 3 is available before touching this.
Leak 4 / The A/B test nobody read Expanded audiences win every pair

The account accidentally ran a controlled experiment: duplicate ad sets of the same audience, one with tight targeting, one with expanded. The results are already in. The losing configuration still receives budget.

Same audience, two configurations Reach (30d) Frequency CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) Cost per trial
Checkout leads, tight (2 ad sets) 2.0K–2.1K 26–27× $25.51–$36.45 $346–$657
Checkout leads, expanded (2 ad sets) 96K–415K 2.0–2.2× $4.83–$26.78 $186–$268
Churned users, tight (2 ad sets) 5.3K–7.6K 11.6–15.1× $40.91–$43.48 $444–$667
Churned users, expanded (2 ad sets) 131K–443K 1.9–2.2× $8.63–$25.11 $179–$526
Pricing viewers, tight (3 ad sets) 17.5K–18.5K 15.2–19.6× $22.58–$38.88 $259–$477
Pricing viewers, expanded (1 ad set) 157K 2.0× $21.82 $154
Tight copies of these 3 audiences spent $38,650 → 108 trials at $358 blended. The same $38,650 at each audience's expanded price would have produced approximately 240 trials (+132). Meta's own diagnostics currently flag 12 actively delivering ad sets for narrow audiences. The account contains its own controlled experiment with a consistent winner, and the losing configuration is still receiving budget.
Leak 5 / Signal fragmentation 476 ads, ~60 creatives, 20+ quality-ranked bottom 35%

Every creative is re-uploaded per ad set. No ad ever accumulates the signal history its combined spend paid for. The same creative asset becomes up to 8 separate ad identities, each starting from zero.

The 60-second demo video has a bottom-35% quality ranking but an above-average conversion-rate ranking. The message sells. The packaging pays a penalty. Fragmentation guarantees no variant ever builds enough history to climb out of the penalty box, and that penalty is charged as elevated CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) across the entire $172K/month conversion layer.
Leak 6 / Three attribution windows $172K/month allocated on rigged comparisons

The four conversion campaigns are graded on different attribution settings, then compared as if they measure the same thing. The cheapest-looking campaign may simply be using the most generous ruler.

Campaign Attribution window Reported cost per trial What the number actually includes
30-day trial (a) 7-day click + 1-day view (mixed by ad set) $267 View-through credit on several ad sets
14-day trial 1-day view + 7-day click $336 View-through credit
3 months / $99 7-day click only $425 Clicks only, structurally reports higher
30-day trial (b) 7-day click only $462 Clicks only, structurally reports higher
The prior account structure burned $878K in one 90-day window at a $39.96 CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) with results officially marked "unreadable" due to mixed attribution, plus a legacy campaign that reported $1,694 per trial before being paused. The same failure conditions are currently rebuilding themselves in this account.
Leak 7 / Offer sprawl Cheapest paying customer: unknown

Three trial offers run to the same audiences simultaneously, graded on trial starts rather than paying customers. The most important question, which offer produces the cheapest paying customer, is currently unanswerable.

Offer 30-day spend Trials Cost per trial Cash + retention profile
30-day free trial (two parallel campaigns) $101,157 299 $267 / $462 No cash day one standard conversion
3 months for $99 $42,480 100 $425 $9,900 immediate cash different retention curve
14-day free trial ("Graham") $28,569 85 $336 Faster decision window
Paused: 3/$99 optimized to purchase $19,847 (window) 24 purchases $827/purchase Highest CTR in the account (5.32%), switched off
Because of Leaks 1 and 6, these prices measure structure and attribution windows more than they measure offers. The account's most valuable open question, which offer produces the cheapest paying customer, is currently unanswerable with $172K/month riding on the answer.
03 / Recapture scenarios

From 484 to 1,158 trials. Same budget. Zero new creative.

Every price used in these scenarios was paid by this account between June 9 and July 8, 2026. No creative improvements, no landing page changes, and no cold-audience trial campaigns (Leak 3) are included. That upside sits on top of this table.

Trials per month, identical $410.9K system spend. Source: Meta Ads Manager
Scenario $410.9K/month held constant Trials/mo System cost/trial Δ trials Yr-1 revenue Δ @30% @40% @50%
Today 484 $849 , , , ,
Fix Leak 1 only (own best prices per audience) 733 $561 +249 +$149K +$199K +$249K
Fix Leaks 1 + 2 conservative (half the warming budget at worst trial price) 841 $489 +357 +$214K +$285K +$357K
Fix Leaks 1 + 2 full band (all warming at best blended price) 1,158 $355 +674 +$404K +$540K +$674K
The conservative case in plain numbers What it costs today to acquire each trial start, counting all spend that feeds those trials: $849
What it costs after fixing just Leaks 1 and 2: $489 (a 42% reduction, zero new budget)
At a 40% trial-to-paid rate, the cost to acquire a paying customer drops from $2,123 to $1,223
How long until that customer pays back their acquisition cost: today it takes 12.7 months. After the fix: 7.3 months, well inside the first year of the subscription
04 / Context

Why the stakes are higher than the trial numbers suggest.

This account is 5 months into a rebuild following a pricing restructure that removed Kajabi's entry-level plan and positioned it as the most expensive option in its category. Every trial is now bought against that narrative.

Monthly spend and CPM, trailing 13 months. Source: Meta Ads Manager
FactNumberWhy it raises the stakes
Pricing restructure Jan 13, 2026 Basic $179 Growth $249 Pro $499 Kickstarter plan removed. Public backlash. Entry price now highest in the category.
Cheapest competitor entry points Teachable $39 Skool $99 Thinkific $49 Price-sensitive creators exit down, community sellers exit sideways. Every trial is bought against this narrative.
June CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) $8.81 (−74% vs Feb) Not efficiency, mix shift. Cheap warming impressions dilute the average while account Frequency hit 8.83 (healthy range: 3.0–3.5). The impression chart looks healed; the trial chart does not.
Prior structure's ending $878K results unreadable The evergreen era ended with mixed attribution and a $39.96 CPM. Leak 6 shows the same conditions re-forming.
05 / What to protect

Five things this team built correctly.

A restructure that destroys working assets is worse than no restructure. These five elements must be preserved in any reorganization.

AssetProofValue in a restructure
Webinar lead engine 2,497 leads @ $15.95 best segment $9.68 Working mid-funnel asset. Do not touch while re-plumbing the trial machine.
Attention buying $0.23/landing page view $0.021/full play 5.5M reached The account buys attention as cheaply as anyone in the category. Only the destination event is wrong.
Retargeting pool quality $154–$267 best prices proven conversion The audiences convert at world-class prices when not outbid by the account's own campaigns.
Creative production ~60 live creatives 8 vertical-specific statics founder stories Persona-level creative diversity is the hardest input to replicate. It exists. It needs consolidation, not more volume.
Naming and testing discipline Consistent conventions 3 live offers geo tests in history Makes a full restructure fast and auditable. Rare at this spend level. The appetite to test exists, it needs one ruler and one decision layer.
06 / The bottom line

This is not a budget problem.
It is an arrangement problem.

Every number in this document is the account's own. Seven leaks share one root cause: the structure prices the same Accounts Center accounts four to eight ways simultaneously and grades the results on three different rulers, so the account cannot see which of its own prices to keep.

The whole audit in four lines Today: $410,944 → 484 trials → $849 each → 12.7-month payback
Re-arranged, same prices: $410,944 → 841–1,158 trials → $355–$489 each → 4.4–7.3-month payback
Conservative delta: +357 trials and $285,000/month in year-one revenue, on zero new spend
What comes next: The sequence, the safeguards, and the order of operations.
Prepared from direct account data Kajabi MKTNG 2019/2020 (act_343371366428491) Primary window June 9 – July 8, 2026 Source: Meta Marketing API (platform-reported data) History referenced only where it sharpens the current read Trial-to-paid conversion rates (30%, 40%, 50%) and the $2,000 blended year-one value are stated assumptions pending billing data; all other figures are directly observed in-account All currency United States dollars Data integrity note: all conversion figures are platform-reported and have not been cross-verified against Kajabi backend trial activation data, this verification is recommended before finalizing any budget reallocation decisions