What actually drives customer acquisition

I’m not covering basics like market validation or product-market fit - that’s a given before you even start. But if you’re ready to scale up with your existing product, let’s dive in.

Optimization Essentials

From my days building Meta’s ad delivery systems, I’ve seen firsthand how critical technical setup is. Without these optimizations, you’re just burning ad spend. Here are the elements that feed the algorithm best:

1. Server-Side API Integration: With iOS 14 changing the game, this is a must.

2. First-Party Cookies: Essential for consistent data across sessions.

3. Advanced Matching Parameters: Helps enhance targeting and user tracking.

4. Custom Conversion Events and Real-Time Logging: Each meaningful interaction should be logged server-side.

Bottom line: Track every critical user interaction server-side. At Meta, we saw a 3-4x boost in ad performance with server events over client-side tracking alone.

Building First-Party Data

First-party data is the fuel for today’s ad algorithms. Start by capturing:

• Behavioral Patterns: How users navigate and engage.

• Conversion Pathways and Time-to-Conversion: Identify where interest drops.

• Cart Abandonment & Feature Usage: Understand what draws users back or drives them away.

A key tip here: Log these data points server-side. You’re losing around 30% of client-side data, so investing in your own first-party data pixel or intelligence app will pay off big time. Don’t rely solely on default ad platform pixels.

Algorithm Optimization

When it comes to improving algorithm performance, here’s what truly matters:

• Event Quality Scores: Track server-side for better accuracy.

• Server-Side Conversion Matching and Bidding Strategy Alignment: Essential for meaningful targeting.

• Creative Performance Signals: The algorithm weighs server data more heavily—2-3x over pixel data.

Email Engagement

I’m a huge advocate for using both paid ads and email marketing in tandem. Together, they create quality signals that loop back to each other for smarter retargeting. Here’s a pro email flow to set up:

• Abandoned Cart for E-Commerce or Abandoned Intent for B2B: Don’t confuse this with an abandoned checkout. An email sent at the “abandoned cart” stage (for e-commerce) or “pricing page view” stage (for B2B) targets users just before checkout—a high-intent moment that’s underused.

This often requires some manual setup, but it’s worth it. By connecting user sessions to previous interest signals, you can build email flows specifically for past visitors, boosting engagement and conversion rates.

Pro Tip: Sync email engagement data back to ad platforms via server events. This alone improves targeting accuracy by 25-30%.

When done right, quality first-party data boosts ROAS by 2-3x. The key? Feed the ad platform quality signals, and let the algorithms work for you.