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What's a Good CPA on Facebook? It's the Wrong Damn Question.
- Lukas Holschuh
- July 16, 2025
- 11:28 pm
Inside this article, you’ll discover:
- Why asking "What's a normal CPA?" is the single most useless question in digital marketing.
- The exact math behind industry benchmarks, and a table showing why they are so misleading.
- The 4 key levers you can pull—Audience, Geography, Creative, and Landing Page—to slash your ad costs.
- Why a £50 CPA can be a massive win, and a £5 CPA can be a total disaster.
Ready to stop guessing? Book a free consultation. I’ll show you how to diagnose your real costs and build a strategy that’s actually profitable.
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Team @ Lukas Holschuh
Founder, Growth & Advertising Consultant
Everyone wants to know the "normal" Cost Per Result (CPA) on Meta. It's the #1 question I get asked.
And it's completely useless.
Chasing an industry benchmark is a fool's errand. A "normal" CPA for a company selling a £20 e-book is totally different than for one selling a £5,000 B2B service. An ad shown in London will cost ten times more than one shown in Manila.
Stop asking what's "normal." Start asking what's profitable for you. A £50 CPA is a catastrophe if your product costs £30. But if you're selling a high-ticket course for £2,000? You'd take a £50 CPA all day long.
Profitability is the only truth. Benchmarks are lies.
Okay, You Still Want Benchmarks? Fine. Here's the "Benchmark Matrix of It Depends".
I still maintain that these numbers are dangerously generic. But I know you want to see them. Use this table to understand the mechanics of how CPA is calculated, not as a holy grail for your targets.
The formula is always CPA = Cost Per Click / Conversion Rate.
Cost per result ranges
In developed countries, the cost per click (CPC) often falls in the £0.5-£1.5 range. In developing countries, it's a lot lower, maybe £0.1-£0.5, but the traffic can be of lower quality. Then, you'd usually see a conversion rate of 10-30% on the landing page. So, if we do the math, your cost per result might be between £0.5 / 30% = £1.6 to £1.5 / 10% = £15 for developed countries, or £0.1 / 30% = £0.33 to £0.5 / 10% = £5 for developing countries. These are rough estimates, but they give you a ballpark figure.
For sales, completed registrations, or B2B leads that go through a long lead form with many qualifying questions, you're going to see much lower conversion rates. And this means your costs will be much higher. eCommerce stores often see a conversion rate of 2-5%, so your cost per purchase might be between £0.5 / 5% = £10 to £1.5 / 1% = £75 for developed countries, or £0.1 / 5% = £2 to £0.5 / 2% = £25 for developing countries. Much will depend on your prices here as well, higher prices or prices that are high for the countries you are targeting can impact your conversion rates and drive up your cost per purchase. (Though if you are optimising for sales, what you really want to look at is the return on ad spend, rather than the cost per purchase.)
See what I mean? A "normal" cost per sale in a developed country could be £10 or £75. That's a 650% difference. Telling you the "average" is pointless.
The only thing that matters is which end of that spectrum you land on, and if that number is profitable for your business. That's why we focus on what we can actually control.
Reducing your cost per result
Now, let's say you want signups and you are seeing a cost per result of about £4 per signup. That's actually quite normal and falls within the range we just discussed. But what if you want to lower that cost? Here's where our expertise comes in.
Lever 1: Your Audience (Who You Talk To)
A low CPA from a hyper-targeted retargeting audience is expected. A high CPA from a broad, cold audience is normal. The mistake is treating them the same. You need to graduate from cold, expensive traffic to warm, cheaper traffic. If your cost to acquire a customer from a Lookalike of your best buyers is the same as from a generic interest group, your targeting is lazy.
Usually, we would start with the same locations and test different targeting. This could already significantly reduce your costs. You can narrow down your audience using interests, behaviours, and demographics. Lookalikes and retargeting can also be effective once you have enough pixel data.
Lever 2: Your Geography (Where You Talk To Them)
Stop treating the world like one big country. A "Worldwide" campaign is a recipe for burning money on low-quality traffic.
We would run separate campaigns to target different countries, e.g. all developed countries versus all developing countries. Or all English-speaking countries versus all developed countries.
Actually, we usually start with the country where most of your existing customers/subscribers are located or where most of your ideal customers/subscribers are located. This way, you should be getting better quality signups first. If you want to expand, test it with a small budget first as depending on the countries you're targeting, the quality can be pretty bad. Better to pay a bit more for better quality/more engaged subscribers.
If you're targeting different countries, run separate campaigns. For example, you could have one campaign for all developed countries and another for all developing countries. Or, you could separate them by language, like all English-speaking countries versus all non-English-speaking countries.
Category: English-speaking
Countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand
Category: Developed
Countries: Norway, Ireland, Switzerland, Iceland, Hong Kong, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Singapore, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Belgium, Canada, United States, Austria, Liechtenstein, Israel, Japan, Slovenia, Luxembourg, South Korea, Spain, France, Malta, Estonia, Italy, United Arab Emirates, Greece, Cyprus, Lithuania, Poland, Andorra, Latvia, Portugal, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria
Category: Lowest-income countries
Countries: Burundi, Somalia, Mozambique, Central African Republic, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Niger, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Chad, South Sudan, Yemen, Guinea-Bissau, Afghanistan, Togo, Haiti, Comoros, Liberia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Gambia, Benin, Uganda, Zambia, Senegal, Guinea, Nepal, Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Mauritania, Djibouti, Ghana, Nicaragua, Uzbekistan, Kenya, Cameroon, Myanmar, Côte d'Ivoire, Papua New Guinea, Honduras, Syria, Angola, Congo, Solomon Islands, Ghana, Timor-Leste, Kiribati, also: Vanuatu, India, Pakistan, and Nigeria (these might still be worth including)
Else, if you don't care about quality, run a worldwide campaign but install captcha on the landing page or an email verification step to weed out the bots. Though we normally suggest excluding the top 30 or so lowest income countries as there are lots of bots there.
It might be tempting to run a worldwide campaign to reach as many people as possible, but this could lead to lower quality signups. It's better to pay a bit more for signups who are more likely to engage with your content.
Lever 3: Your Ad Creative (What You Show Them)
Your ad is the single biggest factor in your click cost. A boring, irrelevant ad gets ignored. Facebook punishes you with a high CPC. A thumb-stopping, engaging ad gets cheap clicks and pre-sells the visitor before they even leave the platform. Better ads directly lower your CPA. It's that simple.
We proved this by dramatically reducing the cost per lead for a client, not by changing the offer, but by improving the targeting.
Think This Is Just Theory?
See how we reduced cost per lead for a water heater and heat pump company in this case study.
Lever 2: Your Geography (Where You Talk To Them)
Stop treating the world like one big country. A "Worldwide" campaign is a recipe for burning money on low-quality traffic.
We would run separate campaigns to target different countries, e.g. all developed countries versus all developing countries. Or all English-speaking countries versus all developed countries.
Actually, we usually start with the country where most of your existing customers/subscribers are located or where most of your ideal customers/subscribers are located. This way, you should be getting better quality signups first. If you want to expand, test it with a small budget first as depending on the countries you're targeting, the quality can be pretty bad. Better to pay a bit more for better quality/more engaged subscribers.
If you're targeting different countries, run separate campaigns. For example, you could have one campaign for all developed countries and another for all developing countries. Or, you could separate them by language, like all English-speaking countries versus all non-English-speaking countries.
Category: English-speaking
Countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand
Category: Developed
Countries: Norway, Ireland, Switzerland, Iceland, Hong Kong, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Singapore, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Belgium, Canada, United States, Austria, Liechtenstein, Israel, Japan, Slovenia, Luxembourg, South Korea, Spain, France, Malta, Estonia, Italy, United Arab Emirates, Greece, Cyprus, Lithuania, Poland, Andorra, Latvia, Portugal, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria
Category: Lowest-income countries
Countries: Burundi, Somalia, Mozambique, Central African Republic, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Niger, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Chad, South Sudan, Yemen, Guinea-Bissau, Afghanistan, Togo, Haiti, Comoros, Liberia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Gambia, Benin, Uganda, Zambia, Senegal, Guinea, Nepal, Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Mauritania, Djibouti, Ghana, Nicaragua, Uzbekistan, Kenya, Cameroon, Myanmar, Côte d'Ivoire, Papua New Guinea, Honduras, Syria, Angola, Congo, Solomon Islands, Ghana, Timor-Leste, Kiribati, also: Vanuatu, India, Pakistan, and Nigeria (these might still be worth including)
Else, if you don't care about quality, run a worldwide campaign but install captcha on the landing page or an email verification step to weed out the bots. Though we normally suggest excluding the top 30 or so lowest income countries as there are lots of bots there.
It might be tempting to run a worldwide campaign to reach as many people as possible, but this could lead to lower quality signups. It's better to pay a bit more for signups who are more likely to engage with your content.
Lever 3: Your Ad Creative (What You Show Them)
Your ad is the single biggest factor in your click cost. A boring, irrelevant ad gets ignored. Facebook punishes you with a high CPC. A thumb-stopping, engaging ad gets cheap clicks and pre-sells the visitor before they even leave the platform. Better ads directly lower your CPA. It's that simple.
We proved this by dramatically reducing the cost per lead for a client, not by changing the offer, but by improving the targeting and creative strategy.
Lever 4: Your Landing Page (Where You Send Them)
You can have the best ad in the world, but if you send that expensive click to a slow, confusing landing page, you've just set your money on fire.
Think about it: improving your conversion rate from 2% to 4% literally cuts your CPA in half without ever touching your Ads Manager. A clear headline, compelling copy, and a single, obvious call-to-action can be the highest-ROI activity you do.
You'd want a copywriter to write persuasive sales copy and a professional design. Also remove all distractions so they can only click on the call to action button.
We saw this when we drove 7400 leads for an eLearning offer — with a landing page optimised to increase conversion rates.
See The Results
See how we drove 7400 leads with a landing page, ads, and targeting optimised for conversions.
Get Professional Advice
Next time someone asks, "What's a good CPA?" the answer is: "A profitable one."
That's it. That's the whole game.
Stop chasing meaningless industry averages and start pulling the only levers that control your bottom line: Audience, Geography, Creative, and Landing Page. That is how you win.
And that's where a professional consultancy like us can make a huge difference. With years of experience and a deep understanding of the advertising landscape, we can help you identify the best strategies to drive down your costs per conversion. We can provide insights that you might not have thought of and take over implementation of the entire optimisation process for you, ensuring that every dollar you spend is working to grow your audience.
If you're ready to stop guessing and build a profitable advertising machine based on your own numbers, let's talk.
Book a free initial consultation and audit at holschuh.co.uk.
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