CEO Accelerator · Apr 23 – Jun 9, 2026 · Confidential
✓ works✕ leak! decide live
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LinkedIn Ads Account Audit
CEO Accelerator Full-Funnel Audit Board
The account buys attention it never captures. Three moves fix it: repair the measurement, concentrate on one market, capture before you convert.
For Eric Partaker · Paul Fowler · By Nico Kusterer, The One Media Window: Apr 23 – Jun 9 = the running cohort campaign since its start, vs. the 48 days before
72x reported vs 1.2x felt · purchase counted 3x · 90d windows
Budget flow
At risk
global spread on a one-market budget · ~21% in 0-conv geos · MQL offers get 4.5%
Targeting
At risk
39% on solo/micro · TLA "EMEA" targets only BE/DE/NL · broad profile languages · sweet spot 51–500 staff at half the cost
Retargeting
At risk
last live MQL ad ends Jun 11 · pools 320–2.7K · 69x frequency · expansion ON in 4 of 9 checked campaigns
Funnel logic
Watch
3 stages exist · labels wrong: 460K cold as MOF, 40K predictive as BOF
Creative
Watch
TLAs strong · retargeting assets 6–15 months old · no date, no price, no proof
Verdict: this is professional work, not a beginner setup. What is broken survived two agency generations because it only shows when data, settings, pages and creative are pulled at once: measurement, market focus, capture, frequency. All fixable before July 29.
Settings Audit · Verified in Campaign Manager · Jun 10
Audience expansion ACTIVE in 4 of 9 checked campaignsincl. the webinar retargeting and the Mar/Apr conversion wave. Retargeting plus expansion contradict each other. Off, day 1.
Maximum delivery bidding on every TOF TLA lineplus NAMER TL video and webinar RT. We run manual CPC: max delivery buys the cheapest clicks, not the right people.
TOF "EMEA" targets only Belgium, Germany, Netherlands74K audience. The TLA budget feeds exactly the zero-conversion countries. UK sits isolated in its own underfunded line.
BOF geo list is a manual country saladBahrain, Kuwait, Israel, Liechtenstein, Jersey, Estonia and more. That is where the exotic geo spend comes from.
Two hidden geo leaks: Ireland and Saudi ArabiaIreland: 5.7% of spend, zero tracked results. Saudi Arabia: 14.4% of conversions at £5.57, expansion artifact. Cut and exclude.
Profile languages set broad on TOFArabic to Japanese on a BE/DE/NL audience. Tighten to English, plus German where relevant.
Account currency is GBP, not USDall account figures on this board are £. Monthly pace £11.9K, consistent with the spend level Eric described. Verified in Campaign Manager.
Measurement · F1
ThriveCart purchase counted 3x in parallel"each" + "last" + legacy definition · 90-day windows
Kit lead magnets report 0 back to LinkedInPaul flagged both directions himself (mail, Jun 10) · the fix by your developer Stéphane expected live Jun 10 · verify with a test lead, then re-baseline
Page view counts as a conversionpaused campaign, 0 impressions: still "40 conversions"
72x
reported ROAS
1.2x
felt ROAS · both wrong
Week 1: one purchase definition · 30d/7d · value on purchase only · then 10–14 days clean data
Assets Worth Building On
TLA engagement 7.5–8.2%engagement clicks from £0.12, reported landing-page share 65–74% (GA4 validation in week 1). The strongest asset in the account either way.
1.2M personal + 176K page followerstwo strong, active senders. A warm inbound brand most accounts never have
Webinar path proven2/3 of buyers attended 2+ webinars before purchase
500 alumni + 40 Scale OS buyerstestimonial pool + ICP blueprint, unused in ads today
Steering Math
$13,000
blended value per buyer $5.5K program + 15% × $50K Scale OS
~1.2 / mo
buyers to break even at £11.9K monthly spend
8–10 / cohort
target for 3x · blended CAC under $4,300 · measurable after week 1
Funnel · 48 Days · £19,078
Impressions2.51M
72% of that: Text/Spotlight right-rail, 0.01% CTR£1,139
Clicks27,822
Engagements28,875
Reported conv.1,456 · −57%
1 · Awareness · TOF
£6,99336.7%
✓
TLA engagement 7.5–8.2% · clicks from £0.12
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3-magnet test (Paul, by design) runs on engagement objective · results land in Kit, invisible to LinkedIn
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UK boost £226 CPM (EMEA twin: £37)
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All 3 lines on max delivery · "EMEA" targets only BE/DE/NL
2 · Consideration · MOF
£5,910real MQL offers: £851
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MQL offers get 4.5% of total budget
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Webinar RT: 1 ad · ends Jun 11 · expansion ON
!
"MOF" TLA = 460K cold, mislabeled · TL videos: only 2–5% link clicks
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0 native lead forms in the whole account
✓
Fix exists: Event Ads now carry Lead Gen Forms, incl. external events
3 · Conversion · BOF
£6,17532.4%
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Text + Spotlight: £1,139 · 1.82M imps · 0.01% CTR
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69x frequency on a 320-person pool
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"BOF" video = 40K predictive + expansion ON
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Creative 6–15 months old · Oct-25 countdown live
4 · Checkout
$5.5Kdirect purchase
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No cohort date · no price · no testimonial in copy
!
No application / call step before a $5.5K payment
✓
Backend: 15% upgrade to $50K Scale OS
!
Conversation ads (right format) paused since Jan
0 lead forms: engaged people are lost
pools 320–2.7K: too small to spend
cold predictive traffic sent to checkout
each stage gets rebuilt with one framework pillar
one market = fewer assumptions in the chain
Sender architecture: 61% personal profile (1.2M) · 39% company page (176K, posts daily). Both senders are strong. The gap: BOF runs page-only with Eric-free creatives. Put his face back at the decision point.
Missing email loop: leads should nurture free via Kit instead of re-bought ads
Click-quality check: LinkedIn reports 65–74% of image-TLA clicks as landing-page clicks. Taken at face value that would mean visits for pennies, while the account’s own website-visit campaign pays £1.20 per verified click. We treat £1.20 as the real price and the TLA share as unproven until the GA4 cross-check in week 1. The video TLA lines are vanity either way: 2–5% landing clicks, £11–29 each, £3.1K spent. Push image TLAs to link-click optimization, repurpose or cut the videos.
Touchpoint model to purchase: Awareness 2–4/mo → Consideration 4–6/mo → Conversion 20–25/mo, near daily + email in parallel = the 20–25 touchpoints a $5.5K purchase needs
The One Media Operating Framework · What We Install Here
1
Key Decision Maker Targeting
Reach only people who can buy. Everything else is reach, not pipeline.
Here: 11–200 staff × CXO/Owner/Director · one launch market · function targeting off · exclusions on
2
High-Intent Lead Magnet
An offer that pre-qualifies, not one that collects emails.
Here: webinars as THE MQL entry, your buyers prove it · registration via the current Event Ads with native Lead Gen Forms, which also promote external events · magnets as second entry · winner decided on Kit-side data
3
Intent-Based Full-Funnel Framework
Pressure follows engagement. 20 to 25 touchpoints by design, not by hope.
Here: frequency staged across the classic funnel: 2–4 (Awareness), 4–6 (Consideration), 20–25 near daily (Conversion) · 4 to 5 assets per stage · staged narrative to the Jul 29 deadline
4
Multidimensional Omnipresence
Buy the audience once, then be everywhere it looks.
Here: LinkedIn precision + Kit email nurture + Meta pixel retargeting + the organic TLA flywheel · paid earns the contact, owned channels do the repetition
Attribution stack (install weeks 2–3): ThriveCart as revenue truth · self-reported attribution at checkout · Fibbler or DemandSense for LinkedIn-influenced pipeline · quarterly cohort ROAS. Lead counting alone undersells LinkedIn: influenced-pipeline data shows what the TLA layer actually moves.
The Target Funnel · Built From What You Already Have
1
Awareness · Build the Audience
Engagement and pool building in one launch market. Image TLAs on link-click optimization, manual bids, 2–4 touches per month.
Everything in the middle works toward one thing: a webinar seat. Event Ads with Lead Gen Forms, magnets as second entry, Kit nurture in parallel, 4–6 per month.
Already there: proven webinar machine (2/3 of buyers) · recordings · 3 magnets live · workshop content ready for a date refresh
→
3
Conversion · Direct Applications
The application is the conversion event. Conversation ads, application-page retargeting, deadline creative with July 29 and the price, 20–25 per month near daily. Eric’s face on every asset.
Already there: Apply-Now page live · countdown live on the page · 500 alumni for testimonials · conversation-ad drafts waiting since July
And one face on everything: the deeper the funnel, the more Eric himself carries the ad. The formats that work in this account all show his face, the formats that fail are faceless. At a $5.5K decision only trust converts, and the trust asset is him plus 500 alumni. Backend carries the math: 15% of buyers move into Scale OS at roughly $50K. Nothing here needs to be invented, it needs to be pointed in one direction.
Frequency Orchestration · Managed per Funnel Stage
Tier
Target frequency
Creative & rotation
Setup
Today
Awareness · TOF cold launch-market ICP
2–4 / month
3–5 creatives · optimized rotation: let the best hook win
manual CPC · link-click optimization · exclusions on
<1 real/month: budget spread too thin to be felt
Consideration · MOF engagers, 25%+ viewers, subscribers, site visitors
4–6 / month
4–5 assets · switch to rotate evenly
MQL offers: webinar via Event Ads + Lead Gen Forms, magnets second · email runs in parallel
pools barely harvested · the £851 offer layer has no frequency management
today: 69x/48d brute force on one 320-person pool, stale assets
The operating rule: cold layers optimize FOR the best creative. Deep retargeting optimizes FOR variation, because at high frequency the enemy is fatigue, not CTR. Rotation therefore switches from optimized to rotate evenly the deeper the funnel gets, and frequency per stage is a managed dial with a weekly read, not an outcome you discover afterwards.
Landing Pages & On-Page Tracking · Checked Live Jun 10
Insight Tag fires correctlyfires via GTM, verified live on product, application and training pages. Meta Pixel + GA4 present. The base plumbing is fine.
Website Actions is live, incl. dedicated thank-you pagesverified in Campaign Manager. The cleanest building blocks for conversions and retargeting audiences already exist. The new definitions anchor there instead of the current 14-definition mix.
The application page is barebesides the embedded form it carries almost no content: no client proof, no program recap, no price anchor at the exact moment of decision. The trust elements from the product page belong here too.
No program price before the application"Save $500" is the only number on the page. Price anchoring happens too late for a $5.5K decision.
Free-training watch page is a dead endTag + Kit form present, but no Apply CTA found on the page. The MQL path stops one step before the application.
The urgency asset already exists, the ads ignore itJuly 29 + early-bird countdown are live on the page but appear in zero ads. Pull date, discount deadline and price anchor into every BOF creative.
Audience · Who Sees vs. Who Buys
Company size · spend → cost/result
Solo + 2–10
38.7%
£102
11–50
31.3%
£77
51–200
21.4%
£52
201–500
5.0%
£41
Shift cold layers to 11–200 staff (test to 500)
Seniority · spend → cost/result
CXO
28.0%
£64 · 34% conv.
Owner
25.6%
£98
Director
16.5%
£75
Partner
15.5%
£126
Cold: CXO · Owner · Director · drop job-function targeting (BizDev eats 42.6%)
Geography · spend → cost/result
US
32.8%
£57
UK + UAE
22.2%
£27–33
Canada
13.7%
£93
0-conv. geos
~21%
0 results
Saudi Arabia (resolved Jun 10): 14.4% of conv. at £5.57 from 1.5% spend, an expansion artifact · exclude before scaling
Why webinar registrations are the primary KPI: your own data says two thirds of buyers attended 2+ webinars before purchase. Nobody pays $5.5K cold. The webinar sells, the ads fill the room.
Validate week 1, not invent: reg→buyer and lead→reg rates come from Kit data of the last 2 cohorts (Paul). The numbers adjust, the chain does not.
Guardrails · What We Do Not Touch
TLA engagement campaigns stay livethey feed every pool, £0.12 clicks, do not pause during rebuild
No spend increase before tracking is cleanmore budget on broken signals buys more noise
One change set per 10–14 day windowotherwise nobody can read what worked
No full restructure before the cohorthygiene rebuild happens in August, after the sprint
Decision 2 · Offer Architecture
The website converts via application ("Apply Now"), but no campaign optimizes for itthe copy even says "APPLY NOW", but the machine works against it: destination is the product page, optimization runs on the mixed purchase definitions, application-page visitors are never retargeted, and the conversation-ad campaigns built for applications sit paused since January, the "form applications" drafts untouched since July
Recommendation: make the application THE BOF conversion eventconversation ads + lead forms drive applications · retarget application-page visitors who did not submit · anchor the application conversion on the existing thank-you page · checkout stays for deal-ready buyers
Plus: self-reported attribution at checkout ("how did you hear about us")2 lines of code for your developer Stéphane, week 2 · the cheapest defense against dark-funnel blindness
Today: one budget, three regional structuresNAMER 360K + EMEA 120K + UK 67K cold, plus a 460K "MOF" audience. £11.9K/month spread over 500K+ people.
Real pressure: under 1 impression per person per month2.51M impressions, but 72% are Text/Spotlight right-rail placements nobody reads. ~700K impressions remain that a person can actually see. Advertising effect starts at 2 to 4 per month cold. The account is invisible everywhere at once.
Concentrate ~80% on one launch marketSame budget on a 50 to 80K ICP = 8 to 12 real impressions per person per month. Retargeting tiers become fundable. Other regions drop to TLA-only maintenance.
Pick the market from purchase data, decide ThursdayCandidates: UK + Nordics (cost per result £33, home market, 67K ICP) or US-only (largest buyer base, £57, diluted). Our read: UK + Nordics first, US as the scale market after one proven cohort. ThriveCart country data settles it.
Why this is the lever: every problem on this board gets smaller in a concentrated market. Pools fill faster, frequency targets become affordable, the profit path needs fewer assumptions.
Working Mode · How This Gets Done
This week: one working sessiontracking rebuild + week-1 triage, done together in Campaign Manager
Until Jul 29: weekly 30-minute steering callPaul executes in-house, we advise and review. No agency takeover, exactly the model you asked for.
After the cohort: review on clean dataenrollments, CAC, influenced pipeline. Then decide what the collaboration looks like from there.
Week 1 extra: LinkedIn partner-level datawe request the Agency IQ audience report for this account. Insight depth advertisers cannot pull themselves.
The cost anchor: ~21% of spend (£2.5K/month) is provably dead todaythe rebuild funds itself out of reallocation, before any performance gain
Roadmap · Backwards From July 29
Now · Truth & Triage
Week 1 · Jun 11–17
Tracking: 1 definition · 30d/7d · value on purchaseP+T
Pause Text · Spotlight · UK boostP
Webinar RT relaunch · 4–5 fresh adsP
Cut Ireland + 0-conv. geos · exclude Saudi ArabiaP
Launch-market call from ThriveCart country dataE+T
Application conversion: anchor on the thank-you pageP+T
→ frees 25–30% of budget · clean data in 10–14 days
Next · Capture Layer
Weeks 2–3
Cold: 11–200 staff · CXO/Owner/Dir · exclusionsP
3 lead magnets → native Lead Gen Forms → KitP+T
Webinar push: Event Ads + Lead Gen FormsP
Budget re-split 35/40/25 ≈ £4.2/£4.8/£3.0KT
Checkout: "how did you hear" + UTM into KitP+T
Fibbler / DemandSense pilot: influenced pipelineT
→ engaged people become contacts · free touchpoints
Then · Conversion Push
Weeks 4–7
Frequency staging live: 2–4 / 4–6 / 20–25 per monthP+T
Conversation ads: application framingP
Deadline creative: Jul 29 + price + testimonialsP
Weekly steering: CAC vs. $4,300T
→ first cohort with provable attribution
JUL 29
Cohort start
The One Media GmbH · nico@theonemedia.de · Confidential · Jun 10, 2026
All conversion-based figures directional until the week-1 tracking rebuild · demographic shares click-attributed · account currency GBP · settings verified per campaign in Campaign Manager, Jun 10 · spend in GBP (account currency), customer value in USD (program pricing), bridged at 1.35 where chains cross
