700% client growth in 5 months: How we scaled a payments startup with €8.5K in ad spend

Introduction

From zero pipeline to €600K in potential revenue on a startup budget

Pilsenga is a payments platform offering custom financial solutions for mid-market companies handling remote transactions across Europe. In August 2023, they had a product, some early customers, and a problem: they needed to scale their B2B client base fast, but they couldn't afford to burn cash on unqualified leads or high-risk customers. Most fintech marketing agencies wanted €10K/month retainers and six-month commitments. Pilsenga needed results in weeks, not quarters. We built a lean growth engine using Google Ads and LinkedIn automation, focused entirely on qualified B2B acquisition at the lowest possible cost per client.

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Results

40 new B2B clients. €213 cost per acquisition. 3,000% ROI.

We built Pilsenga's client acquisition engine from scratch in under 30 days: Google Ads campaigns targeting industry and product keywords, competitor campaigns, and retargeting with a scaling budget from €1K to €3K/month; LinkedIn automation identifying ideal client profiles across target industries and geographies with A/B testing on messaging, job titles, and company size; continuous optimization based on lead quality and risk profile to ensure every new client fit their compliance requirements. The results over five months (August to December): 632 account registration initiations at €2.90 CPC (well below fintech industry average), €13.50 cost per conversion, 7.41% CTR (nearly double the industry benchmark), total ad spend of €8.53K, 40 new B2B clients acquired at €213.25 per client. On LinkedIn: approximately 1,000 new connections with target decision-makers, 250+ qualified conversations started with ICPs. Each client has an estimated lifetime value of €15K, translating to €600K in potential revenue from a total investment under €20K including our fees. That's a 3,000% ROI in five months. The system we built is still running, still profitable, and scaling as Pilsenga grows.