SaaS Academy — $3.9M Pipeline in 90 Days

The Challenge

A founder-led brand with a pipeline that wouldn't scale

Most of SaaS Academy's leads came from Dan Martell's own network and in-person events — real pipeline, but not something you can turn a dial on. Paid social was working, steady at around $30K a month, but every attempt to push past it broke something.

At $60K a month, MQL quality tanked and the sales team stayed busy without producing. Tightening the landing page filters fixed lead quality, but it cut volume down with it — the classic trade nobody wants to make.

CTR at 2x ad spend

1.5% → 0.6%

Click-through rate more than halved the moment budget scaled — the signal that the ad system, not the offer, was the ceiling.

What We Did

Three moves to break the ceiling without breaking the brand

Found the real value props

Went back through customer interviews and existing case studies to isolate the specific reasons founders were actually buying the coaching — not the reasons we assumed.

Widened the creative funnel

Tested a much larger range of messaging and creative angles in parallel, so more winners surfaced faster. This is what fixed the low-CTR ceiling once spend scaled.

Re-targeted the lead magnets

Built new lead magnets aimed at founders further along in their business journey, lifting lead quality without needing to add friction back into the funnel.

Cost per lead compounds down instead of holding flat once the creative funnel is wide enough.

Sample Ads

Actual creatives we ran for SaaS Academy

Same founder, same offer, different hooks — pulled straight from the campaign. The winners here informed where the rest of the budget went.

Two SaaS Academy LinkedIn ads side by side — left: Precision Scorecard angle with founder on stage next to a paper airplane graphic reading YOU GET ON A PLANE AND YOU TAKE OFF; right: Strategic Partner Playbook angle with founder on stage and text A BUSINESS TOMORROW?

Cost$1,057

CTR1.58%

CPC$4.87

Angle: "You don't know your numbers" — Precision Scorecard

Cost$565

CTR1.83%

CPC$4.38

Angle: "Strategic partnerships over lead-gen" — Partner Playbook

"The secret enemy of SaaS founders? It's not competition. It's churn."

angle: net negative churn

cost$4,436

ctr1.43%

"Why most SaaS founders never reach 100k–500k MRR… they obsess too much over strategy."

angle: strategic advisors

cost$114

ctr2.77%

"The #1 reason SaaS businesses fail? Churn. It's just background noise — until it isn't."

angle: expansion revenue

cost$4,364

ctr1.42%

"Is this silent killer destroying your SaaS business? Most founders don't notice it until it's too late."

angle: hidden revenue

cost$35

ctr2.82%

The Results

What the funnel looked like once it could actually scale

2,400

Leads generated per quarter

$74↓ from $300

Cost per lead

120+

Prospective clients in pipeline per quarter

$30K

Average contract value held steady at scale