The Challenge
Canva came to us with an aggressive user acquisition challenge - they needed to acquire users at the lowest possible price, with a specific target of $1 per user, despite my previous best result being $1.25 CPA.
What Everyone Else Was Doing Wrong
Like most design platforms, they were focusing on showcasing their most polished, professional-looking graphics and emphasizing technical features. The 'best practices' told them to highlight their sophisticated design capabilities, but that was completely missing what actually frustrated their target users.
The Methodology: Strategic Thinking Over Tactics
Instead of throwing more budget at prettier creatives, we focused on the fundamentals
Product ↔️ Market Fit validation across user pain points
Ad ↔️ Target Audience Fit optimization based on real frustrations
Counterintuitive insight: The ads themselves needed to become showcase pieces that demonstrated value through user experience rather than polished presentation
OuiGrowth’s Approach
Our process was methodical using our surefire approach:
Week 1-2: Deep user frustration analysis - discovered CV creation was a major pain point with Word/Apple Pages limitations
Week 3-4: Testing phase with CV showcase ads that interrupted scroll patterns and demonstrated real-world impact
Month 2: Optimization phase focusing on the psychology of "if this caught my eye, it'll catch an employer's eye too
Month 3-4: Scaling phase across Facebook and Instagram with consistent performance
The Results: 250,000 users for $0.03 CPA
The results spoke for themselves:
Cost Per Acquisition: Dropped from $1.25 to 3¢ (98% improvement)
User Volume: Generated over 250,000 users
Performance Consistency: Systematically beat targets at every stage ($1 → 50¢ → 25¢ → 10¢ → 3¢)
Platform Performance: Facebook and Instagram showed remarkably similar results despite mobile-first approach
Timeline: Achieved in just 4 months
This campaign became pivotal for Canva's expansion into francophone markets and continues to serve as a core part of their acquisition strategy eight years later - proving the long-term value of understanding user psychology over surface-level creative polish.
Ready to Transform Your Ad Performance?
If you're tired of throwing money at ads that don't convert and want to discover the counterintuitive strategies that actually drive results, let's talk.
Book a free 30-minute consulting session with OuiGrowth to uncover what's really holding back your user acquisition - and get a custom action plan to fix it.