The system's knowledge is organised into three dossiers. This is the third. Every abbreviation is spelled out on first use — CPL (cost per lead), CPBC (cost per booked call), CAC (customer acquisition cost), LTGP (lifetime gross profit), ROAS (return on ad spend).
This dossier explains the methodology. The IDA relaunch ramp report is the live, worked application of it — every number in this page is drawn from there. Read that first if you want the IDA-specific picture before the generalised framework.
The north-star call target is not a forecast. It is a deliberate ceiling that keeps marketing running ahead of sales capacity. Getting the divisor right is the whole game.
Ads run seven days a week. Closers close five. Divide booked calls by 7, not 5 — or you'll under-spend on the weekend and starve the week ahead. This single correction moved the IDA north-star target from 40 a day to 28. Both numbers come from the same ~200 booked calls a week goal. Only the divisor changed.
| Starting point | Calculation | Result | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| ~200 booked calls / week (team goal) | ÷ 5 working days Wrong | 40 / day | Treats ads as Mon–Fri only. They're not. |
| ~200 booked calls / week (team goal) | ÷ 7 ad-days Correct | 28 / day | Ads book calls on Saturday and Sunday too — those fill the week ahead. |
The 28-a-day north-star assumes three closers and is set above 110% of closing capacity — deliberately. The idea is that marketing is never the constraint: there should always be more qualified calls booked than closers can take. This keeps marketing ahead of the slowest-to-hire function. The realistic near-term figure on two closers for the first ten days is ~17 booked calls a day.
Good closers are the slowest variable to hire and the easiest to lose, so the IDA plan starts with two full-time for the first ten days — every call reviewed personally — and adds the third only once the sales process is bedded in.
Booked calls only matter if people show up. The chain from ad spend to a closer's calendar has one expensive variable and one cheap lever.
| Step | 2 closers · days 1–10 | 3 closers · north-star |
|---|---|---|
| Booked calls / day | ~17 | ~28 |
| Show-up rate Provisional | 40–50% | 40–50% |
| Held calls / day | ~8–9 | ~13–14 |
| Per month | ~510 booked → ~250 held | ~840 booked → ~400 held |
Show-up rate is provisional — the IDA plan's first run had 40–50%. The industry baseline is 30–40%, so nothing is broken. Closing capacity assumes Mon–Fri only.
A 40% show-up rate is normal. But lifting it from 40% to 55% adds roughly a third more held calls for zero extra spend. The same 28 booked calls go from ~11 held to ~15 held a day. The levers are known: a cleaner confirmation page, a one-click confirmation link, a short personal message the night before the call, and framing the call as the most important meeting of the prospect's week.
This is the single highest-leverage free move — worth running as a focused push alongside the spend ramp, not after it.
From a paused account you cannot hit the number overnight — the algorithm needs a few days to re-learn. The ramp steps spend up deliberately, watching cost per call hold before each increase, then pushes toward the north-star.
| Window | Daily spend | Booked calls / day | The move |
|---|---|---|---|
| Days 1–3 · re-stabilise | ~$1.5k | Building | Switch proven winners back on (same ads, so they keep their social proof). Let the algorithm re-learn the account. |
| Days 4–10 · climb | ~$2–2.5k | ~13–17 | Scale budget in steps once cost per call holds. Layer standby creative into the winners to widen reach. (2 closers full-time.) |
| After day 10 · sustain | ~$2.5–4k | ~17 → 28 | Consolidate the proven winners into one optimised campaign and push spend. 3rd closer confirmed → climb toward 28. |
Never raise spend more than 10–20% at a time, then watch a 3–4 day trend before the next move. A larger jump resets the algorithm's learning and can push cost per call above the target. The discipline of small increments is what keeps the spend ramp clean. Turn on → scale up → diversify → consolidate. Nothing is rebuilt on day one.
CPL (cost per lead) is the early signal — check it at day 5–7. CPBC (cost per booked call) is the decision metric. The IDA winners ran well inside target at $25–$72 CPBC; the blended figure of ~$79 includes underperformers and ads that barely spent. The target after tightening qualification is $100–150.
Close rate (the share of held calls that become paying customers) does not land at its ceiling on day one. It ramps over the first three months as the setting process tightens and closers get sharper on the offer.
| Month | Close rate | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Month 1 | 12–15% | Early days — closers learning the objections, setting process still loose. |
| Month 2 | 15–20% | Process tightening, qualification improving. |
| Month 3 | ~25% | Settled process, hot pipeline of warm follow-ups from months 1–2. |
Month 1's lower close rate is not a bad sign — it reflects the setting-in period, not a broken offer. The pipeline of prospects who said "not yet" in months 1 and 2 becomes a re-engagement asset in month 3, which is part of why the month-3 rate is higher than a simple linear improvement suggests. The practical consequence: do not size the closer team or the spend plan to month-3 close rates on day one. Model month 1 conservatively and let the data confirm the ramp.
A sense of the prize at the north-star — what ~28 booked calls a day produces end to end. These figures are directional. Do not use them for cash-flow planning without a closer look at your own numbers.
| Line | Figure | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Ad spend to run ~28 calls / day | ~$3–4k / day (~$90–120k / mo) | Assumes $100–150 per qualified call after tightening qualification |
| Booked calls / month | ~840 | 28 / day × 30 days |
| Held calls / month | ~400 | ~840 booked at ~50% show-up rate |
| Sales / month (ramp) | ~50–60 | At 12–15% close rate (month 1), rising to ~25% by month 3 |
| Program value | ~$6,000 | Contracted value per student |
| Cash collected upfront | ~$597 / sale today | The gap to close — payment-plan deposits, not full value |
The distance between the ~$6,000 program value and the ~$597 collected upfront per sale is the biggest lever on whether the ramp is cash-flow positive from day one. Cash collected is still low, so ROAS (return on ad spend) is not yet a useful metric — we are spending more per sale than we collect on day one. The metric that matters is CAC:LTGP — the cost to acquire a customer (CAC) versus the lifetime gross profit they bring (LTGP). Until that ratio closes, improving deposit terms and payment structures may move the economics more than any ad optimisation.
First step: centralise sales and cash-collected data so the real ratio is visible.
The IDA winners ran $25–$72 CPBC — well below the $150 target. Even at the blended $79, the spend-to-calls efficiency is strong. At ~50 sales a month (month-1 conservative), the ad budget is roughly $90–120k/month with ~$30k in cash collected upfront. The full value of those 50 students is ~$300k — it just arrives over the payment plan. This is not a bad business. The unlock is either lifting cash collected per sale or shortening the payback window on student value.
Every number above assumes there are enough fresh ads to run. The spend ramp can be modelled to the dollar — but it only delivers if the creative supply keeps the algorithm fed. That is where this dossier connects to the other two.
At $1k/day, the account needs roughly 6–8 active Entity IDs (an Entity ID is Meta's label for a visually distinct ad — ads that look too similar get merged into one slot and compete with each other). At $2k/day, that rises to 10–12. At $3k/day, 15–20. Each step on the spend ramp requires a proportional step on the creative supply ramp. Failing to keep up does not just slow growth — it burns the winners out faster as Meta is forced to show the same ads repeatedly.
The replenishment cadence: $1k/day → 15–25 new assets every 4–6 weeks. $2k/day → 25–35 every 3–4 weeks. $3k/day → 35–50 every 2–3 weeks.
When a winner lands, the Winner Iteration weighted matrix decides which creative path to take next — Composite Edit, Skillshow, AI Hook, or Refilm — scored by how fast it ships and how distinct it looks to Meta. Iterating winners is the cheapest way to maintain Entity ID count as spend rises. → Open Dossier 2
Amelia's Portfolio Hit Rate is 57% — 1 in 1.8 ads wins. That drives a 30/70 new/iterate production split. At $2–3k/day, that split needs to output 25–35 new assets every 3–4 weeks, with ~70% of effort on iterating proven winners rather than building from scratch.
The IDA relaunch report is direct about this: of the 26 ads labelled "ready to publish," only ~9–12 are genuinely publish-ready. The 14 stuck in the review queue are the cheapest inventory unlock on the board. The 27 "in production" are mostly parked in engineering with no owner — not a moving supply buffer. At the spend levels this model targets, the creative supply constraint will bite before the spend ceiling does. The time to solve it is before the reserve runs dry, not when it does.
The chain from spend to profit has five variables. Every shortfall traces back to one of them. Know which one before making any change.
If CPL is high but CPBC looks fine — the lead-to-booking step is leaking (qualification too loose, or booking page needs work). If CPBC is fine but held calls are low — show-up rate is the lever (confirmation sequence, personal outreach). If held calls are fine but sales are low — close rate or offer framing. If sales are fine but cash flow is tight — it is the upfront cash collection problem, not an ads problem. Trace it in sequence before touching spend.
The most common mistake on a ramp is acting too early. The algorithm needs time. Here is the read on what to trust and when.
| Signal | When to check | What it means | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPL (cost per lead) spiking | Day 5–7 | Creative or targeting mismatch, or algorithm still learning | If 2× target after 7 days, cut the ad and test next angle. Inside 5 days: do not touch it. |
| CTR (click-through rate) under 0.5% | First 48h only | Creative is dead on arrival — the hook is not landing | Kill the ad. First 48h only — this signal is only reliable as an early warning. |
| Zero leads after $200+ spend | First 48h | Tracking broken, not creative failure | Check pixel / Meta Events Manager before cutting the ad. |
| CPBC under $150 and stable | Day 4–7 | Algorithm has learned — safe to raise budget | Raise 10–20%. Watch the next 3–4 day trend before raising again. |
| CPBC drifting above $150 | Ongoing | Fatigue, audience saturation, or creative supply thinning | Try dropping budget 20–50% first to re-stabilise before cutting. Then refresh creative. |
CTR = click-through rate. CPM = cost per thousand impressions. Outside the first 48h fire alarms, do not act on single-day fluctuations — look at 3–4 day trends.