Your Meta Ads Are Working… Now What? The Case for Chasing Bigger Baskets

If you're running Facebook and Instagram ads for a direct-to-consumer (DTC) retail brand, you've probably asked yourself: should I prioritise cost per acquisition (CPA) or chase higher order values? In other words, is it better to get more customers at the lowest cost, or fewer customers who spend more per order? It turns out both approaches have their time and place. Knowing when to use CPA targets versus when to optimise for order value can be a game-changer for your revenue. Let's explore the difference and find out how savvy brands balance these strategies to maximise results.

What’s the Difference? CPA Target vs Order Value Target

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) is the average cost to acquire one customer or conversion through your ads. It's a key metric for efficiency: a low CPA means you're getting customers cheaply, indicating your ad spend is effective and likely profitable. Utilising a CPA campaign objective in Meta’s ad platform usually means structuring campaigns and bids to achieve a specific cost per result – for example, using a "cost cap" or optimising for conversions so that each purchase stays around a desired price.

Order Value, on the other hand, means focusing on the value of each conversion rather than just the cost to get it. Instead of purely chasing cheap conversions, you aim to increase the average order value (AOV) – the amount each customer spends per order​. In Meta’s ecosystem, this often involves using Value Optimisation (or setting a target ROAS) so Facebook's algorithm finds customers who are likely to spend more. Facebook itself explains that when you optimise for value, it will “bid for your highest value customers” – in other words, spend more to show ads to people who are predicted to make larger purchases, thereby maximising your return on ad spend (ROAS)​. This means the order value campaign objective deliberately seeks quality over quantity: you might get fewer total conversions, but each will be worth more in revenue.

In summary:

• CPA Targeting: Optimise for the lowest cost per acquisition. Get more customers for less money.
• Order Value Targeting: Optimise for higher purchase value. Get customers who spend more, even if it costs more to acquire them.

The Case for CPA Targets (Especially Early On)

When launching new campaigns or advertising a young DTC brand, focusing on a CPA target is usually the first priority. There are several benefits to starting with a CPA-driven approach:

• Efficiency and Proof of Concept: Chasing a low CPA ensures you're not overspending to get a customer. It provides a clear picture of whether your ads are generating sales cost-effectively. Especially early on, you might need quick wins and a healthy cash flow – a low CPA delivers that by acquiring customers cheaply.
• Volume and Data: Lower CPA means you can afford to acquire more customers for the same budget. More customers = more data. This helps Meta’s learning phase and gives you insight into who is converting. In fact, the more purchases you accumulate, the better Facebook's algorithm gets at finding additional customers like them.
• Easy Optimisation Tweaks: With CPA as a guide, you can experiment with audiences and creatives to see what drives conversions at the best cost. It’s a straightforward KPI to monitor when optimising campaigns – if an ad’s CPA is too high, you tweak or turn it off.
• Baseline for Scale: Treat your target CPA as the foundation. Once you reach a stable, acceptable CPA (meaning your ads consistently bring in sales around or below your cost goal), you know your campaign is running efficiently. This stability is a green light that you’ve found product-market fit in your ads and can start thinking about scaling up.

In practical terms, you might start a Meta ads campaign with a Conversions objective and either no cost cap (using Lowest Cost bidding to let Facebook find the cheapest conversions) or a modest cost cap to ensure you don’t pay above a certain threshold. You watch the CPA like a hawk. For example, if you're paying £10 per purchase and your product is £50, that might be okay – but £20 per purchase would likely eat too much into your margin. By relentlessly optimising, you could reduce this by £10 to, say, £5 over time. And if you started above your goal, you pause, refine, and try again. Many new businesses focus on hitting a low CPA in the first few months to prove their ads can turn a profit before they worry about anything else.

When (and Why) to Shift to Order Value Targets

Once your CPA is looking good and steady, it might be time to shift gears. Why? Because not all customers (or sales) are equal. If you’ve been optimising purely for cheap conversions, you might be attracting lots of one-time buyers making small purchases. Meanwhile, there could be customers out there who would happily spend 2–3x more on your products – and Meta can help you find them with the right strategy. So, instead of only trying to minimise CPA, you can start trying to maximise the revenue each sale brings in​.

Here’s why transitioning to an order value focus makes sense once your CPA is under control:

• Higher Revenue per Customer: By targeting for order value (e.g. using Meta’s Value Optimisation setting), you encourage Facebook to find people likely to make bigger purchases. Perhaps they’ll buy higher-end items or add more to their cart. Even if you pay a bit more to acquire them, each of these customers is now bringing in significantly more revenue per order than the “cheaper” customers. For instance, would you rather pay £2 to get a £20 sale, or pay £5 to get a £100 sale? The latter yields much more profit after ad costs.
• Improved ROI and ROAS: When done right, a higher average order value more than offsets a higher CPA. Advertisers often see their return on ad spend jump up once they optimise for value. Meta’s system might show your ads to a smaller, more qualified audience who buys BIG. Your total number of orders might dip slightly, but your total revenue can grow substantially. (In one analysis, value-optimised campaigns had a lower volume but a three times higher ROAS compared to standard conversion campaigns.
• Scaling Revenue, Not Just Conversions: If your goal is to scale up and grow your business, at some point, you need to increase overall revenue, not just count conversions. Order value targeting is a way to scale vertically - making each customer more valuable – rather than just scaling horizontally by adding more customers. Ideally, you eventually do both, but tapping into high-value purchasers can unlock growth that plain conversion campaigns might miss.
• Better Customers & Lifetime Value: Often, the people who make larger purchases upfront turn out to be more loyal or have higher lifetime value. They’ve invested more in your brand, so they might stick around. By finding these gems, you’re not only getting a big sale today but possibly a repeat customer tomorrow. In short, value-focused campaigns can kickstart a higher-value customer base for your brand.

However, a word of caution: when you first switch to value or order value optimisation, don’t be alarmed if your CPA (cost per purchase) starts to rise. That's expected – you’re telling Meta you care more about quality than quantity now. The platform will likely bid higher to win impressions from users who are predicted to spend more. You’re essentially trading a bit of efficiency for a lot more revenue. As Meta’s guidance notes, you will likely spend more per conversion when optimising for value, with the expectation that those conversions will be more valuable. Make sure your financials make sense (i.e. you can afford a higher CPA if the average order value jumps accordingly).

Signs You’re Ready to Focus on Order Value

How do you know it’s the right time to make this shift? Look for these signs in your campaigns:

• Stable, Low CPA: Your cost per acquisition has been consistently hitting (or beating) your target for several weeks. You’ve effectively “capped out” efficiency on cost – any further improvements are marginal.
• Sufficient Conversion Volume: You’re getting enough purchases per week that Meta has plenty of data to work with (typically, Meta recommends ~30+ purchases per week for its algorithm to function well. In fact, Meta requires about 30 purchase events in a 7-day window before it even lets you turn on value optimisation. If you’re at that level or beyond, you’re in a good position to try value targeting.
• Room in the Budget: You have the flexibility to spend a bit more to test a new strategy. Since value optimisation might raise your CPA initially, ensure your budget can handle a potentially higher cost per purchase during the learning phase.
• Growth Goals Beyond Acquisition: If your current objective has shifted from “get more customers” to “earn more per customer” – for example, you want to increase monthly revenue, average basket size, or overall profitability – then it’s time to optimise for order value. This often happens after a period of successful customer acquisition, when the business can focus on maximising returns.

When these conditions are met, you can gradually introduce order value targets. This might mean creating a duplicate of your best-performing campaign, but this time optimising for Value instead of Conversions, or setting a target ROAS bid strategy (telling Meta the minimum return on ad spend you want). Initially, you might apply a small budget to this test while keeping your original conversion-focused campaigns running. Over time, as the value-focused campaign proves itself, you can scale it up.

Case Study: 78% reduction in CPA, Then a £20 Higher AOV

To see how this plays out in real life, let’s look at Royal Mile Silver, a jewellery retailer and Evolare Digital client. When we first started managing Royal Mile Silver’s Meta ads, their CPA was over £7 when we first took over their account – meaning it cost more than £7 in ad spend to generate each sale. Our initial goal was to bring that CPA down dramatically. Through a full-funnel, data-driven campaign (across Meta, Pinterest, and GoogleAds), we tested and refined the ads until we achieved a CPA as low as £1.61 per purchase – a 78% reduction in acquisition cost​. In other words, where it used to cost £7+ to get a sale, it was now on average £1.61. This efficient CPA meant we could acquire customers at scale without breaking the bank.

After maintaining a consistently low CPA for several weeks (allowing the results to stabilise and the ad algorithm to gather plenty of purchase data), we decided it was time to shift focus. The next objective: increase the order value. We adjusted the campaign to optimise for value – effectively telling Meta, "find us purchasers who will spend more, even if it costs a bit more to reach them." The strategy paid off. Royal Mile Silver’s average order value (AOV) jumped by £20 once we made this switch. That means each customer was now spending £20 more on their purchase, on average, than before. This boost in AOV, combined with the low CPA foundation we’d established, led to a surge in revenue. In fact, during that quarter Royal Mile Silver saw a year-on-year revenue increase of over 429% and about a 9.8X return on ad spend – a phenomenal result driven by the double-whammy of low CPA and high order value.

This example illustrates the power of using CPA and order value targets in tandem: first focusing on efficiency, then on value. By first trimming the “fat” (excess acquisition costs) and then maximising the “meat” (revenue per customer), you create a highly optimised campaign.

Imagine the Impact for Your DTC Brand

Imagine what this approach could do for your brand. If you’re a growing DTC retailer in jewellery, fashion, accessories or any other niche, think about your current marketing: perhaps you’re getting sales, but are you getting them at a sustainable cost? And are those customers spending as much as they could be? By strategically lowering your CPA, you free up budget to acquire more customers. By then increasing your average order value, you boost the revenue from each of those customers. It’s a potent combination.

For example, you might currently be paying £10 to acquire a customer who spends £60 on your site. That’s not bad. But what if you could drop the acquisition cost to £5, and that customer ends up spending £80? Your cost went down and your revenue per sale went up – that’s the dream scenario for ROI. These tactics can help you reach that scenario. It’s not about choosing either efficiency or value; it’s about sequencing them: nail one, then leverage it to achieve the other.

Most importantly, this approach also builds a stronger customer base. Those high-value shoppers you bring in after switching to value targeting could become repeat buyers and brand advocates. Meanwhile, the efficiency you gain from low CPA means you can keep widening your customer funnel without overspending. For a growing brand, that means steadier, healthier growth.

Partner with Meta Advertising Experts (Or Become One)

Switching between CPA-focused and value-focused strategies isn’t always straightforward. It requires a deep understanding Meta’s tools, careful timing, and ongoing optimisation. The good news is, you don’t have to navigate it alone. Evolare Digital specialises in exactly these kinds of Meta advertising strategies – and we offer flexible ways to help your business benefit from them.

• Full Campaign Management: Want an experienced team to handle everything from strategy to creatives to daily optimisations? We’ve got you. We can fully manage your Meta ad campaigns, applying our expertise to hit your target CPAs and then scale up order values when the time is right. We constantly monitor performance and tweak campaigns so you get consistent revenue growth without the headaches.
• Training & Mentorship: If you already have an in-house marketing team, we can train your them to manage Meta ads like pros. Through consulting and one-on-one mentorship, we’ll teach your team how to confidently optimise campaigns, interpret the data, and implement advanced tactics like value optimisation. It’s like having a Meta ads expert by your side, empowering your team to soar on their own.

With Evolare’s support, you’ll have the confidence to implement a dynamic strategy that evolves with your brand’s growth stage – from scrappy CPA optimisation to revenue-scaling value optimisation – all while avoiding common pitfalls.

Get in touch today to arrange a call and discover how Evolare Digital can help you drive consistent revenue through Meta.

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