Fairplay is a B2B revenue-based financing platform. When I took over marketing, acquisition was working but inefficient: we were paying too much per qualified lead, talking to the wrong companies, and losing learning opportunities because funnels and filters weren’t structured for scale.
I led a full acquisition funnel redesign that aligned:
- Ideal customer profile and value proposition
- Messaging and creatives
- Campaign and form flows
- Qualification filters and feedback loops
- Marketing automation
- Sales enablement and events
- Content strategy
After the overhaul, Fairplay’s acquisition engine generated more marketing-sourced customers at a much lower cost, with:
- ~31% lower cost per MQL
- ~57% lower CAC
- 3× higher average marketing ROAS
- ~40% more marketing-sourced clients per month
Context & Challenge
Before the redesign:
- Campaigns were built around generic “funding” messaging, attracting many non-ideal leads.
- The ICP was broad, so Sales spent time disqualifying prospects that never had a real chance to fund.
- Forms and flows didn’t ask the right filter questions to learn which ads and audiences were actually working.
- Marketing automations were minimal; most follow-up was manual.
- Events and content weren’t clearly connected to the performance funnel.
As a result, we had decent lead volume, but high cost per MQL, high CAC and inconsistent revenue per client.
Objectives
Strategic
- Build a tighter, more focused ICP for Fairplay.
- Clarify and sharpen the value proposition for that ICP.
- Turn the scattered channel mix into a coherent acquisition funnel with clear stages and learning loops.
Performance
- Reduce cost per MQL and CAC.
- Increase marketing-sourced customers and revenue.
- Improve ROAS and the predictability of marketing contribution.
My Role
As Marketing Manager, I:
- Led the diagnosis and redesign of the full acquisition funnel.
- Worked with founders, Sales and C-level to refine the ICP and value prop.
- Rebuilt campaign structure, landing flows and filter questions.
- Designed and implemented marketing automations.
- Launched an always-on content + events strategy aligned with the funnel.
- Partnered with Sales on SLAs, scripts and feedback loops from calls back into marketing.
Approach
1. Diagnosis: From Volume to Quality
I started with a deep review of the data and funnel:
- Analyzed historic performance by channel, campaign, creative and segment.
- Compared MQL vs non-MQL patterns to understand which companies actually qualified.
- Evaluated close rate and revenue by segment, not just lead volume.
- Mapped handoffs between marketing and sales to spot leaks.
Insight: we were over-indexing on cheap leads and under-indexing on the segments that generated sustainable revenue.
2. ICP & Value Proposition
Next, I led a working process with Sales, Risk and founders to sharpen:
- ICP
- Defined clear thresholds for revenue, verticals, and business models that really benefit from revenue-based financing.
- Prioritized segments with the best combination of conversion rate, payback and risk.
- Value Proposition
- Reframed the messaging around boost your growth, flexibility and scale, instead of generic “quick capital”.
- Created tailored value props by segment (e.g., e-commerce and wholesalers and retailers).
This gave us a filter for every marketing and sales decision that followed.
3. Messaging & Creatives
With a tighter ICP and clearer value prop, I rebuilt the top-of-funnel narrative:
- Developed segment-specific messages for ads, landing pages and sales decks.
- Updated all performance creatives to speak directly to pain points and outcomes (cash-flow gaps, seasonality, inventory, marketing scaling).
- Standardized structure for ads: problem → outcome → proof → next step.
This cut down on unqualified clicks and made it easier for the right prospects to self-identify.
4. Acquisition Flows & Filter Questions
To make the funnel smarter, not just louder:
- Redesigned landing flows and forms to align with the new ICP.
- Introduced filter questions (revenue band, sales model, channels, average ticket, current financing) at the right moment in the flow.
- Mapped each question back to campaign, audience and keyword, so we could see which acquisition sources produced real MQLs, not just leads.
This turned the form into a learning engine and allowed us to continuously refine targeting and bids.
5. Automation & Nurturing
I implemented automations to make follow-up faster and more consistent:
- Built multi-step sequences for:
- New leads not yet qualified.
- MQLs waiting for a call.
- Prospects who paused or postponed funding.
- Synced CRM and automation tools so Sales always saw the latest context and activity.
Result: less manual chasing, more structured, timely touchpoints that moved prospects toward funding.
6. Sales Enablement & Events
Marketing didn’t stop at the form:
- Worked with Sales to align definitions of lead, MQL and opportunity, plus response-time expectations.
- Created one-pagers that matched the new value prop.
- Launched and supported events and webinars for priority segments—used both as acquisition channels and as mid-funnel education for existing leads.
- Fed learnings from calls and events back into messaging and content.
7. Content Strategy
To support the whole funnel, I designed a content stream focused on:
- Education: explain how revenue-based financing works and when it makes sense.
- Use cases: concrete stories of how companies use Fairplay to fund inventory, marketing or expansion.
- Proof: case studies, testimonials and benchmarks.
Content assets were reused in ads, email sequences, sales conversations and events, maximizing impact per piece.
Results
Without changing the fundamental product, the acquisition overhaul transformed how efficiently Fairplay could grow.
Key outcomes (comparing the period before vs after the redesign):
- Cost per MQL decreased by ~31%.
- We spent less to acquire each qualified lead by tightening ICP, improving filters and refining targeting.
- CAC dropped by ~57%.
- Better qualification and stronger handoffs meant more revenue from fewer, but higher-quality, opportunities.
- Average marketing ROAS increased by ~3×.
- Each marketing peso invested generated several times more return than before.
- Marketing-sourced customers per month grew by ~40%.
- Even with a more demanding ICP, we closed more of the right deals.
Beyond the numbers, Fairplay moved from a lead-volume mindset to a pipeline-quality and learning mindset, with a funnel that can be continuously optimized.