+1,174% more first-time depositors in one year with Bitmedia

How a Bitmedia client grew first-time depositors nearly 13×, increased their value by 129%, and reached positive ROAS in 30 days.

Key campaign results

Campaign overview

• Business: Digital product operating across 180+ markets
• Goal: Scale first-time depositors without losing customer quality
• Approach: Optimize and scale based on cohort-level ROAS
• Budget: ~18× YoY growth through Bitmedia

Scaling valuable customers was the real challenge.

The challenge was to acquire more first-time depositors while keeping acquisition quality high and making sure those users continued to generate value over time.

That meant looking beyond CTR, CPC, and registrations and focusing on how quickly each acquisition cohort paid back acquisition spend.

Strategy

The campaign was built around one principle: scale only when the acquisition economics supported it. Instead of relying on top-of-funnel metrics, the team used cohort performance and payback to decide where and when to increase budget.

Cohort-based optimization

Each month’s new depositors were measured against the spend used to acquire that same cohort.

Payback-based scaling

The budget was increased only when cohort performance showed healthy payback.

Market-level optimization

Performance was also reviewed across markets to identify where acquired users generated the strongest long-term value.

Performance

As spend increased, the campaign maintained strong downstream performance. The next step was to look beyond the blended results and see where the strongest returns came from.

Scale without losing quality

Once the campaign showed consistent payback, budget through Bitmedia increased by around 18x year over year. Scaling did not lead to a drop in acquisition quality, with customer value continuing to grow as spend increased.

Where performance peaked

The strongest results became clearer at cohort and market level.

• February 2026 cohort: reached 2.42x ROAS by D30, 4.34x by D90, and 5.31x by D180
• Q1 2026 cohorts: reached around 3.7x ROAS by D90
• Best markets: Turkey delivered around 45% higher value per depositor than the channel average, France around 37% higher, and Ukraine around 8% higher

February 2026 cohort: ROAS by milestone

Value per depositor vs. channel average

Measurement

To keep the performance data clean, each month’s acquisition spend was matched only against deposits generated by users acquired in that same month.

Cohort-level tracking

February spend, for example, was measured only against the February cohort and then followed through D30, D90, and D180. This avoids mixing revenue from older users into newer acquisition spend.

Second product

The same approach was later applied to a second product to see whether the pattern would repeat.

Early results

Eight months in, the campaign had already generated 3.81x deposits per acquisition dollar, while customer value continued to grow through D180. The product is still earlier in the curve, but the pattern is similar.

Before you scale your next campaign

Look beyond cheap traffic.

Low CPC, strong CTR, or cheap registrations do not necessarily mean a source deserves more budget. Check what those users do deeper in the funnel.

Track cohorts separately.

Blended campaign averages can hide which months, markets, or sources are actually driving returns. Compare each cohort against its own acquisition spend.

Scale when the payback is there.

Increase budget when the cohort economics support it. A clear payback curve is a stronger scaling signal than top-of-funnel efficiency alone.