How a Bucharest Startup Tripled Conversions in 6 Months
Full funnel analysis: from PPC to email to retention. Zero paid ads, just organic growth and smart automation. A Romanian fintech startup increased conversion rate by 340% in 6 months.
Maria Ionescu
Content & SEO at GloryAI
THE RESULT
conversion rate increase
📈 6-Month Funnel Evolution
In this case study
🎯 Company snapshot
Industry: Fintech / B2B SaaS
Founded: 2023
Team size: 3 founders
Location: Bucharest, Romania
Funding: Bootstrapped
1. The startup: Fintech for SMEs
The startup (which prefers to remain anonymous) offers a SaaS platform that helps SMEs automate invoicing and payment collection. They launched in early 2023 with a classic problem: great product, strong demand, but conversion rates below 1%.
Despite decent traffic (15,000 visitors/month from organic search and direct), they were only converting 0.8% of trial users to paid customers. Their CAC was €120 – too high for their €29/month product.
2. The problem: A leaky funnel
We audited their entire funnel and found three critical leaks:
- Leak #1: 40% of trial users never activated their account after signup
- Leak #2: 70% of activated users didn't return after day 3
- Leak #3: Only 5% of active trial users converted to paid
They were spending €2,000/month on Google Ads, but most of that budget was wasted on unqualified traffic and poor onboarding.
⚠️ The cost
€120 CAC vs €29 MRR → payback period of 12+ months → unsustainable for a bootstrapped startup.
3. The solution: Three interventions
3.1 Funnel audit & PPC cleanup
First, we paused 80% of their Google Ads campaigns. They were running 50+ keywords with low commercial intent. We kept only 12 high-intent keywords like "invoice automation Romania" and "SaaS payment collection".
📉 Results after cleanup:
- Ad spend reduced by 60% (from €2k to €800)
- Click-through rate increased from 1.2% to 3.8%
- Cost per click dropped from €4.50 to €2.10
3.2 Email automation with HugeMails
They had no onboarding emails. Users signed up and... silence. We implemented a 5-email onboarding sequence using HugeMails:
Result: Trial activation rate increased from 60% to 82%. Users who received all 5 emails were 3.2x more likely to convert.
3.3 Retention campaigns
Most SaaS startups focus only on acquisition. We built a retention engine for days 3, 7, and 14:
- Day 3: "Still need help? Book a free setup call" → 12% booking rate
- Day 7: "3 ways customers saved 10h/week" → 22% click rate
- Day 14: "Why [competitor] customers switched to us" → 18% click rate
These automated emails were sent via HugeMails' API, triggered by user behavior. Total cost: €0.001 per email.
4. CRO experiments: 3 wins
We ran 5 A/B tests on their pricing page. Three showed significant improvements:
Test #1
Added trust badges (SSL, GDPR, 500+ customers)
+18% conversion
Test #2
Removed annual pricing (monthly only)
+12% conversion
Test #3
Added live chat on pricing page
+24% conversion
5. The results: 6 months later
Before
0.8%
conversion rate
€120 CAC
150 customers
After
3.4%
conversion rate
€45 CAC
850 customers
📊 Summary
- Conversion rate: 0.8% → 3.4% (+340%)
- CAC: €120 → €45 (-62.5%)
- Monthly customers: 150 → 850
- Ad spend: €2,000 → €800 (-60%)
- Payback period: 12 months → 4.5 months
6. Key takeaways for founders
✅ Do this
- Audit your paid channels ruthlessly
- Automate onboarding emails
- Test one CRO change per week
- Focus on retention, not just acquisition
❌ Avoid this
- Running ads on low-intent keywords
- Ignoring inactive trial users
- Complicated pricing tables
- No post-signup communication
"We thought we needed more traffic. Turns out we needed a better funnel. The email automation alone doubled our conversion rate." — Co-founder
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