Accounting for small business (UAE and Saudi Arabia): 1,729 leads at $29.73

The task

An accounting and tax reporting service for small business: a platform plus licensed accountants. The client sends documents however is convenient — WhatsApp, email, upload to the dashboard; the platform recognizes and categorizes them, tags them for VAT and Corporate Tax, tracks registration thresholds and deadlines, and accountants check the reports and file them with the FTA.

The buyer is a small business owner obliged to keep books under local requirements but not ready to hire an in-house accountant. Geo — UAE and Saudi Arabia.

What we did

A year of Meta Ads across two geos, three campaign types for different entry points:

• leads via a form on the site — the main lead volume;
• campaigns for a completed registration in the service — a deeper target action;
• WhatsApp messaging campaigns — the channel where small business owners in the region are used to settling matters.

Midway through, one ad account was banned — traffic was moved to a second account without stopping the flow and we continued: 49 campaigns in the first, 16 in the second, both in AED.

Results

• Ad budget — $51,400 for 08.2025–07.2026
• Leads — 1,729 (1,463 leads + 266 completed registrations)
• Cost per lead — $29.73

Ads ran from two ad accounts, both in AED, one banned. The ads-manager.png screenshot shows both accounts in one file; the originals are next to it: ads-manager-1.png and ads-manager-2.png. Both were taken for the full period 01.08.2025–31.07.2026:

• banned account (ads-manager-2.png), 49 campaigns: AED 116,619.51 ≈ $31,755, 601 leads and 163 registrations;
• active account (ads-manager-1.png), 16 campaigns: AED 72,147.19 ≈ $19,645, 862 leads and 103 registrations.

Together at a rate of 3.6725 — AED 188,766.70 ≈ $51,400 and 1,729 actions (1,463 leads + 266 registrations), cost per action $29.73.

Insights

An ad account ban is not the end of a campaign. Working from two accounts let us survive the ban without stopping the lead flow: the second account took the traffic, and the year closed at full volume.

In a niche where the client lives in WhatsApp, messaging campaigns are a full-fledged entry point on par with the site form: part of the audience will not fill in a form but will write to the messenger.