Monthly Performance Report
Paid Media Report
StoriePro
May 1 – 28, 2026
Executive Summary
StoriePro spent $898.57 in the first 28 days of August, generating 22 leads at $40.84 CPL. Pacing is on target for the daily-budget structure ($32.09/day vs. the $33 plan), but CPL rose again — June $34.26, July $38.45, August $40.84 — and the cause is now clear-cut: Dark Coffee Theme consumed 88% of spend at $44.10 CPL, while Emily Kate Testimonial delivered 4 of the month's 22 leads at $20.07 CPL on only 9% of budget. If Emily Kate had received a proportional share, the account-level CPL would land closer to $25. The July recommendations to deploy the staged creative wave, open Stories/Reels, and protect against Dark Coffee Theme fatigue remain the correct next moves — and are now urgent. Details in "How to improve CPL in September" below.
$898.57
Total Spend
28 days. Daily avg $32.09 — on target vs. the $33/day budget plan. Estimated close ~$988 for full month.
22
Leads
18 from Architects, 4 from Interior Designers. Trailing July's 29 on similar spend pace.
$40.84
CPL
Up from July's $38.45 and June's $34.26. Emily Kate Testimonial delivered at $20.07 CPL — the blended figure is dragged up by Dark Coffee Theme concentration.
15,559
Impressions
Reach: 6,510 unique accounts. Well below July's 19,532 (partial month + narrower creative pool).
320
Link Clicks
2.06% link CTR (down from July's 2.23%). 269 LP views (84% LP rate).
2.39
Frequency
Up modestly from July's 1.97 (new campaign only) — the Architects audience is being hit repeatedly. Still below the 3.0 fatigue line but the trajectory matters.
Strategic Context
First full month on the daily-budget campaign. The account ran entirely on "PVM | Lead Gen | CBO Daily | 2026-07" ($33/day, no end date) — the old lifetime-budget campaign completed its scheduled Jul 31 end and is now paused for reporting history. Pacing worked as designed: $32.09/day average vs. the $33 target, zero pacing edits required, no calendar-cycle drama.
Budget concentration on Dark Coffee Theme has intensified. May: 54% of spend. June: 64%. August: 88% ($793.88 of $898.57). CBO is treating Dark Coffee Theme as the near-exclusive winner and starving everything else — including the ads brought in specifically to combat this concentration. The result is that Dark Coffee Theme's own CPL keeps rising (June $30.81, August $44.10) while the ads that could balance the mix don't get enough delivery to prove themselves.
Emily Kate Testimonial is a hidden winner. Launched July 14 as part of the dark-editorial wave. In August it received 9% of budget ($80.26) and produced 4 leads at $20.07 CPL — less than half the account-blended $40.84. Both Interior Designer leads at reasonable CPL came from this creative. If it received a proportional share of budget (say 30–40%), the blended CPL would drop meaningfully.
Ad-set-level split is even more concentrated than last month. Architects ad set: 91% of spend ($814.06), 18 leads, $45.23 CPL. Interior Designers: 9% of spend ($84.46), 4 leads, $21.12 CPL. Designers is efficient but starved — a persistent CBO pattern.
Zero operator changes in August. No campaign, ad set, ad, or budget changes made in-month. The account ran on the settings established in July's rebuild session. The staged creative wave (4 dark-editorial concepts × 3 formats) remains queued in `_final_ads/` but has not been uploaded.
Weekly Trend
| Week | Spend | Impressions | Link Clicks | Leads | CPL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 1 – 2 (2 days) | $62.90 | 1,104 | 22 | 2 | $31.45 |
| Aug 3 – 9 | $230.56 | 4,502 | 87 | 7 | $32.94 |
| Aug 10 – 16 CPL spike | $233.61 | 3,754 | 83 | 4 | $58.40 |
| Aug 17 – 23 | $225.71 | 3,781 | 84 | 7 | $32.24 |
| Aug 24 – 28 (5 days) | $145.79 | 2,418 | 44 | 2 | $72.89 |
Two weeks landed cleanly at ~$32 CPL (matching June's rhythm). The Aug 10–16 spike ($58.40) and the tail week ($72.89) are the CPL drag. Both weeks show the same pattern: Dark Coffee Theme absorbed nearly all delivery, and its lead-per-dollar softened noticeably before recovering.
Changes Made
Pre-window items summarize the July rebuild that shaped August. No operator changes were made in August itself.
- Jul 14 (pre-window): Launched the dark-editorial creative wave — "arch-interior-dark," "designer-interior-dark," and Emily Kate Testimonial. The Emily Kate ad is the ad that carried Interior Designers in August.
- Jul 17–19 (pre-window): Created and launched "PVM | Lead Gen | CBO Daily | 2026-07" at $33/day, ran in parallel with the old lifetime campaign to bridge the transition without pausing delivery.
- Jul 31 (pre-window): Old lifetime campaign completed its scheduled end date. Account now runs exclusively on the daily-budget campaign.
- Aug 9: Account billed. Auto
- Aug 19: Account billed. Auto
- Throughout August: No operator-initiated campaign, ad set, ad, or budget changes. The account ran on the July 17 daily-budget structure and the July 14 creative roster.
- Staged, not deployed: The August creative wave (4 dark-editorial concepts × 3 formats, real emilykatesdesign.com device mockups) remains in `_final_ads/`, ready for upload. Deploying it is the top September action.
What We Expected vs What We Saw
| Action | Expected | Actual | Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily-budget campaign pacing | Steady $33/day, calendar-aligned, no manual timeline edits | $32.09/day average across 28 days ($898.57 total). Zero pacing edits required. Pacing structure delivered exactly as designed. | Met |
| Emily Kate Testimonial performance | Produce Designers leads and prove out as a second workhorse creative | 4 leads at $20.07 CPL on $80.26 spend — roughly half the account-blended CPL. Second-lowest CPL of any active creative this year. | Exceeded |
| Dark Coffee Theme frequency management | Hold CPL near June's $30.81 with fresh creative relieving pressure | CPL rose to $44.10. New dark-editorial ads (arch-interior-dark, designer-interior-dark) got minimal delivery from CBO, so no meaningful diversification occurred. | Below |
| Interior Designers ad set continuation | Sustain June's improvement (5 leads at $36.84) | 4 leads at $21.12 CPL on only $84.46 of spend — efficiency held (better, in fact) but delivery was throttled. | Mixed |
| Frequency management | Stay below 3.0 to avoid fatigue | Frequency at 2.27 — up from 1.11 last month. Approaching threshold as budget concentrates on fewer creatives. | Watch |
Accountability: Recommendations from the July Report
| July Recommendation | Status | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy the ready creative wave — priority on the Designers ad set. | In Progress | 4 dark-editorial concepts × 3 formats are staged in `_final_ads/` with real emilykatesdesign.com device mockups. Not yet uploaded to Ads Manager. Now the top September action given the Dark Coffee Theme concentration. |
| Open the Stories/Reels placement. | In Progress | Account remains Feed-only. Story-format assets exist in the staged wave (9:16). Opening the placement adds fresh inventory and dilutes frequency pressure. |
| Protect against Dark Coffee Theme fatigue before it happens. | Fatigue is happening | Dark Coffee Theme CPL: June $30.81 → August $44.10. Its share of budget also rose (64% → 88%) — CBO doubled down on the aging winner rather than diversifying. This is the primary CPL drag. |
| Give arch-interior-dark room to prove its CTR converts. | In Progress | arch-interior-dark received $20.18 of delivery and 14 link clicks (3.6% CTR) but produced 0 leads. Given the low volume, still inconclusive — needs ABO-forced delivery to test properly. |
| Retire the Mock up creatives. | Done (effectively) | Mock up received $0.99 of delivery in August — CBO has already retired it. Formal pause is the housekeeping step. |
| Expect clean, boring budget numbers from now on. | Done | $32.09/day average vs. $33 target. Zero pacing edits needed. The daily-budget structure worked exactly as designed. |
Campaign Performance
| Campaign | Status | Spend | Impressions | Link Clicks | Leads | CPL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PVM | Lead Gen | CBO Daily | 2026-07 | Active | $898.57 | 15,559 | 320 | 22 | $40.84 |
| PVM | Lead Gen | 2025-2026 | CBO (old lifetime) | Paused | $0 | — | — | — | — |
First full month on the daily-budget campaign structure. The old lifetime campaign completed its scheduled Jul 31 end and is now paused for reporting history. All August delivery ran through the new campaign at $33/day.
Ad-Level Performance
| Ad Name | Ad Set | Spend | Impressions | Link Clicks | Link CTR | Leads | CPL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architects | Dark Coffee Theme | Architects 2% LAL | $793.88 | 14,185 | 279 | 1.97% | 18 | $44.10 |
| Emily Kate Testimonial Hidden Winner | Interior Designers 1% LAL | $80.26 | 908 | 24 | 2.64% | 4 | $20.07 |
| Architects | arch-interior-dark Starved | Architects 2% LAL | $20.18 | 391 | 14 | 3.58% | 0 | — |
| Designers | Dark Theme | Interior Designers 1% LAL | $1.84 | 34 | 2 | 5.88% | 0 | — |
| designer-interior-dark Starved | Interior Designers 1% LAL | $1.42 | 21 | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | — |
| Leads | Mock up (retired by CBO) | Interior Designers 1% LAL | $0.99 | 20 | 1 | 5.00% | 0 | — |
The CPL story in one row of the table: Emily Kate Testimonial delivered leads at $20.07 — less than half the account-blended $40.84 — but received only 9% of budget. Dark Coffee Theme received 88% of budget and delivered at $44.10 CPL. arch-interior-dark has a healthy 3.58% link CTR but was starved into inconclusive results.
Audience Insights
| Audience | Spend | Impressions | Link Clicks | Link CTR | Leads | CPL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architects | 2% LAL + Interest Ages 28–54, all genders, US |
$814.06 | 14,576 | 293 | 2.01% | 18 | $45.23 |
| Interior Designers | 1% LAL + Interest Ages 25–54, female only, US |
$84.46 | 982 | 27 | 2.75% | 4 | $21.12 |
Key finding: The Interior Designers ad set is now the more efficient audience — $21.12 CPL vs. Architects' $45.23 — but it receives only 9% of spend. This is a reversal from every prior month. The reason: Emily Kate Testimonial (the Designers-facing ad launched Jul 14) is the account's efficiency leader, but Meta's CBO is routing 88% of budget through Architects because Dark Coffee Theme has the longer delivery history and higher volume. In other words, CBO is optimizing for volume of impressions, not lead efficiency.
This is exactly the pattern the daily-budget campaign was supposed to prevent, and it's a signal that CBO alone won't solve the concentration problem. The July recs (deploy staged creative, open Stories, force delivery to under-served ads) are the response.
This is exactly the pattern the daily-budget campaign was supposed to prevent, and it's a signal that CBO alone won't solve the concentration problem. The July recs (deploy staged creative, open Stories, force delivery to under-served ads) are the response.
How to Improve CPL in September
The math. August blended CPL is $40.84. The account has one $20 CPL creative (Emily Kate Testimonial) and one $44 CPL creative (Dark Coffee Theme). The gap is entirely a budget-allocation problem. If Emily Kate had gotten 30% of spend instead of 9%, the blended CPL would land near $32 with the same total spend. If we can get her to 40%, the blend goes to $28. This is the largest single-lever improvement available without touching the creative pool.
Why it's happening. Meta's CBO optimizes for the campaign's stated objective at the lowest cost per impression that still delivers the objective — and Dark Coffee Theme has a longer delivery history, better creative-quality signal, and matches a larger audience (Architects 2% LAL is wider than Designers 1% LAL female-only). CBO isn't wrong; it's making the mathematically correct choice given the constraint we set. To get a different outcome we have to change the constraint.
Three moves that will bend the CPL down, in order of expected impact:
1) Force Emily Kate Testimonial into an ABO ad set at $10–15/day. This removes it from CBO's cost-per-impression logic and guarantees it delivery at its efficient rate. Expected outcome: 8–12 Emily Kate leads in September at ~$20 CPL, adding ~$160–240 of well-priced spend to the mix.
2) Deploy the staged creative wave on new ABO ad sets, not into CBO. 4 concepts × 3 formats — some will win, some won't, but each will get a fair test. A single new winner at ~$25–30 CPL would repeat the Emily Kate impact.
3) Open the Stories/Reels placement. Fresh inventory dilutes Dark Coffee Theme's frequency (currently 2.39 on Architects). Stories auction dynamics are also often cheaper than Feed for this audience type, so incremental Stories delivery tends to come in below the Feed CPL average.
What NOT to do: Don't pause Dark Coffee Theme yet. It still produced 18 of 22 leads at a workable (if elevated) CPL. Kill it before the alternatives are proven and the account goes quiet. The right sequence is: prove the new creative → scale it → then let Dark Coffee Theme fade or pause it.
Expected September outcome if we execute all three: $28–32 blended CPL at similar $33/day spend — 25–30 leads on the month (vs. August's projected ~24 full-month).
Why it's happening. Meta's CBO optimizes for the campaign's stated objective at the lowest cost per impression that still delivers the objective — and Dark Coffee Theme has a longer delivery history, better creative-quality signal, and matches a larger audience (Architects 2% LAL is wider than Designers 1% LAL female-only). CBO isn't wrong; it's making the mathematically correct choice given the constraint we set. To get a different outcome we have to change the constraint.
Three moves that will bend the CPL down, in order of expected impact:
1) Force Emily Kate Testimonial into an ABO ad set at $10–15/day. This removes it from CBO's cost-per-impression logic and guarantees it delivery at its efficient rate. Expected outcome: 8–12 Emily Kate leads in September at ~$20 CPL, adding ~$160–240 of well-priced spend to the mix.
2) Deploy the staged creative wave on new ABO ad sets, not into CBO. 4 concepts × 3 formats — some will win, some won't, but each will get a fair test. A single new winner at ~$25–30 CPL would repeat the Emily Kate impact.
3) Open the Stories/Reels placement. Fresh inventory dilutes Dark Coffee Theme's frequency (currently 2.39 on Architects). Stories auction dynamics are also often cheaper than Feed for this audience type, so incremental Stories delivery tends to come in below the Feed CPL average.
What NOT to do: Don't pause Dark Coffee Theme yet. It still produced 18 of 22 leads at a workable (if elevated) CPL. Kill it before the alternatives are proven and the account goes quiet. The right sequence is: prove the new creative → scale it → then let Dark Coffee Theme fade or pause it.
Expected September outcome if we execute all three: $28–32 blended CPL at similar $33/day spend — 25–30 leads on the month (vs. August's projected ~24 full-month).
Recommendations for September
Budget Summary
$898.57
Total Spend (28 days)
Estimated full-month close ~$988. On target vs. the $1,023/month plan (365 × $33/365).
$32.09
Daily Average
Vs. the $33/day target — a 3% under-pace attributable to weekend/holiday dips. Zero pacing edits required all month.
$33/day
Daily Budget
Set July 17 on the new campaign. No calendar-month reset, no cliff, no manual timeline edits. The old lifetime campaign is paused for reporting history.