Blended Cost per Trial Start: Acquisition Efficiency

Blended Cost per Trial Start measures how much you spend on advertising to generate one free trial signup across all your ad platforms.

Formula

Blended Cost per Trial Start = Blended Spend ÷ Blended Trial Starts

Formula Components

Metric	Definition
Blended Spend	Total advertising spend across all platforms
Blended Trial Starts	Free trial signups attributed to your ads

Metadata
Type	Currency
Data Source	Meta Ads, Google Ads, TikTok Ads
Aggregation	Ratio

Example

Your SaaS company spent $5,000 on ads last month and generated 250 trial signups across all platforms.

Metric	Value
Blended Spend	$5,000
Trial Starts	250
Blended Cost per Trial Start	$20.00

How It Works

This metric divides your total advertising spend by the number of free trial signups attributed to your campaigns. It aggregates data from Meta, Google, and TikTok to give you one unified cost-per-trial figure.

When to Use

Scenario	Action
Comparing trial acquisition efficiency	Use to benchmark cost across campaigns
Budget allocation decisions	Shift spend to platforms with lower trial costs
Measuring campaign optimizations	Track if changes reduce acquisition cost
Forecasting trial volume	Estimate trials from planned ad spend

Metric	Relationship
Blended Spend	Numerator — total ad spend
Blended Trial Starts	Denominator — trial signups
Blended CPA	Similar efficiency metric for all conversions

See all Blended Conversions metrics →

Blended Trial Starts Blended Applications

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​Formula

​Formula Components

​Example

​How It Works

​When to Use

​Related Metrics

Formula

Formula Components

Example

How It Works

When to Use

Related Metrics