Scaling a Non-Gaming Subscription App on iOS: What is the budget and patience threshold for Meta AEM?

[roasd365]

We are currently in the process of scaling a non-gaming subscription-based app on iOS using Meta Ads. I have AEM, but I’m hitting some "classic" crossroads regarding budget allocation and patience. I’d love to get some feedback from those who have successfully scaled in the current 2026 environment.

I’ve just started a campaign optimizing for Purchase(One Time Purchases+Subs), but the Day 1 and Day 2 numbers are coming in at 3x–4x my target CPA. Which means I can't feed the algo with the necessary daily events.

For those scaling successfully right now, do you tolerate high CPAs in the first few days of a Purchase campaign, or do you prefer starting with a upper funnel event campaign and switching to Purchase later?

 

[LeClown]

If you don't have enough budget to generate 10-15 events per day at least, I'd wait and work in improving the conversion before going upper in the funnel (unless you have an event which is very correlated to the purchase)

(I'm assuming the purchase is happening in day zero for you)

 

[roasd365]

If you don't have enough budget to generate 10-15 events per day at least, I'd wait and work in improving the conversion before going upper in the funnel (unless you have an event which is very correlated to the purchase)

(I'm assuming the purchase is happening in day zero for you)

Thanks for the reply. Roughly how many events are needed for performance to stabilize? Do you have a particular benchmark like 10 events per day for at least 3 or 7 days?

 

[davamosk]

10 per day is the standard yes!

 

[Jack811]

Hey guy, now you mentioned it. It is pretty hard to collect 10 purchases a day, you will need a huge daily budget, which is quite costly to run a campaign, especially when you are in the first phase of exploring Meta.

From what I’ve seen, running a Purchase campaign with a low budget in the first few days often leads to high CPAs, unstable performance, and not enough data to properly evaluate, let alone optimize.

Is there any other way to approach testing on Meta or increasing budget to a point that it would enable at least 10 purchases a days is the only way to go?

 

[davamosk]

Hey guy, now you mentioned it. It is pretty hard to collect 10 purchases a day, you will need a huge daily budget, which is quite costly to run a campaign, especially when you are in the first phase of exploring Meta.

From what I’ve seen, running a Purchase campaign with a low budget in the first few days often leads to high CPAs, unstable performance, and not enough data to properly evaluate, let alone optimize.

Is there any other way to approach testing on Meta or increasing budget to a point that it would enable at least 10 purchases a days is the only way to go?

try with a proxy event which is very correlated to the purchase - i got success some times with that approach in small accounts but it will mainly depend on how good that proxy event is built

 

[bungabunga]

Hey guy, now you mentioned it. It is pretty hard to collect 10 purchases a day, you will need a huge daily budget, which is quite costly to run a campaign, especially when you are in the first phase of exploring Meta.

From what I’ve seen, running a Purchase campaign with a low budget in the first few days often leads to high CPAs, unstable performance, and not enough data to properly evaluate, let alone optimize.

Is there any other way to approach testing on Meta or increasing budget to a point that it would enable at least 10 purchases a days is the only way to go?

Would go for a upper funnel event like "registered" or "reach lvl 2" stuff like that. That makes it easier to get more events per day with less budget.