From 548 Sign-Up Leads a Quarter to 10,600, at 87% Lower Cost

Cekat sells AI agents that answer customers and close sales on WhatsApp and other chat apps, with an omnichannel CRM behind them. More than 3,000 businesses across Asia use it, by Cekat’s count. Since the second quarter of 2025, GTMLab has run its growth end to end: Meta and Google Ads, the ads themselves, SEO, its Google Business Profile, and how it shows up in AI answers.

In the quarter before we started, Meta brought Cekat 548 sign-up leads at IDR 567k each. Over the six quarters since, it has brought 10,600 a quarter on average, at IDR 72k each.

One team, four jobs.

Paid social, creative, search ads and organic search are usually bought from different places and judged on different numbers. For Cekat they run as one system, and the number that matters most, the cost of a Meta sign-up lead, has been counted the same way since before we started.

1. Paid social, built to bring sign-ups

Strategic reasoning

The number that matters is the cost of each sign-up lead, not clicks or reach. Because the Meta sign-up event is counted the same way now as in the quarter before we started, every quarter since can be held up against that one.

• 548 to 17,070 leads a quarter. Sign-up leads went from 548 in Q1 2025 to 17,070 in Q1 2026, the best quarter so far.
• Cost per lead from IDR 567k to IDR 45k in our first quarter. It has stayed between IDR 45k and IDR 106k since.
• 63,737 sign-up leads in six quarters, from Q2 2025 to Q3 2026.

Six quarters, one sign-up event.

2. Creative, made as a testing system

Strategic reasoning

On Meta the creative decides who stops scrolling and who signs up. So we make ads in volume and name every one by format, product, angle and hook, which means what works can be read straight off the account.

• 498 ads ran in September 2026: 332 videos and 166 images. Video took 82% of the spend.
• Each product gets its own ads: chat, orders, marketing and CRM, with separate ads for SMEs and for corporates.
• Every concept is cut by angle: solution, testimonial, demo, trust, problem, before and after, and a guarantee offer.
• 189 of them were hook variants: the same concept with a different opening.

Where September’s Meta spend went.

3. Search ads, split by product, market and intent

Strategic reasoning

Someone searching for a WhatsApp API wants something different from someone comparing CRMs. So each product gets its own campaigns and its own ads, and each market its own budget.

• Twelve product lines: AI chatbots, AI customer service and AI sales, CRM, marketing automation, the WhatsApp API and WhatsApp broadcasts, chat commerce, lead and pipeline management, complaint management and a customer data platform.
• Seven industries with campaigns of their own: clinics and beauty, education, healthcare, food and beverage, property, retail and marketplaces, and travel and umrah.
• Indonesia and Malaysia, with Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur run as markets of their own.
• Brand, competitor and switcher campaigns, for people searching for Cekat by name and people looking to move from another tool.
• YouTube retargeting for people who have already visited the site.
• Over 70 campaigns spent budget in September 2026.

4. Organic search, local search and AI answers

Strategic reasoning

Paid media pays for every click. Organic and local search don’t, and they shape what AI assistants find when someone asks them which tool to use.

• Domain Rating from 47 to 70 in three months, April to July 2025, as Ahrefs measures it. It stands at 64 today.
• 6,222 clicks from Google in Indonesia in September 2026, from 391,282 impressions, at an average position of 7.1.
• Near the top of Google for buyer searches such as “whatsapp blast resmi” (average position 1.5), “wa blast resmi” (1.8), “wa blast api” (3.2) and “jadi bot wa” (3.4), from late August to October 2026, on top of Cekat’s own name.
• Local SEO and Cekat’s Google Business Profile are part of the same work.
• Tracked in ChatGPT every day against five competitors, for the questions Cekat’s buyers ask.

The shift, before → after.

What it taught us.

1. Count one thing the same way, every quarter. — Cekat’s Meta sign-up event never changed, so six quarters can be held up against the one before we started. Its Google Ads conversions did change, and can’t be compared at all.
2. Volume only works with a naming system. — 498 ads in a month stay readable because every one is named by format, product, angle and hook. That’s how it shows at a glance that solution and testimonial ads carry two-thirds of the spend.
3. Cheap leads don’t stay cheap on their own. — Cost per lead rose from IDR 61k in Q1 2026 to IDR 106k in Q3, as Meta’s cost per 1,000 impressions rose by half. Holding it down takes new creative every month, not one good quarter.