Make helps R17 Ventures boost lead quality & campaign performance on Meta using Conversions API for CRM

• Industry: Professional Services - Marketing and Advertising

• Use case: Lead Generation & Management

• Country: Switzerland

• Company size: 51-100

• Apps used: Facebook Lead Ads, Facebook Conversions API for CRM, Google Sheets, Klaviyo, Gmail

R17 Ventures is a Swiss-based digital performance marketing agency with a global footprint and a core team in Cape Town. Their mission? Helping brands run smarter, higher-performing ad campaigns that drive real business results.

But for many of their clients, especially startups and mid-sized businesses, optimizing lead generation campaigns on platforms like Meta, Google, and LinkedIn was a constant struggle. Without advanced CRMs or conversion tracking in place, these companies couldn’t teach the algorithms to prioritize quality leads over quantity.

That’s where Make came in. By using Facebook Conversion API (CAPI) for CRM app in Make to build custom conversion tracking solutions, R17 Ventures empowers its clients to optimize Meta and other ad platforms for marketing qualified leads (MQLs), sales qualified leads (SQLs), and ultimately customers.

Head of Sales & Marketing Jono Duguid and Tracking Lead & Performance Marketer Jandré Hough share how this solution has dramatically improved clients’ performance and ROI.

“Make allows us to create makeshift CRM solutions that give startups and mid-sized businesses the same optimization power as enterprises, without the huge price tags of certain CRM tools.”

Jono Duguid, Head of Sales and Marketing, R17 Ventures 

The challenges

As R17 Ventures expanded across the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), the US, Canada, and the UK, three key challenges stood out:

Striving to optimize for quality, not just quantity

Traditional lead-gen campaigns often stop at collecting form submissions. When someone clicks an ad and fills out a lead form, platforms like Meta mark it as success and keep serving similar audiences. R17 Ventures needed to make sure that lead quality is solid first, so that when they scale the campaigns, they’re scaling them with the right approach.

Without the ability to send custom conversion events back to Meta, R17 Ventures couldn’t train its clients’ ad algorithms to bid for better prospects, like MQLs, SQLs, or paying customers.

Clients without enterprise CRM budgets struggled

Many of R17 Ventures’ startup and mid-sized clients couldn’t afford expensive CRMs that often cost over €10,000 per year. They needed smarter conversion tracking to compete on Meta and Google, but at a fraction of the cost.

The solutions

To solve these issues, R17 Ventures turned to Make.

Building makeshift CRMs that talk to Meta

To address the budget limitations of smaller clients and optimize ad platforms for targeting quality leads, R17 Ventures used Facebook Conversion API for CRM to build CRM-style systems with Google Sheets. 

These setups automatically capture lead data from Meta, Google, and LinkedIn, allowing businesses of any size to gain the same optimization capabilities as those using enterprise CRMs.

As leads move through deal stages (from new contact → MQL → SQL → customer), Make also triggers custom conversion events back to Meta in real time. This feedback loop taught Meta’s algorithm which leads tend to move further in the CRM funnel, improving campaign performance with every new data point.

“With Make, we’re no longer limited by our clients’ tech stacks or budgets. We can deliver enterprise-level optimization to anyone running ads on Meta — and that’s a real game-changer for performance.”

Jono Duguid, Head of Sales and Marketing, R17 Ventures 

Bridging CRM gaps for enterprise clients

Even enterprise clients using CRMs like Salesforce benefit. When Salesforce can’t automatically send conversion data to Google or Meta, Make fills the gap, pulling and pushing data seamlessly between systems.

Campaign-level optimization and retargeting

Make’s flexibility also lets R17 Ventures pull campaign-specific parameters, like form details and answers, from Meta into their CRM. This helps them better understand what audience types they should target.

“It’s amazing to see how quickly performance improves once Make starts feeding real lead-quality data back to Meta. You can literally watch the campaigns get smarter every week.”

Jandre Hough, Performance Marketer at R17 Ventures

Bonus: Meeting strict EU data compliance requirements

For clients in regulated industries like financial services, Make’s EU-based hosting became a key advantage. It ensured full compliance with data privacy laws. Something that US-hosted tools couldn’t always guarantee.

The results

Since implementing Make-powered Facebook Conversions for CRM solutions across multiple accounts, R17 Ventures has delivered measurable improvements for clients running campaigns on Meta, Google, and LinkedIn:

• In the span of Q3 and Q4 2025, R17 Ventures achieved over 260 conversions specifically tied to this setup, while the conversion rate reached 14,6%

• Higher-quality optimization on Meta: Clients can now train Meta’s algorithm to focus on MQLs, SQLs, and paying customers instead of just form fills.

• Better ROI and lower costs: Clients without big CRM budgets gained enterprise-level conversion tracking for a fraction of the price.

• Stronger campaign insights: R17’s performance marketers can now pinpoint which Meta campaigns and creatives drive the most valuable leads.

• Regulatory peace of mind: Make’s EU-based hosting keeps financial services clients to be fully compliant with data protection laws.

“We tried other providers, but Make’s mix of cost-effectiveness, customization, and ease of use made it the clear choice. It’s easy to teach others to build scenarios themselves, and that’s driven adoption across our team.”

Jandre Hough, Performance Marketer at R17 Ventures

Enterprise-grade marketing for all businesses

Over the past year, R17 Ventures has turned Make into a cornerstone of its performance marketing stack, especially when it comes to maximizing results on Meta Ads.

For Jono Duguid and Jandré Hough, three things make Make indispensable: its affordability for startups, its EU hosting for compliance, and its visual builder that makes advanced automation accessible to everyone.

But the biggest impact? Make helps democratize enterprise-grade marketing for any business running ads on Meta. As R17 Ventures continues to grow and explore AI-powered automations with Make, their message to other agencies is simple:

“You don’t need an enterprise budget to optimize your Meta campaigns like one. With Make, even the leanest teams can compete at the highest level.”

Jandre Hough, Performance Marketer at R17 Ventures