💎 Growth Gems #55 - Paid UA, Onboarding/Monetization and CRM
Hi there,
This week I’m sharing gems on CRM, onboarding and monetization for subscription apps and media mix modeling. These insights come from Hannah Parvaz, Thomas Petit, Brian Krebs and more.
🥇 TOP GEM OF THE WEEK
💎 One of the main drivers of retention is how you onboard and activate users during the first-time experience, because this is where you lose most users. It’s also where you can make the most revenue.
by Thomas Petit (Growth Consultant)
at 09:07 in The Rise of the Subscription Economy (passcode Y9h2xZ0^)
Paid UA: media mix modeling, creatives, ATT opt-in
💎 Even though no solution is one size fits all, media mix modeling is actually more applicable to apps (than brick and mortar) because there are fewer factors that significantly impact overall performance.
by Brian Krebs (CEO at MetricWorks - Mobile Marketing Solutions)
at 06:49 in How to apply Media Mix Modeling based solutions to mobile apps
💎 A few performance factors you need to include in your model are: seasonality (day of the week, month of year), promotions/live ops (yours and competitors’), app featurings (needs to be imputed as holidays in the model) and often the biggest factor: marketing efforts (encoded in terms of spend and reach). For games, ARPDAU can be a nice control to factor in live ops.
by Brian Krebs (CEO at MetricWorks - Mobile Marketing Solutions)
at 07:14 in How to apply Media Mix Modeling based solutions to mobile apps
💎 There are some open source tools and frameworks that already exist for Media Mix Modeling. Facebook has one with Robyn, developed in R. It’s a DIY collaborative Github community code that you can customize with the important variables for your business.
by Brian Krebs (CEO at MetricWorks - Mobile Marketing Solutions)
at 14:22 in How to apply Media Mix Modeling based solutions to mobile apps
⛏️ Going Deeper: check out the Robyn website above but also this 2 minute video they made. You might also be interested in this Introduction to Bayesian Methods for MMM article. If you lack the resources, there are SaaS tools like MetricWorks or Incrmntal.
💎 Test your creatives in different ways, including by doing comprehension testing with people to make sure they understand what you’re promoting before you put the ad live.
by Hannah Parvaz (Head of Marketing at Uptime)
at 42:09 in The Rise of the Subscription Economy (passcode Y9h2xZ0^)
💎 Talk to your customers. Pull out exact bits of what they said and use them in your ad content.
by Hannah Parvaz (Head of Marketing at Uptime)
at 42:19 in The Rise of the Subscription Economy (passcode Y9h2xZ0^)
💎 The main reason to actively try to increase ATT opt-in is to give ad platforms more signal to optimize.
by Thomas Petit (Growth Consultant)
at 47:42 in The Rise of the Subscription Economy (passcode Y9h2xZ0^).
Onboarding & Monetization: optimizing paywalls, price testing
💎 One of the main drivers of retention is how you onboard and activate users during the first-time experience, because this is where you lose most users. It’s also where you can make the most revenue.
by Thomas Petit (Growth Consultant)
at 09:07 in The Rise of the Subscription Economy (passcode Y9h2xZ0^)
⛏️ Going Deeper: the data below shows that for a lot of subscription apps, Day 0 is really important for conversion. To some extent, the decision to buy is an “impulse”. This is especially true for free trials (less commitment) and on iOS.
💎 You should iterate on all the elements on your paywall. But a lot of people focus too much just on the paywall, when in fact you need to consider the whole experience and the “flow of paywalls”. Example: Reflectly.
by Thomas Petit (Growth Consultant)
at 12:10 in The Rise of the Subscription Economy (passcode Y9h2xZ0^)
⛏️ Going Deeper: it’s been heavily shared already, but check out The Subscription Optimization Framework: How to Better Monetize Your App in 2021.
One of the best tactics for paywall conversion is to think about the screen that is just before the paywall (that’s very much in line with the Psych’d framework).
Finally…I love tools like App Fuel but when it comes to really experiencing the “flow of paywalls”, you need to download several apps and start using them (without subscribing or starting the free trial).
💎 Don’t push monetization too much. There is a natural tension between monetization, engagement and virality and you need to find the right balance. Thinking only about revenue per user might increase revenue short term but will have a negative effect on your user retention.
by Thomas Petit (Growth Consultant)
at 12:10 in The Rise of the Subscription Economy (passcode Y9h2xZ0^)
💎 Uptime has an unusual approach when it comes to onboarding/monetization:
Users can subscribe immediately with a 75% discount on a yearly plan (75% are the savings vs. 12 x monthly)
If users don’t subscribe, they get a 3-day access to everything (not tied to the App Store and people can still use the discount to upgrade),
After 3 days, users have the option to start a 7-day free trial (via the App Store).
by Hannah Parvaz (Head of Marketing at Uptime)
at 22:10 in The Rise of the Subscription Economy (passcode Y9h2xZ0^)
💎 When you first approach monetization tests, start by looking at your current subscription mix (the different plan durations you offer) and how it’s been evolving throughout the year (you might see some seasonality). Try to understand why you’re driving users to choose specific plans, and hypothesize on how you can influence this.
by Sylvain Gauchet (Growth at Babbel)
at 29:28 in The Rise of the Subscription Economy (passcode Y9h2xZ0^)
💎 When testing/removing a free trial, you know that your conversion rate is going to drop. You need to look long term: if your conversion rate drops, then what does that do to your volume of subs but also to their behaviors in the first 2-3 months (so you can predict what the LTV will look like from there).
by James Quinn (Head of Performance Marketing at News UK)
at 36:19 in The Rise of the Subscription Economy (passcode Y9h2xZ0^)
💎 The power of your brand has a huge impact on conversions: you can’t compare a newly-born app and one that’s established.
by Thomas Petit (Growth Consultant)
at 37:58 in The Rise of the Subscription Economy (passcode Y9h2xZ0^)
💎 If you’re getting started and your cohorts are small, look at what the big apps are doing and start copying because there are a lot of factors and you might not have the data team to analyze results.
by Thomas Petit (Growth Consultant)
at 38:22 in The Rise of the Subscription Economy (passcode Y9h2xZ0^)
⛏️ Going Deeper: Thomas advises to be cautious about copying paywalls/prices because you end up following newly created “standards” (e.g. “Calm” paywall, “Blinkist” paywall, etc) that might create blindness/fatigue. Once you have more volume, it might be worth experimenting too. Example: Hashtag Expert or Fitness AI with video paywalls, which are implemented using superwall.me (don’t miss out on this great Twitter thread by its founder, Jake Mor).
💎 For web payments, start with one channel (e.g. traffic from Facebook only, not from your general website). Optimize your funnel and only add channels after.
by Sylvain Gauchet (Growth at Babbel)
at 55:20 in The Rise of the Subscription Economy (passcode Y9h2xZ0^)
⛏️ Going Deeper: you’d be surprised how many apps already have a web payment funnel, and several do not allow users to go through it from their homepage (yet?). To see their onboarding, start from their ads in the Facebook Ad Library and follow the links.
💎 At a previous company, gifting made up about a third of December sales and a lot of these came from existing customers.
Note: gifting is a great way to increase the spend “ceiling” you inherently have with subs.
by Hannah Parvaz (Head of Marketing at Uptime)
at 01:08:40 in The Rise of the Subscription Economy (passcode Y9h2xZ0^)
CRM: relationship building
💎 Use accessible language in your transactional emails (e.g. welcome email for subscription confirmation), and try to leverage them for relationship building as well.
by Hannah Parvaz (Head of Marketing at Uptime)
at 57:05 in The Rise of the Subscription Economy (passcode Y9h2xZ0^)
💎 Relationship building is critical post-ATT. Think about things like a thank you email from the founder for a new subscriber, a plain-text email to understand why someone is not using their free trial. These emails (if they bring engagement) can also warm up your domain and open the possibility for further discussions with users (e.g. getting on the phone with them).
by Hannah Parvaz (Head of Marketing at Uptime)
at 57:20 in The Rise of the Subscription Economy (passcode Y9h2xZ0^)
And before I leave, a final advice on optimizing subscriptions
“Play the long game, don’t look for the hack” - Thomas Petit
See you next time. Stay savvy!
⛏️ Sylvain