Acquisition Channel Opportunities: iOS 15, Podcast ads, TikTok Influencers

If you want to get more users using novel acquisition channels, read on. Here are the top 3 acquisition channels opportunities I've identified from last week on how to attract more users:

1. These iOS 15 features will help you market your app better

Apple has released iOS 15 last week. There are some updates we don't particularly like (like Apple disabling email tracking for their Mail App), but there are also a number of of new, interesting features that can help indie hackers market our apps better:

• In-App events. If you run events inside your app, Apple will give you more ways to promote them, including displaying them as "Happening now" in search results. On the App Store's home page, Apple will also display "Events you might like" and display the most popular events:

• App Store Widget discovery. iOS 15 will include a widget that displays featured apps - which means being in the top “Featured” section of the App Store, but can be also be “Top Charts”, “Explore”, or “Editorial Selections” - selected by editors. There are some ways to increase your chances to get featured there.

  

• Custom product pages: Say you have a sports news app. Using this feature, you can generate a custom product page for each sports team - up to 35 custom product pages at a time - and have a unique link that leads to your App Store listing. The App Store will then show different versions of your app to different people, increasing the likelihood that they will download the app.

Availability: App Store widgets are already here. This fall, Apple plans to release in-app events which according to Apple are "timely events within apps and games". Custom product pages will be released later this year.

The opportunity: Apple's ATT changes have made marketing your app harder and more expensive. The goal of these updates is to ultimately get a bigger % of people to download, install and use your app.

2. Podcast ads to become more affordable for indie founders

And Spotify is leading the pack. According to the Wall Street Journal, Spotify has refocused on attracting small and medium-sized businesses to its podcast ads platform. Unlike other podcast ad platforms, Spotify allows you to get started with just $250.

Audio ads have potential: They can even outperform video ads. This was the case with Creatopy, an ad design platform, which tested YouTube video vs. audio ads and discovered that the latter produced higher ROI.

People also perceive podcast ads as more trustworthy as compared to social media ads. So if you're selling something that requires more trust (an authentication SaaS, a health or a security-related product, etc.) then these ads could be a good idea.

3. TikTok influencer marketing works for SaaS/mobile apps

TikTok has just reached 1 billion users. That's all well and good, but can you successfully promote a digital product using the platform?

Last week, I discovered two examples of businesses that did just that.

Example 1: The Verge featured an interesting story on how a single TikTok video brought thousands of new users to Prolific, a survey platform:

“We have noticed a huge leap in the number of participants on the platform in the US Pool, from 40k to 80k."

This caused some issues for the platform (when running surveys, you want users from all demographics), but it's a great example of the power of a single viral TikTok video.

Example 2: Tactiq, a Chrome extension that transcribes Google Meet in real time They used several TikTok influencers, spent $2,000, and gained approximately 150k new users:

By the way, I spoke with Sam (Tactiq's growth manager) to get more information on their TikTok success. Stay tuned for the interview, which will be published on Friday.

The opportunity: Influencer marketing on TikTok can be effective for B2C digital products (Tactiq targets students). It can also help you in filling the supply side of a marketplace (like it did for Prolific).