How would you allocate $2.000/month for marketing?

Hey Perjan,

Probably not the answer you're looking for, but I'd save that money and not do ads.

With the right strategy you don't need ads. In fact, it's thanks to using the right strategy that I made more than that $2K budget with 1 tweet with a Twitter account with less than 100 followers.

Just posted an article about that on here/LinkedIn today. Hopefully you'll find it useful - https://www.indiehackers.com/post/steal-the-tweet-that-made-me-4-figures-in-revenue-with-less-than-100-followers-on-twitter-cd1b6afe0b

Best

Chris

Hi, Perjan, I think it is necessary to dig out the reason why your ASAs don't work. You should know the reason before you decide on the next move.

Are you tracking some necessary app data that will help you make the marketing decisions? Data analytics can really help with your marketing resources allocation.

Our appflow.ai can help with in-app data tracking for free for one month. If you have needs, you can check it out.

Hey Perjan, some interesting comments on this post. I've spent the last 8 years scaling apps and tech startups so wanted to share some thoughts

With the state of iOS 14 and it's complexity with attribution, running ads is worth it but it's also high risk. Personally I'd run ads if/when you have good product market fit and a referral program that enables you to maxamise the value of each paid install.

I would instead focus money on growth hacking and mass content creation.

In terms of growth hacking - My fave tool is Phantom Buster. Depending on the app you have, you could use this tool to mass scrape and message people asking for feedback on your app (essentially a cheap sneaky way to drive actual growth)

I'd then also create as much content as you can that provides value to the users of your app.. e.g. if this was an app to help freelancers save on accounting - you should mass create content about how to make more money as a freelancer, where to find clients, interview successful freelancers under your brand..

The content will then drive a ton of organic brand awareness and traffic to your site - this is where you could then retarget them into low costing signups

There are some good ideas here, but before you start spending $2K on something I'd think first about what channel actually works for you.

Take the time to do the research and run a series of small bets to see which channel will lead to the most signups/customers for your app. Just the other day I signed up for an app in the Apple store from Reddit -> this does not mean advertise on Reddit, it means there are lots of options out there.

Too often (especially here) I see folks say they spent $xx on SEO or social or PPC and it doesn't work. Marketing that is reaching the wrong audience (or using the wrong headlines) will not work.

Who is your audience? What problems do they have that your app solves? Where do they spend time online? How can you get in front of them there?

^if you can answer those with any degree of confidence, you stand a good shot at getting noticed. From there, it's a matter of optimizing and refining your ads to improve performance.

Hi Perjan!

I am a seasoned app marketer focusing on performance marketing, and here is what I'd do if I were to use that money efficiently. I imagine Apple Search Ads not serving you as you wish (many of us can relate).

Great ads are your number one friend to make this work.
Reach out to TikTok and Instagram creators and ask them to create ads for you (UGC). One ad from each. Ask them to create different ad versions with 3 "hooks" - hook means the first 1-3 seconds of the ad.

Advertise your iOS app on Meta (I see you make circa 20K a month, nice!), and optimize for the deepest funnel metric that can bring at least 10 events daily. Keep the interest targeting broad; target your best country.

Observe the blended customer acquisition cost by having a weekly growth report carefully and expand the spending as you feel more comfortable. If Meta doesn't scale, then go back to your app funnel and see where you lose the most customers and start improving your product.