Guest's client apps running web and app campaigns at scale
Run web and app-install ads side by side on Meta to reach more people
Total reach significantly higher than either alone; app-only can plateau at 2M of 20M
Workedpaid-socialweb-to-app
What they did
Once app-install campaigns plateau, add Meta campaigns that go to a web flow, with adjusted creative (different call to action and wording). Meta stops showing install ads to people who never click them (e.g. after ~50 unclicked store ads) and only reached ~2M of a 20M eligible audience over six months at five-digit daily spend; a different conversion signal makes it show ads to different people. Keep both running; teams at scale never go 100% web or 100% app. Not worth it before you hit limits on the simpler route.
What happened
Total reach significantly higher than running only web or only app campaigns.
- Stage
- Scale (scaling)
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · Understanding When to Use Web2App and How to Do It Well — Thomas Petit, Independent App Consultant“Having web ads even when you run it on similar creative, just the fact that the signal that you're sending back is different is going to trigger Facebook to show it to different people.”
“we end up having a total reach that is significantly higher than if we were running only the web to the web campaign or only the app campaign.”
“after they've seen 50 ads towards the store and they haven't click on one, Facebook preserves this inventory for something that is more likely to generate value elsewhere.”
Related topics
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from this episode
- Blinkist: Send Taboola and Outbrain ads to a page that reads like an articleBlinkist cracked this channel; Facebook traffic gets a different flow; no numbers
- Noom: Run a 50-screen onboarding quiz on the web for a high-intent productStill works for Noom; the guest doubts it would for a quick-use app
- Photoroom: Put 10+ of the app's features on your website as free tools, no loginGuest thinks it pays off long term; no internal numbers
- Ladder: Send ad clicks to a web survey and flag likely payers to TikTok and InstagramWorking really well, host says, even with fuzzy web-to-install tracking
- Open with a fun web quiz or mini-game before pitching a serious appChosen over building a second app; no results given
- Run 'What's your IQ?' ads into an easy web quiz, then send people to the appA success, guest says; asking for payment on the web would have hurt
- Let small teams pay on the web with invoices in the company's nameTeams wanted to pay regardless of price; no results given
- When web subscribers cancel, offer half their money back to stay subscribedMany cancellers took it; profitable, good feedback and decent retention
- 8fit: Send Taboola and Outbrain ads straight to the App StoreStore install rate stayed very low; web funnels worked better
- Buy Google Search and YouTube ads to your website to control keywords and channelsReaches a different audience than App campaigns; no numbers
- Bid more for new high-end Android phones, less for older devicesPremium Android converts close to iPhone; older versions convert worse
- Sell on the Amazon Appstore to reach Amazon tablet ownersNot as big as the App Store but a significant revenue source
- Put a simple landing page between the ad and the storeWorked for one game; the same setup failed for several of the guest's apps
- Change the first-day experience so it shows within 24 hours who will payGame companies did this to survive the 24-hour SKAdNetwork window; no numbers
- Charge some users on the web and send others to in-app purchaseFinds new revenue highs per segment; no numbers