Pray.com · Christian prayer and devotional app
Measure TV and online ads together with a statistical model, not click tracking
Comfortable running on statistical models since before ATT; no numbers
Workedanalytics-attribution
What they did
The TV-buying platform supplied by-minute data on when ads aired and helped with media mix modeling for broadcast; the team blended it with performance marketing data. Used media mix modeling from the start rather than relying on deterministic attribution.
What happened
Guest says it let them fly on statistical models and set up their media mix understanding.
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · Building Trust with Users to Drive Revenue and Retention – Ryan Beck, Pray.com“Yes, and they would help us with that media mix modeling, but it would just be for broadcast. And then we'd have our performance marketing. So you have to blend it. So from the very beginning, we've been doing media mix modeling”
Related topics
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More from this episode
- Pray.com: Visit each church in person, often more than once, to sign up its membersFacebook-level retention, but too slow to grow; dropped for consumer subscriptions
- Pray.com: Turn pastors' popular daily prayer posts into morning, noon and night prayersGreat engagement; became the main feature and the path into subscriptions
- Pray.com: Make faith versions of Calm-style content: bedtime Bible stories and sleep psalmsGuest says it made monetizing easy; no numbers
- Pray.com: Rebuild the app so paywalls and onboarding can be tested without app updatesEnabled rapid test cycles that showed what could be monetized; no numbers
- Pray.com: Stop asking for a phone number at signupPhone field hurt subscription conversion; removing it helped monetization (no numbers)
- Pray.com: Put most of a big Meta budget behind one winning adFailed: Meta pulled the ad in peak season and CAC became untenable
- Pray.com: Test lots of ad ideas borrowed from games and dating apps, not just your categoryGuest says it produces a diversified creative mix that scales campaigns
- Pray.com: Move ads from Facebook image posts to Reels video earlyVideo ads didn't land at first; Reels is now where most spend runs
- Pray.com: Run TV and radio ads to reach older people who trust TV more than online adsWorked well pre- and during the pandemic; TV agencies were blown away (no numbers)
- Pray.com: Reply to every piece of feedback, and have founders call upset usersHow they handle 'faith should be free' pushback; no numbers
- Pray.com: Keep one shared roadmap for product, engineering and marketingGuest's key lesson; keeps a lean team aligned (no numbers)
- Pray.com: Ask a few quiz questions at signup to tailor the prayer planGuest says quiz onboarding has worked well; theirs is still light
- Pray.com: Add ads and one-time purchases like books on top of the subscription