Sizzle AI · B2C · AI learning app
Buy test traffic with your best ad and run 3-4-way paywall tests in days
Cost per purchase fell from ~$500 to ~$300 within days
What they did
What happened
- Stage
- growth
In their words
Yev Marusenko - How I Grow Viral Apps to 1M+ Downloads (just copy me)
Yev Marusenko… that one of them you're building up, that way it's it's profitable and scalable, and the other one is we're optimizing the onboarding flow. So, I'm kind of like sending in traffic and knowing that we're getting 1% conversion rate from the install all the way down to the purchase. And then I'm taking the same ad, this is where like the key breakdown happens, where here's a a successful ad, meaning it's it's in the top 10% of the organic content.
Yev MarusenkoSo now, I can amplify it with paid ads, and knowing that this creative is like the testing amplifier. So now, I take my funnel, the actual journey from the install to going through onboarding in the app, using the app, and then there's paywall-related steps, whether it's in the onboarding or after product usage. So now, I need to look at it as two points of profitability, meaning that anytime I'm split testing part of the app usage, I kind of like don't care about the cost per purchase, because I'm sending in tens of thousands of installs to optimize that data within a few days. And then I'm tracking all of this data to know that here's the best ad that I have, and I know it's not like $2,000 cost per purchase or $1,000 cost per purchase.
Yev MarusenkoIt's like something that reasonable. And now, I'm optimizing the in-app really fast. It's not taking like weeks or months to optimize it. It's like within days, I do three-way experiment, four-way experiment. I'm testing like crazy things like in the paywall, other parts of the app, and right away that cost per purchase goes from $500 to $300 per, depending on what I'm targeting. I'm like, "All right, should I like target teachers as well or tutors?" So, part of it is sending in data really fast to optimize, and then that cost per purchase moves down really quickly. The performance is more about the velocity of performance.
Yev Marusenko… on we know what that our churn is depending on the audience, the country, it's kind of between three and seven months, kind of depends on the numbers I'm looking at. I can like estimate LTV, so I know that each purchase is worth kind of depending on the audience, but it's $30 or like $70 or like higher kind of depending on different parts of the product that is purchased, depending on the country, and also device, like iOS is much better.
Yev MarusenkoSo then, I know the exact numbers. I don't blend this data with the rest, because you might make a decision where like, "Uh, it's $300 cost per purchase, turn it all off." Sometimes you can do that if you're very aggressive, but then I'm taking where like 20% of it is matching our numbers exactly, so it's kind of I'm okay with incremental improvement there while crazy testing is here. Incremental meaning that then taking this creative and testing 10 different headlines.
Yev MarusenkoYeah, specifically for this video, it's into hundreds of purchases. So, it's not like crazy where it's like thousands of purchases from a particular video. Guess we can like do the math, but it's in the ballpark of hundreds of purchases.
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More from this episode
- Find the funnel step losing over half your users and have everyone fix it2-3x more users reaching the next step, vs ~10% gains from new features
- Put $1-$20 of ads behind every organic video; back the one getting clicksOne winner per 20-30 videos; the winner drove hundreds of purchases
- Hire creators via JoinBrands, SideShift, Whop and Discord to post on their own accountsA JoinBrands creator's TikTok hit 79K likes and became the top ad
- Open with a silent shocked face, demo the app, end on a goofy twist79K likes; this ending beat the creator's other endings
- Scale a winning video by testing 10 headlines, then new countries and devicesWinner scaled into hundreds of ads; one-word headline changes made a difference
- Switch ads off and on to measure real sales lift; compare every attribution sourceReal purchases usually about double what the ad platform reports
- Add columns showing each ad's step-by-step drop-off from install to paywallSurfaces ads and journeys with 10x higher purchase conversion
- Test clean, warm and social-proof sign-up screens; break ties with assisted conversionsSocial proof: more purchases in some groups, neutral overall on assisted conversions
- Run 10+ faceless Shorts channels with fake texts, cartoon clips and satisfying videos26M views in 28 days on one channel; over a billion total, but low revenue
- Use viral formats from unrelated niches in study-app videos
- Get first users from the founder's launch post and personal networkHelped get the first users; no numbers
Tags: test-traffic, cpa-targets, rapid-iteration, budget-split