A fast-scaling subscription app · B2C · Thomas Petit client
Put all spend behind one channel and one optimization signal
Grew from 0 to eight figures in two years, then had no fallback when it broke
What they did
What happened
In their words
Signal Engineering: Strategic Data Filtering for Better Ad Performance — Thomas Petit, Independent Consultant
Thomas Petit… forget about it, for the reason I mentioned at the at the beginning, but it's something that you fix once in a while. And also because it gives you options. Like, I was working with an account where they had like massive success scaling on a couple of different platforms, like really impressive trajectory, went from 0 to 8 digits in a couple of years, like very beautiful trajectory. And then, at some point, things started working not as well,
Thomas Petitand we tried everything we could, like, you know, creative and fixing the event, and so on. One of the problem is that they put all their eggs in one basket, and that basket worked great for a long time, but when it broke, they had no alternative. And one of the reason to have your your signals properly handed is also to have optionality, in the sense of, if what works the best for you is optimizing for free trial, so be it. Or optimizing for value, like for revenue optimization, so be it, that's great. Double down on it and spend 90% on there.
Thomas PetitBut you probably also want to have the other options available, sometimes because it's audience expansion, and I would run an event optimization campaign towards free trial in parallel of a revenue optimization campaign, and Facebook would bring different users to the app. So, for scaling, but also for the many, many cases where things starts to break, which is much more often than people think. So, I'd rather have different options in my in my …
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More from this episode
- Check that Meta and Google receive the same event counts as your own analyticsGaps of 30-50% are common; fix anything above 10% before touching ads
- Send trial starts, direct purchases, trial conversions and renewals as separate eventsDefault SDK mapping often lumps them all into one event; guest says fix it first
- Send ad networks only the trials likely to pay, as their own eventGuest's go-to first step when paid trial quality lags; no numbers given
- Tell Meta to value some users more or less instead of excluding themKeeps cheap under-25 reach instead of cutting it; no numbers given
- Report each user's expected value at month 13, not what they paid on day oneGuest's main advanced lever; no numbers given
- Look up each conversion's value from a server so you can change it without a releaseAvoids app releases for every price or currency change; says it makes a big difference
- Send your conversion signal within a day, waiting a few hours to see early useVoyantis showed timing matters; guest says signals after 24 hours are nearly useless
- Keep at least 10 conversion events per campaign per day before filteringUnder ~10/day optimization breaks; well above it, fewer better events win
- Report low-value users as worth less and high-value users as worth morePushes delivery toward top users but hides true ROAS; has backfired when overdone
- Send every event to every ad network, then pick a different signal for each
- Compare the value you report with real revenue by country, not just in total
- Send Google only the trials that look likely to payGoogle trials converted at ~15% vs ~40% elsewhere; the fix moved the needle
- Count a business user's yearly plan as worth 5 weekly consumer plansWorked at first; went stale after 18 months of price changes and needed fixing
- Change which events you send to ad networks, even as a young appBig uplift per the guest; details saved for a blog post
- Let a signal specialist filter and send your ad events, and test itOne of two tests looks good, the other doesn't; not conclusive
- Tell ad networks which users reported high anxiety, since they pay far more
- Treat users who rush a 30-screen onboarding in under a minute as low valueHeld for one app; another app found its fastest finishers were its best users
- Change what you report as user value when cash matters more than long-term LTV
- Sell $5-10 top-up credits on top of subscription tiers
- Send buyers to web checkout once the store fee jumps from 15% to 30%Works for them, per the guest; no numbers
- Report a $1 value for non-payers who look likely to stick around
- Report your biggest spenders as mid-value so Meta doesn't stop early
Tags: concentration-risk, optionality, scaling