Clear 30 · B2C · app to quit or cut down weed
Study which ads Meta and TikTok spend most on, and reuse their hooks
Ad with a woman beat one with a man; camera-shot look beat polished
What they did
What happened
In their words
Asher Herbstman & Thatcher Clough - I Built a $30k/mo App That Helps You Quit Smoking
HostThis is super helpful. I love how deep into all the sales training and marketing frameworks you guys go. There's a reason behind every single like micro decision that it seems like you guys are making. I'm kind of curious to see if you have the same mindset around ads, too.
Asher HirschmanIn terms of ad creatives, it's a similar thing where we look at the creatives that are working, and like the ones that you know Meta or TikTok are allocating the most spend to, maybe the ones are like super high click-through ratings or just trying to like look at all like the primary, secondary metrics, and just try to understand why they're doing well. And through those ads, we can kind of take like hypothesises, "Oh, we did this ad, this ad had a girl in it and it did like way better than the one that with a guy in it. This ad looked like it was filmed on a camera and it did so much better than the one that looked like it was filmed on a great one." And I think it's been a bit less organized in terms of like I don't have a spreadsheet of saying like this hook is great, this hook is not good, it's more intuitive of like looking at the hooks that are doing well, and then just working those in, and then seeing if those are doing well, and then going back and forth. And that's something I think we could work on is having like a big company document of like hypothesises, and I would like suggest for other app like app founders, but understanding why they make every single decision. For me, I think about it …
Thatcher CloughSome of the reason that we don't have as many small tweaks is that a lot of our ads are very thought out, and scripted, and filmed, and so it's not as easy to say let's change this one word, or change this one sentence in it, and then refilm the whole thing, because that's kind of just not the format of the ads that we work on and we see doing the best. But like Asher said, we do take those parts that work, like oh, this is a good hook, oh, …
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More from this episode
- Grow with paid Meta and TikTok ads once the app converts wellBecame the growth engine; founders say they 'cracked paid ads' and are scaling
- Try organic posts, influencers, Reddit and SEO to get first usersUseful for early feedback, but hard to convert; the first $1K was the hardest
- Film your own funny ads that call out a very specific momentSpecific callouts grab attention; calm ads with an older speaker convert best
- Check which ages and quit reasons pay most, then aim ads at them26-30 year olds convert at almost double the 18-20 rate
- Ask users where they found the app, and also run proper ad trackingShows cost per trial by platform to rebalance spend daily; founders call it very helpful
- Track users from the first screen, not only after they sign inRevealed drop-offs; intro screen passes 85-90%
- Make onboarding a conversation: use their name, echo goals, show proof and quick winsPart of the 2-month push that took revenue from $10K to $30K a month
- Keep the slow 'what do you want to achieve?' questions in onboardingUsers spend 20-30 seconds on them with almost no drop-off
- Give users a free personal report on their habits before asking them to payFounders call it a big point of value; no numbers
- Ask new users which features they'd use, to show them off and learn
- Say up front the app costs money, next to what the habit costs themOnboarding conversion up about 3%; fewer 'it's paid' complaints
- Ask for a star rating during onboarding, right before showing reviewsReviews went from ~50 to almost 1,000 and keep climbing
- Sign users up by phone number and text them funny, personal messagesNo results given; founders cite ~95% of texts read within 5 minutes
- Open the paywall with a day-by-day plan for the first 7 days, not featuresPaywall conversion rose from ~20% to 30% with only this change
- Tell users 'no payment due now' and remind them 2 days before the trial endsMost users choose the yearly plan with the 3-day trial; no conversion numbers
- Test $30, $40 and $50 yearly pricesSettled on $30/year; no test numbers shared
- Run ads inviting people to take a quiz about their weed habitDidn't work; tried half-heartedly while onboarding was weaker
- Offer the app to universities and addiction services, and add paid extras
Tags: meta, tiktok, creative-testing, hooks, hypotheses