GTM Sauce

A scratch map app · B2C · Yannis's client

Change the caption from 'post-breakup activity' to 'procrastinating for exams'

Same video: millions of views and no downloads became App Store jumps in several countries

Workedorganic-short-video

What they did

A scratch-map app's videos showed the map being scratched off as someone walks around campus; speed and shape were tuned for retention. Hundreds of posts went viral with text overlays like 'post-breakup activity' but did not convert, even showing the app. Changing only a few overlay words to procrastinating for exams (posted during US exam season) gave people a reason to download right now. Lesson: an overlay must create present intent, not just relatability.

What happened

The exam-procrastination version made the app jump in the App Store in several countries; the breakup version got millions of views but essentially zero downloads.
Effort
hundreds of posts of the same format

In their words

Yannis Chaouche - The NEW Short Form Strategy Dominating For App Growth

Play from 37:46

Yannis Chaouche… And I would add text overlay, like post-breakup activity was one, right? And so, post-breakup activity is like someone just wandering around the campus, and so that would make sense in the narrative. And I would be like, maybe people will wonder, "I want to do it as well," and they would wonder what's the app, and maybe they would want to download it, right, or or you you can even show the name of the app and they would try to download it.

37:46

Yannis ChaoucheActually, did this had zero success, right? So, I would I tried a lot of situations on the text overlay, and I stumbled upon, what did I do? It was, uh, procrastinating for my exams or something. Like just a a reason for you to, uh, use the scratch map, and, uh, this one, I don't exactly know why, I have my doubts, but this one basically made the app jump in the App Store in several countries, right?

38:17

Yannis ChaoucheAnd so, just Yes, because it's exactly the same creative, like if I show you the creatives, you cannot distinguish them, except from a couple words on it, right? And so, those words, because it's so relatable, and because like everyone procrastinates for their exams, is my guess, is like they were looking for something to do, and it was around the period of the exams in US, it would trigger the download. But post-breakup activity, it's like,

39:29

Yannis ChaoucheIt's like something that all the girls feel that pain and know about the post-breakup X, right? And so, I use that, and people understood the narrative about, "Okay, it's a post-breakup activity of me wandering around the campus in random shapes, right?" So, it's a bit funny. It's a bit, you know, It's a It's an alternative use of the app to do a spiral on the campus and say post-breakup activity, right?

39:54

Yannis ChaoucheUm, but it wasn't enough to trigger a download. Uh, I was showing the app. I was but getting viral, but I wasn't, uh, converting. When I changed that to procrastination, whatever, but like basically exam procrastinate me procrastinating for exams, this triggered the download, right? It's just a couple words.

40:15

Joseph ChoiWas Amo like the main example that you wanted to show? Was Was there something else?

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Tags: tiktok, text-overlay, hooks, intent, conversion