Simply Piano · B2C · piano learning app
Pick one country by upside and confidence, then fully localize songs, screens and store
All Japan metrics grew except paywall conversion, which fell
What they did
What happened
In their words
How Simply Finally Cracked Facebook Ads with Web Funnels – Yoav Sharon, Simply
David Barnard… can't crack Germany, I'm going to send them that clip because cracking international markets really is a ton of work and it is an investment and you have to think about it like that because if you just change the price and expect to crack a market, that's not how you crack a market. Any other top lessons or interesting geos where there were counterintuitive things that you learned that maybe you could share and at least give people a head start?
Yoav SharonSo, yeah, actually one of the most mind-blowing learnings that we've had at some point in time at Simply Piano, we decided we already had been translated to 11 languages. And we decided we want to go to the first geo where we're going to really localize, not translation, but fully localization. So, like we always do, we created a very thoughtful and deep model that estimated the potential of each geo in terms of what might be the upside in that geo, the incremental audience and incremental ARPU, but also what is our confidence that we can really meet that potential. So, we landed on Japan. Japan for us for Simply Piano was our first deep localization that we wanted to grow.
Yoav SharonSo, we started, like I mentioned, we're highly confident that we can really reach this potential. We localized some Japanese, some songs like from anime and all the UX was changed and app store creatives, everything was translated and localized, of course, currency to Japanese and all the metrics started growing great as expected, except for one metric, the checkout conversion, the paywall conversion, it did not move even on the contrary, it even decreased and we didn't know why. Come on. It's like we did everything properly. We brought in a country manager, Japanese country manager, a great guy, and he reviewed our flow and he told us, "Guys, you're not treating the paywall properly us, we're used to all the best practices in paywalls, make it very clear, least disruptive.
Yoav SharonYou want to minimize the details on the paywall. You want some social proof, you want some things, but overall you want a very clean paywall." The Japanese 180 degrees are opposite. They expect very detailed story of the company, of the founders, of our values, of all the things that you're frustrated that no one reads, they want to read all the social quotes and a lot of colors. I'm telling you, you can't even believe we had a very long one …
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More from this episode
- Send Facebook ad clicks to a short web quiz and paywall, not the App Store~20% of revenue from web; Facebook worked for the first time
- Sell a bundle of all your apps on the web, where you can explain itGuest says it works well; no numbers
- Offer a family plan with up to 5 profiles that covers every appMulti-app, multi-profile accounts retain best in every cohort
- Mark songs in the piano app that you can also sing in the singing app
- Switch off app ads in one country and web ads in another to spot overlapShowed where apps and channels cannibalized each other; no numbers
- Launch each new hobby as its own app, run by a small independent teamPiano ~80% of its category; Draw revenue grew ~6x last year
- Meet your Apple and Google account managers every two weeks and share your roadmapGot early beta access and design partnerships; no numbers
- Build a version for each new headset in time for its launchNot about ROI yet; bet on the future
- Lean on monthly plans once people keep renewing month after monthHigher LTV on monthly than annual in Simply Piano; no numbers
- Test annual discounts as deep as 60-75% off monthlyGuest calls discount depth a valuable lever; no numbers
- Try weekly plans for a skill that takes months to learnTested in some apps; none offered now
- Price each country with your own Big Mac-style index, not currency conversionBig ARPU jump in most countries; a few didn't work and were adjusted
- In Japan, swap the clean paywall for a long page with company story and reviewsPaywall conversion 'skyrocketed' after falling with the Western-style paywall
- Use AI to bring a kid's drawing to life in the first sessionRaised ARPU; parents share results on Instagram; no numbers
- Turn the features users love most into your adsGuest says it works; no numbers
- Show a soft paywall after onboarding, then keep it only for kids' accountsBig early ARPU win; adults without a piano didn't stay, so kept it for kids only
Tags: app-store, deep-localization, japan, country-manager, market-scoring