Nibble · B2C · bite-size learning app
Run ads that look like normal posts; let a web page do the selling
What they did
In their words
Marcus Burke - How to Build a $2M/Month App (Copy Me)
… what I do with it. While other stuff might need more education. That's always something to figure out. Do you think that web ads and app ads fit into different parts of that framework? I would say so because app ads are always going to be very close to the product already. So it's very hard to like build your funnel just around kind of creating awareness and like tapping into an audience that is very far away from even being problem aware.
So I would say a web ad and web funnel taps into audiences further away from you being the solution. While app ads tend to be a bit closer to it just because, I mean, you're starting already on a product as a solution. So you're something like the whole funnel is always based around that product because your first step is downloading an app. So there's no way of like in the end making it about just the problem and not talking about the solution and product directly. And that's what the web allows. And you can see it in some of those ads. Like here, this, for example, it's a Nibble ad, which is a product from the team over at Hathaway as well, who are basically an educational app for any kind of topic.
It's content in the end. Like it's not much more like there is no selling at all. says learn now which is a very soft cta as well so ultimately this isn't giving away anything every intelligent person should know geopolitics you know what this reminds me of it's like uh it's reminds me of like google ads this feels like an advertorial funnel basically or like a um what's it called like the vsls i guess my question is why does this have to be an …
… have all that other time to like educate and talk about your product, which means even if you just have a very top level if you don't have a big marketing message in your ad but you get people into the funnel the funnel can do the selling while on the app there needs to be more selling up front so that the app store in the end doesn't scare them off as like a big friction point for example one ad that is taking that to an extreme level is this
one from live in it's just an image it doesn't have any product on it it doesn't have a marketing message it looks like a post from any user and then they basically have a bit of that text wall in the post copy. Ultimately, that just generates kind of attention for now, sends people to the web. And that's where like the selling nurturing happens. Would you recommend static ads for app install campaigns at all? Or would you just focus on the other formats that we were looking at? I would start with video usually, but then yeah, don't miss out on it. Give it a shot because ultimately like different ad types
are going to be delivering in different placements just by kind of where that content belongs natively. And then something like a Facebook feed is very much static content. And like video, if you do 9 to 16 short form UGC, then that's very much tailored to like an Instagram Reels and maybe Facebook Reels. So ultimately, you want to find out kind of where does my audience actually live? Like, and if it's older people that are going to be like the …
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More from this episode
- Say 'app' or show a demo so the App Store isn't a surpriseMost winning app ads do this; installs suffer otherwise
- Remake one winning ad ~400 times with new hooks and use casesWell over $1M spent on the concept
- Run short videos with a wall of text in the audience's own pain wordsOne of the main working formats; no numbers
- Feed 10-20 Reddit threads to Claude to write ads in your audience's wordsHis standard process; no numbers
- Make ad variants with AI: create an image first, then turn it into videoUsed for clients; not compared with creator videos
- Mix app demo clips into everyday videos, like a chore list for ADHD
- Send Meta ad clicks to your blog instead of the App StoreClaims to be one of the first to scale this way; no numbers
- Compare cost per trial with trial-to-paid rate for each age groupAges 25-34 cost the most; older users looked under-served
- Give ads that deliver differently, like mostly Facebook feed, their own ad set
- Split ads into groups by format and message, each with its own budget
- On a small budget, put all ads in one group and pick winners weekly
- Have every ad team member interview one user a weekTaught the team most of how to write ad copy; no numbers
- Post on LinkedIn 2-3 times a week
- Fix the store page, onboarding and paywall alongside paid ads
Tags: meta, top-of-funnel, advertorial, static-ads, web-funnel