Cal AI · B2C · AI calorie tracking app
Run a short ad with a one-line hook, the app in use, then the store link
Ad has run about four months, which the host reads as a winner
Workedpaid-social
What they did
Cal AI ad seen in the Meta Ad Library: 9 seconds long; hook 'best way to track calories' ("Wait, so is this literally all you have to do to track your calories?"), shows food then the app in use, ends with the App Store link. Started June 3 and still active in early October.
What happened
Still running about four months after launch; host infers it performs
“So you got a good hook, it's only nine seconds, by the way.”
“This creative is—been running for a very long time, so since June, and at this recording, about about four months of running the ad”
Related topics
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from Cal AI
All 80 Cal AI tactics- Pay $350-450 for four posts plus view bonuses that stop at 1M viewsKeeps the upside of viral hits; founder gives no numbers
- Price a creator on the average of their 5 worst of 20 recent videosMost deal videos land nearer the mean, so the rest is profit
- Agree with a creator's view boast, then guarantee 700-800K views when they claim 1MGuaranteed a profitable CPM on every deal; creators couldn't back down
- Have 25 hired assistants each email 100 creators a day~220K creators contacted, 2-3K signed; roughly 1 signed per 1,000 emailed
- Pay creators $100-200 when a friend they refer signs a dealReally helped; got direct numbers and deals around talent agents
- Ask fitness creators to scan their food with your app in their what-I-eat videosConverted very well and scaled across creators; founder gives no numbers
More from this episode
- Wait to run Meta ads until 5-10% of installs start a trialHost's agency rule of thumb; 30%+ trial-to-paid and ~2% install-to-paid also required
- Prove strangers will pay using ASO and Apple Search Ads before MetaHost's standard process; no numbers given
- Run Meta ads only once each install is worth at least $3Host's minimum; Meta installs are expensive
- Check that Meta's install and trial counts match App Store Connect before launching312 trials in App Store Connect vs 276 in Meta; close enough to launch
- Copy ideas from competitor ads that have run for months in Meta's Ad LibraryResearch step; no results reported
- Test 3-5 very different ad ideas first, small tweaks laterHost's launch practice; no results reported
- Set Meta to find trial starts, and budget for 50 a week$1,000 at $2 installs gives ~35 trials, short of 50; ~$95 per subscriber
- Send each audience's ad to its own App Store page with matching screenshots
- Show Meta ad users a hard paywall during onboarding