Practitioner pattern · Marcus Burke (Sells Meta ads consulting to subscription apps and plans a paid Meta ads email course)
Leave people under 25 out of your Meta ads at first
Young users give cheap trials that rarely convert; age is the biggest lever
Workedpaid-social
What they did
Start broad otherwise: choose core markets, no interest targeting, but exclude users under 25 (sometimes under 30, depending on the app). Under-25s have low CPMs and give cheap trials, so Meta loves spending on them, but trial-to-paid is very poor. Broaden to 25+ or lower only once you have conversion data by age. Older users convert better because they have more money.
What happened
Guest says targeting older users reliably raises trial conversion; nobody he knows has made under-25 traffic convert profitably.
- Stage
- growth
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · Scaling Your Subscription App with Meta Ads – Marcus Burke, Independent Consultant“And I do usually exclude younger users, below 25, sometimes even below 30 depending on app, because of what I mentioned earlier, that the conversion rate from trial to paid is so different for older and younger users.”
“So CPMs are low, Meta really loves spending on them because they're so cheap, and they're going to create a cheap cost per trial. But then the conversion down funnel is going to be very, very poor.”
“With age, definitely that's the biggest lever. If you're struggling with trial conversion rate, then target older people and you're measurely going to bring it up.”
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