Sago Mini · B2C · preschool app studio
Measure ads with Apple's anonymous data only and model lifetime value yourself
Works because 80% of purchases happen in 2 days; still a slow manual process
Mixedanalytics-attributionpaid-social
What they did
Kids apps can't show the ATT prompt, so Sago Mini runs a SKAdNetwork-only setup and only buys on networks that fully support it (Unity Ads, IronSource, AppLovin). Because ~80% of purchases happen within 48 hours of install, SKAN conversion events give usable early conversion data. The growth team cohorts by geo and platform, builds frequently updated LTV models in Tableau/Google Sheets, computes projected LTV over CPA, and adjusts campaigns on each network by hand. It cannot split paid vs organic retention.
What happened
Solid first-48-hour conversion data, but highly manual and coarse; guest says it's more 'yes' than 'no' that they're back to not knowing which ads work.
- Stage
- Scale (scaling)
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · How to Build a Great Kids App with Minimal Data — Brennan Clark, Sago Mini“we're- we're going with a SKAdNetwork implementation only. So we don't have that ATT prompt, we don't have, you know, the full attribution, which means that the ad networks that we work with have to support a full SKAdNetwork implementation for- for iOS.”
“So we cohort those out, build LTV models that are that are updated pretty frequently, and then feed that back into what we're doing on the paid UA side of things.”
“be looking through a Tableau or a Google Sheets and figure out, "Okay, this is our c- LTV over CPA, projected LTV over CPA," and then make those changes on the platforms.”
Related topics
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More from this episode
- Sago Mini: Send players of your older apps to your main subscription appAbout 1M installs in a year; filled part of the gap left by lost ad channels
- Sago Mini: Add parent accounts so you can email parents about your other appsNo numbers; became key once there were several subscription apps
- Sago Mini: Send the kid's drawings to a parent app so parents see the valueGuest calls it a nice reminder of value; no numbers
- Sago Mini World: Advertise inside free kids games that match your age groupSurprisingly good on iOS; weak on Google Play, especially for the learning app
- Sago Mini School: Aim ads for the learning app at parents and ads for the play app at kidsShifting further toward parents for the learning app; no numbers
- Sago Mini: Track app usage with only a per-device ID: no IP, ad ID or account IDGets 90-95% of the picture; parent and kid devices can't be linked
- Sago Mini: Choose partners willing to build custom tools for your rulesPartner built a compliant custom SDK in about 3 weeks with ~20 people
- Sago Mini: Bring kids into the office every week to test apps and check what the data saysCaught a 'popular' feature that kids were really tapping to get back to the menu
- Sago Mini: Keep all text out of gameplay so only store and account screens need translatingApps travel well internationally with little localization work, guest says
- Sago Mini: Offer free branded printable activities to collect parents' emailsNo results shared
- Sago Mini: Make special web offer pages for deals with phone carriers and device makersNo results shared; web hasn't been a big success overall
- Sago Mini World: Add a character creator and more customization so older kids keep playingGuest calls it a major step; no numbers
- Sago Mini: Launch apps for younger and older kids so families move up through your brandNo results shared
- Sago Mini: Sell a monthly craft box that matches the app's themesNo results shared
- Sago Mini: Skip launching on Amazon because it costs as much work as iOS for far less returnLearning app still not on Kindle two years after launch
- Sago Mini: Charge one subscription price with no ads or in-app purchases so parents trust youGuest calls safety and trust a big selling point; no numbers
- Sago Mini: Try small YouTube brand ads aimed at parentsOnly tested, never scaled