WeWard · B2C · walking rewards app
Add in-app ads once you see retention hold after a big traffic spike
Ads work well thanks to the large audience; says they pay at ~100K daily users
Workedad-monetization
What they did
After the TV spike, WeWard checked retention, found it very high versus the market average, and only then added ads to the free app. Ads fund the cash rewards; Yves says ads start making money around 100,000 daily users.
What happened
Ads are one of WeWard's main revenue sources because of its large audience.
- Stage
- Early (early monetization)
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · How WeWard Hit 20M Users Without Paid Ads — Yves Benchimol, WeWard“Now let's take a look at the retention to see how it goes. And the retention was very high compared to the average market, and so we put ads.”
“we have a huge number of users, so the ad is working quite well because you have a huge audience into the app”
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More from this episode
- WeWard: Pay a PR agency $3-5K a month instead of buying ads300K downloads in 5 minutes from one TV spot; four years with zero ad spend
- WeWard: Take the PR playbook that worked in France to Italy, Spain and the USWorked in Italy and Spain; flopped in the US despite a top agency
- WeWard: Promote brands like Nike and Expedia in the app for a cut of salesWorks well; Nike, Adidas, Expedia, Booking.com and Amazon signed on
- WeWard: Add a paid plan that removes ads, after ads and affiliate already workStill a small share of revenue but growing fast
- WeWard: A/B test every feature on steps walked, and don't track time in app
- WeWard: Lock TikTok and Instagram until users hit their walking goalUsers of the feature walk 10% more
- WeWard: Give a famous athlete shares to be the app's face and press voiceHelped press, hiring, CAC and retention; founder says hard to quantify
- WeWard: Put the celebrity's face in ads and onboarding so the app feels localFounder says better ad conversion, lower CAC and higher retention; no numbers
- WeWard: Rebuild onboarding to get users to commit and feel somethingBiggest win of the year: retention and LTV up a lot; unlocked more paid UA
- WeWard: Sell companies step challenges for staff, with charity donationsBiggest fail of the year; couldn't make it work
- WeWard: Keep one app everywhere; swap only the rewards and partner brands per countryLive in 29 countries without local teams
- WeWard: Ask users if blockchain matters; switch to plain points when they shrugUsers happier, engineers relieved; scaling and lag problems gone
- WeWard: Add card collecting with your own characters to keep walkers coming backFounder says retention is the highest it has ever been; no numbers
- WeWard: Move the founder to New York to crack the USSlow first two years; now 'becoming a significant app' in the US