Meta ads tactics

The app mapped its trial start to Meta's Purchase event and had CAC near LTV. Optimizing for Purchase pits a $10-15 trial against e-commerce advertisers willing to pay ~$200 per purchase, so you get outbid for high-intent users. Fix: create a duplicate trial-start event in the MMP firing at the same place, map it to a trial (or subscribe) event, let it build 1-2 weeks of history in Events Manager, then split-test Purchase vs the new event. Keep the event funnel logical and minimal; don't send every event you can. Only do this if the current setup isn't working.

Any creator video over 50,000 views becomes a Meta ad candidate. Run a test campaign at ~$50/day per creative; if ROAS > 1 or CTR is very high, scale stepwise (50 -> 100 -> 200 -> 300/day). Returns are not linear (diminishing returns as spend rises), so watch for creative fatigue and keep producing new creatives to get 'more tickets to the lottery'.

Make many organic creator videos (multiple creators, multiple hook styles), then put the platform minimum behind each one rather than judging by organic views, since good videos sometimes flop on timing or the algorithm. TikTok: ~20 creatives at the $20 minimum each, can switch off after ~$5; Meta: 30-40 creatives at ~$1 each since it is easier to duplicate. Judge within hours on top-of-funnel clicks only: most get 0-2 clicks, one gets 5-20. Keep spending on that one to see whether it was a fluke, then track it down to purchases and make variations (change the first or last second). Mid-virality videos (top 25%) often convert better than the most viral, clickbaity ones. For a $5K starting budget he'd spread it over as many hypotheses as possible, aiming for 100 variations, and compress '500 videos' of learning into a week. Test the same creative across Google, YouTube, Meta and TikTok; one platform can give 2x results.

Optimize for purchases, not installs (costs more but learns more). Attribution via Meta SDK + Aggregated Event Measurement; avoid SKAN; no ATT prompt needed. Targeting is driven by creative, so iterate creatives (AI-generated allowed); ~$500/day to test creatives before scaling. Cross-check against App Store Connect's Meta-sourced numbers (AEM off by ~15-20%).

Only paid channel is Meta, with UGC creative, sending traffic to a web funnel. One metric governs spend: 'marketing cash ROI' (basically same-day ROAS) kept positive, helped by the annual/monthly mix and by not scaling spend too fast. No lifecycle email, paywall tests, geo expansion, Google Ads, TikTok or SEO.

Test ~500 ads per week; run the tests in countries with similar conversion rates but low CPMs (e.g. Indonesia) at ~$10/day instead of ~$1,000/day at US CPMs, then scale winners in the US.

Take creator videos that performed best organically on TikTok/Instagram and upload them as regular Meta ads (not partnership ads through the creator's account). Increase budget every week on winners as long as cost per download stays under $5. ~$400/day total; plan 50-100 campaigns next month.

Ads hire made a square static image ad in ChatGPT in ~2 minutes listing ~8 features/key facts; separate versions aimed at men and women. Also testing AI-generated pictures of the app. Founder is now making cleaner, copy-led statics (e.g. 'If you started a GLP-1 and your doctor gave you zero instructions, you're not alone') to compare.

Concept: absurd hook scene (e.g. 'I showed my husband the app and he passed out instead of picking up the kids' - wife opens door, husband asleep on couch, ~5s) then a slowly zooming glowing green orb with on-screen lines on benefits/features of green noise. ~100 versions of this ad, ~400 iterations of the concept: new copy per discovered use case (e.g. tinnitus masking) in users' own language, and different sleep scenarios (inside/outside, more or less absurd).

After TikTok organic, ran Meta ads on Instagram using creatives that had already performed organically. Reasoning: on TikTok you don't control who sees a video, so if a general audience engages, the video itself is strong; putting spend behind it and targeting the exact audience you want should give very low CPIs. One organic video (out of 20-30 on the same angle) was repurposed and ended up taking ~70% of spend.

Deliberately avoided relying on Jeremy (already stretched) to remove the single point of failure of the YouTube channel. Creatives are B-roll 'sell' videos, testimonial content and many AI-made static ads. Angles are built around specific avatars and their pain points, sourced from surveys and past warm-traffic customers; winners are iterated while new avatars are slowly added. Run in-house rather than via an agency. After the Andromeda update, the focus is on better creatives rather than campaign/bid/targeting tinkering in Ads Manager.

Created the run club Instagram account, made Reels himself, and boosted posts ('put a bit of money on your post') about two times with no prior ads experience.