Christian Eckhardt
CEO and Co-Founder of Customlytics, a mobile technology and marketing consultancy in Europe
Where to hear and read about Christian Eckhardt1 episode or test
Christian Eckhardt is CEO and co-founder of Customlytics, a mobile technology and marketing consultancy in Europe. The most useful thing to learn from him is to set up tracking first, then make cheap, native-style ads that look like real posts on each platform.
the big issue with traditional ads is that they don't fit the platforms
How User-Generated Content Ads Increase Installs by 30%
Christian Eckhardt: the story and the lessons
1How Customlytics cut ad costs with user-generated video ads
Eckhardt's team films ads on the iPhones designers already own. Customlytics skips the agency, the studio and the models. Designers or marketers film themselves using the product, so production costs are very low.
The alternative he compares against is polished 4K agency video that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. In his words: "you don't need an agency you don't need your crazy nice expensive studio to shoot it".
The Volkswagen car sharing app case lifted installs 30%. For a Volkswagen car sharing app in Berlin (WeShare), user-generated ads raised CTR 25%, impression-to-install conversion 282% and installs 30%.
All the case-study examples ran on TikTok.
Each ad shows the product's strongest features in real use. The team lists the USPs most likely to resonate with the target audience, then films itself using the product. For the car sharing app that meant trips to the forest and shopping for bulky items that are awkward on public transport.
The choice of features shifts with the audience. Eckhardt describes the method as: "you go out and essentially you film yourself using the product showing the features".
Eckhardt turns frequent user questions into FAQ video ads. The team collected the most frequent questions from users and answered them in a short video. This blends the ad format with community work.
It was one of the variants run for the car sharing app.
He starts with new-user acquisition, then branches into sub-audiences. The first campaigns, including the FAQ video, targeted new users who had not heard of the app. Many more versions followed for other sub-targets, built from the first ones.
He makes a separate version of each ad for every platform. Formats differ by platform, and so does what friends and organic users share there. Customlytics tailors each creative to fit natively, down to small details.
This is affordable only because production is so cheap.
2Why Eckhardt sets up tracking before any paid campaign
Untracked paid campaigns in Berlin shaped his tracking-first rule. Eckhardt and his co-founder ran paid campaigns for apps in Berlin about ten years ago, before mobile attribution really existed. That spend was very inefficient.
The experience shaped the company: its technical setup is closer to its core than the advertising.
For every new client, Customlytics checks tracking first. The team confirms a mobile measurement partner such as Adjust or AppsFlyer is in place, then builds campaigns. Without install tracking, optimization is very hard, and the same holds for later funnel events.
He repeats the point on purpose: tracking and data is key. His phrasing: "we first look at the tracking and we will first make sure that everything's set up".
Without a tracking tool, he sticks to Apple and Google's own channels. Google App Campaigns on Android and Apple Search Ads on iOS are tracked automatically, because Google and Apple own both the system and the ad platform.
Spend on those channels grows anyway, so a paid tool becomes affordable later. The host adds that AppsFlyer now has a free plan.
TikTok attribution still works the traditional way. A tracking link from the attribution provider sits behind the campaign, and tracking runs server side.
Eckhardt says the whole industry is moving toward SKAdNetwork-style attribution.
3Eckhardt's rules before opening a new ad channel
A request for a new channel is the tip of an iceberg. Eckhardt says that when a client asks "can we run a new channel?", below the surface sit tasks like fixing tracking and testing new creatives. His advice is to exhaust the primary channels first, starting with Apple Search Ads and Google Ads.
His phrase: "the tip of the iceberg was the client says can we run a new channel and below the water it was like 100 things".
Eckhardt tells advertisers to use TikTok an hour a day for two weeks. Nobody makes good ads on a channel they don't use. The rule applies to the marketing manager and to the designer who builds the ads, even if they dislike the platform.
After two weeks, create content that fits what you saw. Meeting that bar already makes you a user, so you can generate content, and he calls content creation the easiest part, not the hardest.
He says never reuse old brand videos on TikTok. Uploading a video made for other channels, such as a funny brand film from ten years ago, wastes the budget because TikTok ads must look like native content.
His verdict is that you might as well give the money to charity, a better investment.
Track events further down the funnel, not just installs. New TikTok advertisers need data across the whole funnel as well as content made for the platform.
How User-Generated Content Ads Increase Installs by 30%
Shows how to make low-cost user-generated style video ads for TikTok, set up attribution first, and prepare before spending on a new channel. The case behind it is a Volkswagen car sharing app (WeShare) where user-generated ads lifted CTR 25%, impression-to-install conversion 282% and installs 30%.
Eckhardt's team films ads on the iPhones designers already own. Customlytics skips the agency, the studio and the models. Designers or marketers film themselves using the product, so production costs are very low.
The alternative he compares against is polished 4K agency video that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. In his words: "you don't need an agency you don't need your crazy nice expensive studio to shoot it".
The Volkswagen car sharing app case lifted installs 30%. For a Volkswagen car sharing app in Berlin (WeShare), user-generated ads raised CTR 25%, impression-to-install conversion 282% and installs 30%.
All the case-study examples ran on TikTok.
Each ad shows the product's strongest features in real use. The team lists the USPs most likely to resonate with the target audience, then films itself using the product. For the car sharing app that meant trips to the forest and shopping for bulky items that are awkward on public transport.
The choice of features shifts with the audience. Eckhardt describes the method as: "you go out and essentially you film yourself using the product showing the features".
Eckhardt turns frequent user questions into FAQ video ads. The team collected the most frequent questions from users and answered them in a short video. This blends the ad format with community work.
It was one of the variants run for the car sharing app.
He starts with new-user acquisition, then branches into sub-audiences. The first campaigns, including the FAQ video, targeted new users who had not heard of the app. Many more versions followed for other sub-targets, built from the first ones.
He makes a separate version of each ad for every platform. Formats differ by platform, and so does what friends and organic users share there. Customlytics tailors each creative to fit natively, down to small details.
This is affordable only because production is so cheap.
Untracked paid campaigns in Berlin shaped his tracking-first rule. Eckhardt and his co-founder ran paid campaigns for apps in Berlin about ten years ago, before mobile attribution really existed. That spend was very inefficient.
The experience shaped the company: its technical setup is closer to its core than the advertising.
For every new client, Customlytics checks tracking first. The team confirms a mobile measurement partner such as Adjust or AppsFlyer is in place, then builds campaigns. Without install tracking, optimization is very hard, and the same holds for later funnel events.
He repeats the point on purpose: tracking and data is key. His phrasing: "we first look at the tracking and we will first make sure that everything's set up".
Without a tracking tool, he sticks to Apple and Google's own channels. Google App Campaigns on Android and Apple Search Ads on iOS are tracked automatically, because Google and Apple own both the system and the ad platform.
Spend on those channels grows anyway, so a paid tool becomes affordable later. The host adds that AppsFlyer now has a free plan.
TikTok attribution still works the traditional way. A tracking link from the attribution provider sits behind the campaign, and tracking runs server side.
Eckhardt says the whole industry is moving toward SKAdNetwork-style attribution.
A request for a new channel is the tip of an iceberg. Eckhardt says that when a client asks "can we run a new channel?", below the surface sit tasks like fixing tracking and testing new creatives. His advice is to exhaust the primary channels first, starting with Apple Search Ads and Google Ads.
His phrase: "the tip of the iceberg was the client says can we run a new channel and below the water it was like 100 things".
Eckhardt tells advertisers to use TikTok an hour a day for two weeks. Nobody makes good ads on a channel they don't use. The rule applies to the marketing manager and to the designer who builds the ads, even if they dislike the platform.
After two weeks, create content that fits what you saw. Meeting that bar already makes you a user, so you can generate content, and he calls content creation the easiest part, not the hardest.
He says never reuse old brand videos on TikTok. Uploading a video made for other channels, such as a funny brand film from ten years ago, wastes the budget because TikTok ads must look like native content.
His verdict is that you might as well give the money to charity, a better investment.
Track events further down the funnel, not just installs. New TikTok advertisers need data across the whole funnel as well as content made for the platform.