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Analyzing a Keyboard App Making $300K a Month - Grammarly App Review

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The bottom line

Grammarly's keyboard app earns over $300K a month because it pairs a native-feeling keyboard and strong App Store ranking with a conversion funnel of onboarding paywall and email sequence. A keyboard app is rarely reopened, so the paywall and emails are the only places to turn free users into paying ones.

Key takeaways

  • The app wins users by feeling like the default iPhone keyboard. 0:49
    • Letter spacing and key size match the native keyboard, so typing mistakes don't rise, unlike other keyboard apps.
    • The Grammarly icon on the keyboard opens settings and leads back into the app.
  • Reviews, downloads and age give it high App Store rankings despite weak optimization. 4:01
    • It has over 13,000 reviews and about 500,000 iOS downloads a month. It has been live since 2017.
    • It ranks for grammar, spell checker and proofreading, though its subtitle type with confidence is weak.
  • Short, feature-led social ads feed the download volume. 5:25
    • Ads run on Facebook and Instagram, some as short as 7 to 15 seconds, showing the app working.
    • The ad copy is bulleted with emojis and cites over 20 million users.
  • The onboarding paywall pushes annual plans. 9:00
    • Pricing appears during onboarding because users rarely return to a keyboard app.
    • The annual plan is shown as a monthly price to make the saving clear.
  • A drip email sequence with a 48-hour discount turns free users into subscribers. 13:42
    • The first emails teach features and don't ask for a sale. The offer is 40 percent off for 48 hours, then a last-chance email.
    • More social proof and a reminder in the final hours of the offer would help it convert further.

Anybody that tells you email marketing is dead is dead wrong, because this actually works.

Steve P. Young

Chapter summaries

0:00 Why study a keyboard app

A keyboard app is rarely reopened, so what matters is how it earns and how it gets found.

  • Two revenue trackers agree on about $300K a month. 2:08
    • Sensor Tower and Mobile Action show similar results.
    • The app is free and subscription-based.
    • Steve wants to see how it converts users and asks them to pay.
    • It is more than a keyboard: it also has a native app and a web browser product.
  • It ranks well even with imperfect optimization. 3:35
    • A keyword tool shows it was featured a few times.
    • It ranks for grammar and its misspellings, plus proofreading and writing app (number five).
    • Steve guesses spell check sits in its hidden keyword field.
    • Indie developers have to be scrappier, because they lack its reviews and volume.

5:37 Ads that show the app working

Social ads work when they demonstrate the app's core features in seconds.

  • The Facebook Ad Library shows app-preview ads built on short attention spans. 5:40
    • They show functionality and ease of use, the style that works on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.
    • One ad plays like a game show, asking viewers to find the errors.
    • The ads reuse the same style of music.
    • Mobile Action and Sensor Tower show the same ads the Ad Library lists.
  • Ad copy stays short and scannable. 7:54
    • It promises flawless grammar, impeccable punctuation, superb spelling.
    • Steve says a block of text is hard to read and bullets are easy.
    • His agency tests bulleted copy and different subject lines for clients.

8:32 Inside the app: the paywall

The sale has to happen during onboarding, because the user may never come back.

  • A pricing screen appears right after sign-in. 9:06
    • Searching for keyboard apps shows Grammarly bidding on its own brand term to protect it.
    • Steve says a pricing page up front has improved conversion.
    • He signs in with Facebook and the paywall comes next, before he reaches the keyboard.
    • The annual plan is far cheaper than paying monthly, and the app pushes it.

10:31 The keyboard checks grammar inside any text field

The keyboard fixes writing where the user types, so it earns its place without opening the app.

  • A grammar check runs inside the keyboard and fixes errors with a tap. 10:51
    • A test email with a misspelled word and a wrong "you're" is checked in place.
    • The check is slower than expected, but it flags the word and offers a replacement.
    • The suggestion swaps "you're good" for "I hope" at 11:59.
    • He types the mistakes on purpose to see whether the tool catches them.
  • Tapping the icon returns the user to a premium prompt. 12:53
    • He is curious how the app pulls users back, since a keyboard user has little reason to reopen it.
    • After the settings screen, the app shows its premium offer again.
    • Each return trip is another chance to sell the paid plan.

13:26 The activation emails teach first and sell later

An email sequence that starts with education builds trust before it asks for money.

  • Signing up hands the app an email address, and the sequence starts from there. 13:32
    • He signed up through Facebook, and the activation sequence began once he downloaded the app.
    • The emails come in three kinds: buy, teach and usage insights.
    • The insights email is a weekly note on how he has used the app. Fitbit sends similar ones.
    • Its message is "we're still here" to users who may have stopped.
  • The early emails sell nothing. 14:42
    • The first email lists the platforms: browser extension, Office, desktop and web editor.
    • A "What exactly is premium" email shows the pro features he is missing.
    • He doesn't like that subject line.
    • He knows people selling digital products who make millions a year from email alone.

16:00 The offer email needs a button and the last-chance email needs timing

The discount works as a deadline, and small changes to the buttons and send times would convert more.

  • The upgrade email lacks a buy button. 16:56
    • It compares the free and premium plans side by side.
    • He would add a "buy now" or "get 40% off" button.
    • After the offer ended, the link still opened the same plan at full price.
  • The last-chance email is short and carries a public tweet as proof. 22:22
    • It went out two days after the first offer, on November 3.
    • A tweet feels real because someone shared it publicly.
    • Ratings would add to that proof.
  • Several emails on the final day would convert better. 18:16
    • Online course sellers send one in the morning, then others six hours, a few hours and an hour before expiry.
    • He says these late emails generally work very well.

In the growth library

Steve P. Young, Founder of App Masters, app marketing agency. A teardown of the Grammarly keyboard app, a free subscription app making over $300K a month on iOS, covering its ads, keywords, onboarding paywall and email funnel. The takeaway is that a keyboard app people rarely reopen can still convert free users through an onboarding paywall and an email activation sequence.

More from App Masters · The whole library, and ask it anything

Transcript477 lines
0:00

what is up app nation it is Steve P Jung founder of a master's com EE should go when you want action-packed content in the app business and today I really wanted to look at a keyboard app that is generating over three hundred thousand dollars a month why I keyboard app I'm fascinated by this app because unlike other apps where you're constantly going back into the app where people can show you their pricing plans this keyboard app is making a ton of money and we don't have to go into the app at all so I wanted to see how they're converting their users how they're asking users to pay and I really wanted to focus more on that conversion funnel for you guys so let's get into this alright guys here's the app it is called grammarly keyboard grammerly and what the app does is it auto corrects your grammar essentially your spelling everything else what I really love about it is the keyboard is very similar to the iPhone default

1:03

keyboard now other keyboard apps I've actually tried they feel different the spacing is a little different and I always miss type everything and the autocorrect isn't the same but I feel like Graham Lee has done a really good job of adding in the extra features in terms of autocorrect and having the right grammar and also trying to stay true to the native iPhone keyboard so as you can see we're looking at their screenshots look their subtitle is not completely optimized but they're doing a great job they have over 13,000 reviews it's a free app and so it's subscription-based that's why I really wanted to take a look in deeper of this app right with confidence type faster smarter autocorrect searchable emojis which is kind of cool and then works in all your favorite apps because they do have a native app and then a web browser they have a very extensive it's not just an app they have an extensive product as

2:00

well now before I go into the app and show you the Apple a little bit let's take a look at the growth strategies of this app here's the proof that the app is doing over $300,000 so this is according to sensor tower and even if I look on mobile action well man you're gonna see very similar results right so it's about three hundred thousand they are advertising so they're on advertising on Instagram I'll take a quick look at this video the cool thing about this video is that as you've if you've been following the podcast this video is very in line with what people have been saying the best types of video ads show a little bit about the app and are super quick right this is only seven seconds long no great here's some more numbers the other thing I want to show you guys with mobile action is the both mobile action and sensor tower showing you a little bit about the advertising aspect of the

3:03

app and so here this is the image so that's the cool thing we got Facebook on center Tower it was Instagram right so they're they are running ads if you make it three hundred thousand dollars I feel like you know once you make six digits a month you're gonna be running ads so gramley ensures your writing is mistake-free really cool really cool image super interesting the other thing I want to show you guys as well is let's look at the keywords that they might be ranking for so I'm in a penny right now if you're following along a penny is the only tool that allows you to see the certain keywords the top keywords if they rank for so it looks like they've been featured a few times that's good and then here's what I'm gonna look at is the keywords that you click here you can see exactly okay it looks like they got the new es a report will go to that soon but I'm more familiar with this screen so you can see here and I'll blow

4:05

this up a little bit that they rank really well for grammar all them spellings of grammar grammar keyboard grab merlene spell checker which was it's a really cool keyword spellcheck proofreading writing app number five so they're ranking really well for a lot of good keyword here and so you can see although they can be better optimized right like if you look at the subtitle type with confidence is not great in terms of a optimized subtitle they can be doing better there but I'm pretty positive that they're using you know spell checker or spell check in their keyword field and because they've been around since 2017 if we look back here to censor tower we can see that they first launched in 2017 that the Apple is sort of waiting that right so now if you think about a so they're gonna look at the reviews Apple and Grandma Lee has over 13,000 they're gonna look at the keyword optimization obviously and then

5:01

the number of volume of downloads so since they're doing over you know 500,000 downloads a month that's just on iOS as well they're gonna rank oh well for certain keywords even though they're not fully optimized like us Indies where we have to be a little bit scrappy with that okay so let's just take a quick look at this area so keywords that Benny's trying to show us let's see what they say okay so it's very similar to what they shared in the past in the other screen just kind of cool they're looking but there it is and they've been ranking really well for a lot of these terms now let's take a look at the Facebook Ads so here's the Facebook ad library now you can search for any app or any page and you can see what type of ads they're running you know with Facebook they're trying to be more public and open with all the different types of ads since the whole controversy but let's take a look at some of the ads

5:58

that are running here you can see you know they're really showing off what the app does these ads are more of a app preview type of thing where they're showing the functionality of the app and the ease of use and so these are the type of ads that are really working well on Facebook and Instagram and snapchat and all these other different social media channels because the attention span of all the users now is so short that you have to hit them with your core features and make a really short video so we're gonna take a quick look at a few of these look at this can you find the airs we've got some music in 15 seconds

6:48

interesting I like that ad right it's sort of a game show

7:04

again super-quick 13 I like the music it looks like they're using the same type of music

7:21

very cool and then let's get one more interesting and here's the image so if you can see like the Mobile Action Center tower they're very / they're very accurate in their depiction of the ads because facebook is showing you exactly the ads are running mobile action showed this ad and then set your tower showed this ad which was whoops let's go back which is this ad right so it's super quick the let's look at the ad text just to see if there's anything we can learn here the grammar a keyboard will help you write with flawless grammar impeccable punctuation superb spelling now what I like about this and we have done this in the past too with some of our clients is it's super short and then the emojis so it's bulleted so that you can read because reading this isn't so great but reading this is super easy so we have bulleted that and done different types of subject lines this ad is awesome because says join over 20

8:24

million grandmother users so very interesting you know take a look by yourself you guys want digging deep more but I wanted to show you this as well all right now let's take a look at the app itself here it is as you can see they are bidding on their own term just to protect it I'm just gonna do something real quick and I'm just gonna put yeah I'm obviously using it keyboard see if they are bidding on this term see if they come up real quick they are look at that that's interesting okay so I'm gonna hit open the grammarly keyboard mistake-free writing in all your apps let's get started I'm gonna sign in with Facebook using the app alright again this is a key thing that you guys been watching some of these app analysis videos is every single app generally has a pricing page during the onboarding process look it's a keyboard app meaning I don't have to come back back to this app right and so this

9:30

is their opportunity to really sell me and this has improved conversion so definitely have your pricing page front and center during the onboarding process okay so I'm going to cancel but as you can see like also look at this it's 20 30 bucks a month 60 bucks a year or just a hundred and forty bucks a year but it's like eleven sixty not seven that's a huge savings so obviously annual is the best if you can get them on to annual and they're really pushing annual and this is a pricing trick that I like to do too because it obviously breaks it down clearly and shows you where the true value is it's right here the annual sorry I'm gonna get out so it tells you exactly how to do that so I will do that watch this cool let's go back to it you all set open up like Gmail there so they're doing that and then we're done cool now the other thing I want to show you is well actually let's look all right now let's look at the keyboard

10:51

itself see what's happening here so I'm gonna send the email to my team merge I'm just like I'm merge whoops misspelled okay and then I'll do some mistakes from again how you doing

11:18

okay you that's not what I wanted to do how about this hope you're doing well so grandma is checking there and see if my grammar is good checking your checks here we go it takes a little bit longer than I thought it would boom so now they found it and said replace the word you're good replaced it said I hope ok cool now it's done that right the thing that I really want to point out is and I hate these about other keyboards is they look so different from the default iPhone keyboard now I get it they're trying to make it easier by the default iPhone keyboard I'm so used to right and so if make the switch it's pretty much the same and the cool thing I like really well these little details is the spacing of the letters and the size of the letters is pretty much the same as well so take a look at this and I'll show you what grammar look look it's pretty much the same because what I found is other

12:38

keyboard apps once I'm started using them I always make mistakes because the spacing and the numbers and the the size of the numbers are a lot bigger than they usually are on the default iPhone app right so this is really cool I like this right here at the grammarly icon because I'm I can click here great and I can look at the settings and it takes me back right so because again you want to make sure people buy your app and so I'm always curious as how they bring me back into the app because I don't really need to go back into the app right so here's a premium again so that's the app itself right really cool really has done a great job of mimicking the default iPhone app ok the last thing I want to share with you and something that I've been preaching to anybody that will listen is please start using email marketing in your apps look I just signed up through Facebook you have my email now and so how are they making

13:36

over $300,000 a month well I believe they're utilizing email marketing I'm gonna show you their activation sequence and this is the sequence that you should definitely be utilizing as well the activation sequence which all that means is once I download your app you're gonna hit me with the string of emails that will tell me a little bit more about the app and obviously try to get me to buy so let's take a look at these emails okay here they are all the emails I've kind of put it all in here so you can see what's happening here they do send a couple of different emails one is to get you to buy and then one is just telling you a little bit about it and one is just insights so what you've been using how you been using I think that's a great way to stay in touch with your users just insights on how you've been using the app okay I know a lot of different like fitness apps Fitbit they do that as well just say hey you know

14:35

we're around in case you stopped using us you know we're still here and here's what you've been doing within our app okay here's the very first email he sent me so protect your communication everywhere you write they're talking about all the different types of apps the browser extension the for office for desktop you know web editor they have it all so they're telling me to get it and then they're not really trying to get me to buy yet right so that's key next one I want to go into is so now they're saying what exactly is premium I don't love that subject line but look they're out of trying to tell you here are some of the Pro features that you're missing anybody that tells you email marketing is dead is dead wrong all right because this actually works look I have friends in the online marketing space selling digital products that are making millions of dollars a year using email marketing that's the one channel that

15:35

they really really focus on right they have a drip campaign so this is their drip campaign as you can see they're talking about a lot of the Pro features here next get the most out of your free account it's like okay cool here's more what you can do now you really want to engage your users and make sure they understand just the power of the app right look they're not getting you to buy anything yet all right here's how you get the most out of it cool here's the next email that I got here's the offer right like a pro here's 40 percent off gramley premium now I've already let go of this 48 hours but this is a trick that you have to use this giving a discount and also making sure that there is a sense of urgency right it's a 48-hour sale so you make people decide do you want to stay on or do you want to leave here it is here's the offer to tell you 40% off so I'm gonna click this just to show you

16:38

guys unfortunately that 40% off is no longer available I'm still seeing what I see in the app itself and so this is still the same plan but here it is upgrade that they talked about hi Steve Young you've been using Grambling for a few weeks now it looks like you're ready to level up better that and then exactly gives you this here's what you're getting with the free stuff here's what you're getting with the premium stuff I would probably add one more buy now type of thing or get 40% off button right here but they don't have that but here it is right so they're gonna give you that 48-hour offer then they're gonna hit me with some insights on what we've been doing now this is a like a weekly email that I get from these guys so now here's your last chance right just 40 hours left to get 40% off premium your limited time offer to upgrade premium it's almost up get this deal I like that it's super short like do you want it

17:33

you better hurry right now and then guess what they have some social proof and I like this Twitter because then somebody shared it publicly so it feels real real but a little bit more social proof is what I would add you know like some ratings the fact that over 20 million people have used the app and download the app these are some things that you definitely want on this email because you want people to click it's your last chance and here's some social proof of people who really love the app so a little bit more social proof here is what I would recommend and also here let me go back real quick because it's write like a pro so they set that on November 3rd and then two days later so this is sort of the last chance one of the things that works really well in the online digital courses space is also sending a few emails on the last chance on the last day so this is the last day that I can get this offer so great send

18:29

me the email in the morning but send me an hour before or 6 hours before a couple hours before so it's expired like hey you're down to the last hour do you want to subscribe those generally work really well as well those emails work well too let's take a quick look at some of the other stuff Steve you're missing on the best part cool and then some more insights on grammarly great that's it so I really want to point out this app to you guys because one they're doing phenomenally well in the App Store right there $300,000 a month and cubed because they can't just keep hitting me with a pricing plan as a keyboard app I want to see how they're trying to get their users their free users to convert and email marketing I believe is a fantastic channel for this so I really wanted to break this down for you guys and I hope you got a ton of value out of this alright one last thing I am putting together a brand new course for the app

19:29

masters Academy all about email marketing some of the best subject lines that I've seen the strategy and the psychology of how to really put together a high-performing activation sequence email what you should have what those emails should say the subject lines 'la grammerly had a good subject lines I don't think they were great I think they could be improved upon but what kind of subject lines have I seen worked really well in the online digital marketing space as well as just me with my newsletters as well so if you want to check it out go check out at masters Academy we've redone the whole thing it's all on teachable now we've got tons hours upon hours hundreds of hours of content that shows you exactly how we do email marketing how we do ASO how we do PR how we try to get Apple features everything that we do for our clients is all on at masters Academy com and one more thing one thing that I am

20:25

working on is another course called million-dollar pricing pages so I've downloaded off ton of apps analyze their pricing pages I put them into a PDF and that's gonna be an upcoming video as well that's gonna show you what are the characteristics of million-dollar apps and what do their pricing pages look like so stay tuned for that and until next time I'll see you the next video peace you