Before You Spend $1 on Meta Ads, Watch This

Coming up, we're going to share with you the seven things [music] you better have in place before you spend a single dollar on Meta ads. Stay tuned. What is up App Nation? It is Steve P. Young, founder of appmasters.com and in this video, I'm going to share with you the seven critical steps you have to have in place before you spend a single dollar on Meta ads. Now, before we get started, let me ask you a simple question. For every 100 people that actually install your app, how many end up paying and how many industry average should be paying? If you don't know that answer, you're going to pay Meta to find out and that can get expensive fast. We manage Meta ads for app founders and I'm going to give you the seven things I check before ever launching a campaign.

And in this video, I'm going to share with you the conversion targets I look for and how to figure out if your app is actually ready for paid traffic. Let's get going. All right. Now, this video is intended for those app founders who are starting to run Meta ads for the very first time. Before you spend a dollar on Meta ads, here are seven things your app needs to get right. So, save this checklist, all right? Listen, before we even get started, Meta ads amplify what you've built, all right? Now, if you're having trouble with ASO, which is hard these days, I'm going to show you the step-by-step playbook that I typically run for our apps and what I recommend to our clients, but it's only going to amplify what you built. So, if you have a leaky bucket, you're going to spend a lot of money on Meta and waste a lot of money on Meta. So, before we even get started, we need evidence that people

pay, there's accurate tracking, and a plan to test the different ads. All right, these are my launch checks. They're not guarantees, and I'll get in-depth into each and every single point, but you guys can take a screenshot of this if you want to follow along as I get into the seven steps. All right, number one is an optimized funnel. Like I said before, if you got a leaky bucket, you might as well write Meta a big check cuz you're wasting money. You're just lighting money on fire. All right, look, a fully optimized funnel does not mean that it's perfect, but you got to hit these KPIs before, in my opinion, you start Meta ads, okay?

So, how do you know your funnel is ready for traffic? So, you got a clear promise on your App Store page, right? And what I typically like to do is match. Now, you don't have to do this in phase one, but I like to match what my ads say to my screenshots, so the promise is clear and it has a clear path, right? It's [snorts] coherent, and there's no broken promises along the way. Onboarding, we talked a lot about this if you watch our videos that show value quickly, a paywall. Always have your paywall during the onboarding, and I might argue that you might want a hard paywall for all Meta paid traffic, and the purchase flow works from end to end.

So, meaning the checkout's there, everything's working properly, no bugs, no crashes, so forth. Now, here are Steve's targets, conversion targets before launching Meta ads. You want to Now, these are averages, okay? You want to at least have 5 to 10% install the trial activation, all right? Typically, I like to have my trial in either the yearly or the weekly, whichever plan has a highest LTV. If you have a hard paywall, you're aiming for at least 10% plus on that trial activation.

Then, the trial to paid should yield over 30%, okay? And lastly, on average, you're going to try to aim for at least a 2% install to paid conversion. You got to make sure these numbers are proper. So, here's some simple math. You get 1,000 installs, you get a 7% trial activation, which is decent, right? Decent. You get 70 trials. So, Meta needs 50 events per week, and we're going to be optimizing for that trial, but we'll cover that in in part two of this video series. Then, that gives you 70 trials, 30% trial to paid, you get 21 subscribers. 21 subscribers over 1,000 installs is about 2.1% paid. Now, this is the bare minimum that we want to aim for. Here's some recent benchmarks. This is according to RevenueCat state of subscription apps.

2.6 median. So, it's median, not average, but iOS download to paid by day 35. So, around 2 to 3% install to paid is good for you. About a 33% median iOS trial to paid, and then you got to compare with different, you know, similar apps, countries, and so forth. Different apps operate differently. So, I've covered this before in my tentacle video that I'll link up up here, but what I really try to do is find the category.

RevenueCat's report has this, but find the category of app that has the highest or higher revenue per install. All right. Number two. You have proof. You got a fully optimized funnel, but now you have proof that strangers, not your friends and family, not you just testing the app out, but proof that strangers will actually pay. Now, here's my favorite way of doing this, okay? I like to validate that my funnel works with ASO or Apple Ads. Why?

Because it's a lot cheaper than spending a fortune on Meta. Meta needs a lot of budget, so I like to start off with ASO and Apple Ads to build that foundation, then scale with Meta, okay? So, you want to track paid conversions after trials finish, obviously. Compare revenue, and lastly, expect Meta users to behave differently. Because ASO and ASA are pull campaigns, meaning people search for something you're just pulling them in, right? It's a lot easier and those conversions should be a lot higher than Meta, which is a push campaign. You're pretty much interrupting people and saying, "Hey, download my app," right?

So, I like to start off with Apple Ads and ASO just to make sure it works. Now, you don't have to. This is just my process to make sure that the funnel is fully optimized. If you have a category of apps where, let's say, it's new social network, where ASO and ASA is just not going to work, then you're going to have to go straight into Meta. So, your testing phase is going to be a little bit more expensive, but this is how I like to operate. Okay, number three. Now, this is just my opinion and my buddy Henry kind of had the same opinion as well, but to run any type of Meta, now, Apple Ads, you can get away with not having this, but to run Meta, you need and Henry would argue a lot more, but we're going to stick with at at least a $3 LTV per install. Now, if you can go higher, obviously, the better. And I'm not saying revenue, so LTV has to take into account sometimes maybe the LTV is a lot higher by month

11. So, usually that's what we look at. What is my LTV at a roughly around month 11? Now, for certain apps, it's not different. Month one and month 11 are pretty much the same LTV. That's one of our apps, and I'll show you where to find this, but you really want to aim for at least a $3 per install from an LTV perspective. Here are just some rough numbers, but honestly, like really what you take away from it is the installs on Meta are going to be expensive. So, you need to have a really high LTV per install, okay? Meta is good at getting you whatever you optimize for. So, if you optimize for installs, you might get a cheap install, maybe a dollar to $2, but nobody pays. So, you're going to try to optimize for the trial. But, if you don't have a high conversion funnel, then optimizing for the trial because Meta needs at least 50 events is going to get super expensive.

So, here's just some economics. You don't have to pay attention to this. Really pay attention to the LTV per install. And you can find that out within RevenueCat, you can find that out in whatever paywall manager, Adaptly, Superwall that you're using. But, really aim for this $3 LTV per install. Number four, you have to validate that the Meta SDK, which is all you really need because again, you're just starting out, is properly tracking. Now, I'm going to show you how to do this. Again, I'm going to blur out all the client data and all our app data, but I'm going to show you where to find it and validate that the Meta SDK was properly set up.

Okay, before I get into a screen share and show you where to go into App Store Connect and where to go within the Meta Ads platform, here are the events that you should be sending to Meta. The install, the paywall view, right? So, essentially, it triggers when the paywall loads cuz we want to aim for 100% from install to paywall view, as close to 100% as possible, start checkout. So, this is just telling meta who's more likely to start a checkout, start trial, more important, subscribe, obviously, right? And then we want to test these events once they're in the events manager. Now, let's get into the events manager right now. All right, here is the meta ads library. I've blurred everything out so you can't see it, but here are the things you should pay attention to. You're going to go into events manager right here on the left-hand side. Then you're going to go to data sets and then find your app.

Again, I've blurred out everything so you guys can't see all the people that we're working with, including our apps, but I'm going to click into our app right here. Now, I'm going to change the dates a little bit just to match up what I've already have loaded in App Store Connect. So, this is the past 28 days, just so you know. Here you can see app installs, we're using the meta SDK, view content, which is the standard event that's a paywall view, complete registration, we don't actually have registration, but initiate checkout, right? Start trial, and then obviously subscribe, okay?

So, I'm going to the most important things that you can measure are probably the app installs. So, I'm going to go into App Store Connect and I'll show you where to do that right now. So, I've got I'm under analytics and I've got total downloads right now. So, I'm going to click this and you can see total downloads, and then I've got September 14th to October 10th set up, and that's App Store Connect is reporting about 3,000 downloads for that time frame.

Now, if I go back to the events manager on meta, you can see it's about a little bit over 4,000. So, that number is never going to be exact. I don't know why meta is a little bit higher, but I'm okay with it right now. So, meta is averaging saying that it's averaging about 40 downloads a day, and then I'll go back into App Store Connect and we're averaging about 60 downloads a day. So, the dates are correct, but it's roughly around the same. It's not too much of a difference, you know, about 700 downloads different. Okay? The more important thing is the start trial. So, right here, I'm going to click under here.

And we're getting Meta has reported about 276 start trials for this given time period, App Store Connect. Now, within App Store Connect, here's where you're going to find that. You're still under analytics and then metrics. Here under metrics, I have I already have it loaded, but you go under events. So, under subscriptions, events, and then offer starts, and instead of all, just do free trial starts. Again, same time period. We have 312 under App Store Connect. On Meta, we had 276. So, very close. I feel confident that these events are being tracked properly, so that when I set up a campaign, everything should work just fine.

>> Number five is obviously doing competitive ad research. Okay? Take a look at what your competitors are using in their ads. So, this is very simple and I'm going to give you a live demo right now how to do this. All right, I'm in the Meta Ads Library. Just Google it if you want to do that. I'm going to pick all ads, and then I'm just going to pick on Cali's eye for now. Great episode, by the way, from Jake Castillo from Cali's eye, one of the Cali's eye co-founders.

And here's where you can see all their ads. All right? And then you have it filtered by active ads. You can unfilter this if you want. It's automatically sorted by impressions. And then you're going to try to find something that has been running for a long time, right? So, as of this recording, we're in early October, and so we have this ad that was started on June 3rd. That means probably a good ad. So, you can hit this.

See summary, and then you can watch this ad as well. And you can see it's a simple ad right there. So, you got a good hook. It's only 9 seconds, by the way. So, the hook is best way to track calories, right? Got some food. Great. Next, you want to show off the app in use. Perfect. And then, you have the App Store like. That's it. It's that simple. This creative has been running for a very long time. So, since June and then this recording about about 4 months of running the ad, all right? And then here's a bunch more. Forbes, that's interesting. I don't know how they got that done, but that's pretty cool. And then you got some new ads that they've launched about a few weeks ago and then a few others that have been running for a quite some time. So, I'm going to get into the different ad concepts that you need to create in a future point, but this is how you do competitive ad research. All right, back to the slide.

If you just want to take a screenshot, research direct competitors. I'd also look at complementary apps. So, if I was doing a calorie tracker, I might look at, you know, MyFitnessPal. I might look at Strava just to get some inspiration. Think about the hook. That's very important and the audience's problem. Study the demo, like really think about having a demo really helps, and then just save these useful examples with the date. So, when they started running it, what's their hook?

Best way to track calories, what's the demo, what kind of food, and then lastly, you know, show that end slide with the App Store logo and badge. All right, number six, this is extremely important cuz a lot of times we'll just think about subtle changes, but when you're just getting going, you want to test different ad concepts. So, what I like to do is really think about our ICPs. So, this is like ideal customer profiles, ICPs.

Really think through, okay, I'm targeting for us like exercise, health and fitness, and then I'm thinking like, okay, what if I was targeting seniors? Should I show somebody 55 and up? What kind of concept should I have rather than subtly changing like the food, the Calia I example. We're just changing the food in the hook. No, no, no, we want to test out different concepts, right? Like maybe one concept is the food, best way to track calories.

Another concept is losing weight and showing somebody a before and after. And another concept could be how can this app really track everything? Like snacks. So, now you're starting to test different elements and different ad concepts just to see which one will work better. And then once you find the different ad concept that works better, then you can really start testing out the different minor variations of the ad. All right. So, here's some examples for like a fitness app. Are you stiff after sitting all day?

Show an exercise, maybe just go straight into it. Show off a short session you can follow at home, real user examples, and then curiosity, like I just showed you with the Calia example. What can you do with just this app? Literally this app can track everything? What? Okay. Each ad needs a clear path to value, right? You got to make sure the hook is really important, so the opening earns that attention to force somebody to stop scrolling, right? Got to show off the demo.

What's the offer? What's the benefit to using this app? And then at the end show off the App Store page. And at the end make sure your App Store page connects with that ad. So, for example, now you don't need to do this in phase one, but for example, if I'm targeting like different people. So, maybe one target is ADHD, right? Another target is CEOs and founders. So, I want my CPPs, and you can tie each meta ad to a CPP, a custom product page, and you can say, "Look, for ADHD, I'm going to show an ADHD screenshot when they land on the App Store page. For the app founders and CEOs, well, I'm going to show like, 'Hey, how executives can do better with this particular app.' So, my custom product page is going to tie in with my ad. Now, you don't have to do this in phase one, but it's definitely something you should consider in phase two and three. Lastly, know your numbers, and really know how much you need to spend

to actually hit those numbers. All right, so let's break this down. A $1,000 budget, and we'll just say for roughly a week or two, at a $2 install, gets you 500 installs. Now, we want to optimize for the trial. Like I said before, Meta's great at giving you whatever you ask it to get you. So, we want to eventually get it as down funnel as possible, okay? So, with that $1,000 budget, if you assume a 7% trial activation rate, you're only going to get 35 trials, which is not enough for a week, right? Meta needs at least 50 events per week. Now, this is just assuming these numbers are good.

35 trials gets you at a 30% trial to paid, gets you about 10 to 11 subscribers. Expected subscriber acquisitions are around $95. This is why you need to make sure your funnel works very well. This is why you need to make sure your LTV per install is really high, cuz Meta can get expensive, right? So, this is just to give you guys some understanding of some numbers where a $1,000 budget can actually get you. Again, we're not even at the 50 events, trial events, that we need per week. So, that $1,000 is not going to get us very far. It can get us good installs, and maybe show us that, "Hey, maybe this ad creative is working pretty well.

Eventually, you're going to need a bigger weekly budget to get that 50 trials per week. All right. Here's the checklist one more time. Funnel works. Strangers are willing to pay. High LTV. I like to start with organic and Apple Ads just to prove that my conversion funnel is working. Meta events are tracking. And lastly, I've now come up with three to five different ad concepts that I can just put into one ad set in Meta and let the algorithm do its thing. All right.

This was relatively longer video, but I wanted to fully explain how we approach Meta, which might be a little bit different than what you might see on the interwebs [music] and on Twitter. It is more of a systematic, in my opinion, a safer way of approaching Meta rather than going ahead and spending a lot of money on Meta and not seeing any results, which we have done for our own apps, as well. All right. If you got any questions, leave a comment below.

>> [music] >> And in part two, we're going to really talk about the campaign setup, the budgeting, and showing you everything that you have to do. It's going to be a demo on how to set up a campaign within Meta to get you rocking and rolling. All right. Until next time, I'll see you on the next video. >> [music]