Solved: Low-Effort Marketing Strategies for Indie iOS App Devs?

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Read your post and it sounds like you're in a great spot – having a product people are finding and paying for organically is a brilliant foundation. A lot of people never even get that far. I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance on how you might be able to push things forward without having to become a full-time marketing guru.

I'll be brutally honest, most of the "low-effort" marketing stuff you read about online is rubbish. Content marketing, SEO, building a huge social media following... that's not low-effort, that's a full-time job in itself. For a developer like you, the most genuinely low-effort (after the initial setup) and scalable approach is usually paid advertising. You set it up, you feed it a budget, and you let the machines do the heavy lifting of finding your customers. The trick is telling the machines who to find and what to say to them.

So, here's a rundown of how I'd approach this if I were in your shoes.

I'd say you need to understand your numbers first...

Before you spend a single dollar on ads, you have to know what a customer is actually worth to you. This is the bit everyone skips because it feels like homework, but it's the most important step. Without this, you're flying blind and you'll have no idea if your ads are actually making you money or just burning cash. You need to work out your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

The real question isn't "How cheap can I get an install?" but "How much can I afford to pay to get a great user?". Let's do some rough maths based on your situation. It's a bit of a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it'll get us in the right ballpark.

1. Average Revenue Per User (ARPU): You're making $700/month. How many active paying users does that come from? Let's pretend you have 100 paying users. That means your ARPU is $7/month. You'll need to work out your real number here.

2. Gross Margin %: This is your profit on that revenue. After Apple's cut and any other direct costs (server costs per user etc.), what percentage is left? Let's be generous and say it's 70% after Apple takes their slice. So your Gross Margin per user is $7 * 0.70 = $4.90 per month.

3. Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of your paying users do you lose each month? This is critical. A low churn rate means a high LTV. Let's say you lose 5% of your customers each month. (0.05)

Now, the calculation is simple:
LTV = (Monthly Gross Margin Per User) / Monthly Churn Rate
LTV = $4.90 / 0.05
LTV = $98

So, in this hypothetical scenario, every new paying customer you acquire is worth about $98 to you over their lifetime. This is your magic number. It tells you how much you can afford to spend to get a customer. A healthy ratio is usually 3:1 (LTV:CAC), which means you could afford to spend up to $32 to acquire a new paying customer and still have a very profitable business. Suddenly, paying $1-$5 for an install, which is a pretty standard range for B2C apps, doesn't seem so bad, does it? This maths frees you from the trap of chasing cheap, low-quality installs and allows you to focus on finding valuable users.

We'll need to look at who your customer actually is...

This is the next bit people get wrong. They think in terms of sterile demographics. "Men, aged 25-40, living in the US." That tells you absolutely nothing useful. It leads to generic ads that speak to no one.

You need to define your customer by their pain. Why does someone urgently need a second phone number? What is the expensive, frustrating, or privacy-invading nightmare they are trying to escape? Your ideal customer profile isn't a demographic; it's a problem state.

Think about it. Who are they?
-> Is it the person selling a bike on Facebook Marketplace, terrified of getting weird calls at 2am from strangers who now have their real number?
-> Is it the freelance web developer who wants a seperate business line to look more professional but doesn't want the hassle of a second physical phone?
-> Is it the person dipping their toes into online dating who wants a layer of protection before they give out their personal details?
-> Is it the small business owner trying to manage work-life balance by having calls go to a different voicemail outside of office hours?

Each of these is a different nightmare. Each requires a different message. You need to become an expert in that specific pain. Once you know the pain, you can figure out where to find them and what to say. This intelligence is the entire blueprint for you're targeting. If you don't do this work, you have no business spending money on ads.

You probably should focus on paid ads for low-effort growth...

Right, so you know your numbers and you know who you're looking for. Now, how do we reach them? You mentioned you're a developer and not a content creator. That's perfect. Paid advertising, specifically on search and social platforms, is your friend. It's a system, just like code. You input variables (audience, creative, budget) and you get an output (installs, revenue). You then iterate on the variables to improve the output.

There are generally two types of audiences out there:
1. Problem Aware: These people know they have a problem and are actively searching for a solution. They are typing things like "second number app" or "private phone number for craigslist" into a search bar. They are hot leads.
2. Problem Unaware: These people have the problem, but they aren't actively looking for a solution. They might not even realise a good solution exists. The freelancer putting up with clients calling his personal mobile on a Sunday is in this group.

For a low-effort start, you want to target the Problem Aware group first. They are the lowest hanging fruit. The best place for that is where they go to search.

You'll need a solid plan for Apple & Google Ads...

This is where I'd begin. Apple Search Ads and Google App Campaigns are designed for exactly what you need. They catch people at the precise moment of intent.

Apple Search Ads (ASA)
This should be your absolute first stop. It's probably the lowest-effort, highest-return ad platform for an iOS developer. People are literally in the App Store, searching for an app like yours. You can't get more targeted than that.
-> How it works: You bid on keywords. When someone searches for "temporary phone number" or "business phone line app" in the App Store, your app can appear as the top result. It's incredibly powerful.
-> Keywords: You'd start with the obvious ones: "second phone number", "burner number", "private number", "business line". You can also target competitor brand names, though that can be more expensive.
-> Effort: The setup is straightforward. You write a few lines of text (though often it just pulls from your App Store listing), you set your keywords, and you set a budget and a max cost-per-install bid. It's very much a set-it-and-get-some-data type of platform. You're not making videos or fancy images.

Google App Campaigns
This is Google's equivalent, but with a much broader reach. It can show your app ad across Google Search, YouTube, Google Play, and the Google Display Network. It's a bit more of a "black box" as you give Google your assets (some text, images, maybe a video if you have one) and it figures out the best placements. But for targeting search intent, it's brilliant.
-> How it works: You tell Google you want app installs, give it your daily budget and target cost-per-install (CPI), and provide some creative assets. Its machine learning then goes to work to find you users.
-> Targeting: You mainly guide it with keywords related to what your ideal users are searching for on Google and the Play Store. The principle is the same as ASA: capture the intent.

I've seen these channels work wonders. I remember one software client we worked with got 3,543 users at just £0.96 cost per user using Google Ads. The power is in targeting people already looking for you. You don't have to convince them they have a problem; you just have to convince them you're the best solution.

I'd say you could scale with Meta Ads later...

Once you've tapped out the low-hanging fruit on search, you can move to social platforms like Meta (Facebook & Instagram) to find the 'Problem Unaware' audience. This is about generating new demand, not just capturing existing demand. It's more complex, but it's how you really scale.

Here's a critical point: when you run ads on Meta, you MUST set your campaign objective to what you actually want. If you want installs, you choose an objective that optimises for App Installs or Conversions. A massive mistake people make is running "Brand Awareness" or "Reach" campaigns. When you do that, you're telling Facebook's algorithm "Find me the cheapest people to show this ad to". The algorithm does exactly that, and it finds people who never click, never engage, and definately never buy anything. You are literally paying to reach the worst possible audience. You must optimise for the final action.

Targeting on Meta:
This is where your work on the customer 'nightmare' pays off. You're not targeting "Men, aged 25-40". You're targeting interests and behaviours that align with their pain.
-> For the Marketplace seller: Target interests like 'Facebook Marketplace', 'Craigslist', 'eBay'.
-> For the freelancer: Target interests like 'Upwork', 'Fiverr', people with job titles like 'Freelance Designer' or who follow pages about small business.
-> For the online dater: Target users of dating apps like 'Tinder', 'Hinge', 'Bumble'.

Audiences to Prioritise:
For a new account, you'd start with those detailed interest audiences. Once you get some installs and data flowing through your pixel (the Meta SDK in your case), you can build much more powerful audiences:
-> Lookalike Audiences: This is where it gets exciting. You can tell Meta, "Here is a list of my 500 best paying customers. Go find me one million more people in the United States who look just like them." This is usually the most powerful audience you can build. You can create lookalikes of people who installed, people who started a trial, or people who became a paying subscriber. The further down the funnel, the better the lookalike.
-> Retargeting: Someone visited your App Store page but didn't install? You can run an ad to them a few days later to remind them.

Scaling on Meta is very possible. We've worked on campaigns that have driven huge numbers. One app we worked with in the events and sports space got over 45,000 signups at under £2 per signup using a mix of Meta, TikTok, and search ads. Another software client saw 5,082 trials at just $7 cost per trial on Meta. This shows that when you get the targeting and message right, the platform can deliver at scale.

You'll need to get your messaging right...

Your ad needs to speak directly to the pain point you identified. Don't just list features. Show them the transformation. A great framework for this is Before-After-Bridge.

Before: Paint a picture of their current pain.
After: Show them what life looks like with that pain gone.
Bridge: Position your app as the thing that gets them from Before to After.

Here's how that could look in an ad for your app, targeting the Marketplace seller:

Headline: Stop Giving Your Real Number to Strangers.
Ad Text: (Before) Your phone buzzes. Another random "is this still available?" message at 10 PM from someone you'll never hear from again. You just want to sell your old sofa, not give your personal number to the entire internet. (After) Imagine listing your items with a temporary number you can ditch the second the sale is done. No more weird calls. No more privacy worries. Just peace of mind. (Bridge) Get a private second number in 60 seconds with our app. Tap to install and protect your privacy today.

See the difference? It's not about "our app has these features". It's about "we solve this specific nightmare for you". This is what gets people to stop scrolling and actually click.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

Here's a table to sum up the action plan. This is a phased approach that starts with the easiest, highest-impact actions first and builds from there. It's a proven model we've used to help scale numerous software and app businesses.

I know this is a lot to take in. And the truth is, while the principles are simple, the execution can be tricky and time-consuming. Getting the bidding right, navigating the ad platform interfaces, analysing the data, and constantly iterating on campaigns is a skill in itself. For a solo developer, your time is almost certainly better spent building an amazing product that keeps users happy and paying.

That's where getting expert help can make a huge difference. An experienced hand can get this entire engine built and running for you in a fraction of the time, avoiding costly mistakes and accelerating your growth far faster than you could alone.

If you'd like to chat through this in more detail, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can take a closer look at your app and put together a more concrete strategy. It might be helpful to talk it through properly.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh