Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your US launch. It's a common hurdle, but launching with an existing user base of 300k is a massive head start, so you're already in a much better position than most startups we see.
Honestly, most of the standard advice on 'launching' a product is completely wrong for your situation. You don't need a big PR splash or a massive awareness campaign. You have something much, much more powerful: data. The key here will be to use that data intelligently to drive profitable user growth from day one. I'll walk you through how I'd approach this.
We'll need to look at your launch strategy... by ignoring most of it
The first thing I want to be brutally honest about is the launch itself. Forget what you've read about 'brand awareness' campaigns. It's probably the single biggest way startups burn through their cash with nothing to show for it. When you run a campaign on a platform like Meta (Facebook/Instagram) and set the objective to "Reach" or "Brand Awareness," you're telling the algorithm one thing: "Find me the cheapest possible eyeballs, regardless of quality."
And the algorithm does exactly that. It goes out and finds the people inside your target geography who are least likely to click, least likely to engage, and definitely least likely to ever enter their card details or join a paid league. Why? Because their attention is cheap. No one else is bidding for them. You are actively paying the most sophisticated advertising machine in the world to find you the worst possible audience for your fantasy platform. It’s a complete waste of time and money.
For a business like yours, awareness is a byproduct of getting actual, paying, engaged users, not a prerequisite. The best form of brand awareness you can get is a fantasy sports fan in the US downloading your app, loving it, and then telling all his mates in his main league that they need to switch. That only happens if your entire strategy is laser-focused on one thing: conversions. For you, that likely means app installs or user registrations.
Any agency or marketer who comes to you with a multi-stage plan that starts with "Phase 1: Awareness" and doesn't make your 300k+ user list the absolute centrepiece of their US strategy should be shown the door immediately. They don't understand how to grow a business like yours.
I'd say you need to weaponise your existing user data immediately
Your 300k+ users from another country aren't just social proof; they are your primary strategic weapon for conquering the US market. This data is the seed from which your entire initial user base will grow. The mechanism for this is Lookalike Audiences, particularly on Meta's platforms.
A Lookalike Audience is where you provide Meta with a list of your existing customers (a 'seed' audience), and its algorithm goes and finds millions of other people in your target country (the US) who share an incredible number of characteristics, behaviours, and interests with your best users. It’s the closest thing to cloning your best customers you can get.
But just uploading a list of all 300k users isn't the smartest way to do it. The quality of your seed audience dictates the quality of your lookalike. You need to be more strategic. Here’s how I’d prioritise building these audiences:
- -> Top Tier - Your VIPs: The first list you should create is of your most valuable users. This could be the top 5-10% of users by lifetime spend, or those who participate in the most leagues, or those with the highest activity rates. A Lookalike built from this 'golden cohort' will find you people in the US who are predisposed to be high-value users, not just casual tyre-kickers.
- -> Second Tier - Active & Recent: Your next list should be all users who have been active in the last 90 or 180 days. Recency is a powerful signal of engagement, and this will help find an audience that is currently active in the fantasy sports world.
- -> Third Tier - All Users: A lookalike of your entire user base can also work, but it will be broader and likely have a lower conversion rate than the more specific lists above. It's a good benchmark to test against.
You need at least 100 people in a custom audience to create a lookalike, but with 300k users, you have more than enough data to create highly potent, segmented seed lists. We'd start with a 1% Lookalike in the US, which gives you the ~2.5 million people who are most similar to your seed audience. This is your day-one targeting.
Here’s what an initial campaign structure might look like. It's simple, clean, and focused entirely on what works.
| Campaign Level | Ad Set (Audience) | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| US Launch - Conversion Objective (App Installs) | Ad Set 1: LAL - Top Priority 1% US Lookalike of "Top 10% Spenders/Activity" |
This is your main bet. Should deliver the highest quality users. Give it the most budget. |
| Ad Set 2: LAL - Broad 1-3% US Lookalike of "All Active Users (180d)" |
A test to see if a broader lookalike can scale with good peformance. | |
| Ad Set 3: Interest Targeting - Benchmark Interests: DraftKings, FanDuel, ESPN Fantasy, specific NFL/NBA fan groups. |
This is purely to establish a baseline. I'd expect the Lookalikes to beat this soundly, but you need to prove it. |
This approach isn't theoretical. I remember one campaign we worked on for a sports-related app. They were struggling to grow. We shifted their entire focus to conversion objectives and built out a tiered Lookalike strategy just like this one. We ended up driving over 45,000 signups for them at a cost per signup of under £2. It works because it’s logical. You're using your own success to fuel new growth.
You probably should rethink your messaging for the US market
Targeting the right people is only half the job. You then have to say the right thing to them. What works in your current market might not have the same flavour or hit the same nerve in the US. You can't just sell "a fantasy sports platform." You need to sell a solution to a problem or a fast track to a desire.
Forget listing features. You need to get inside the head of a US fantasy player. What's their 'nightmare'? What's their ultimate desire?
- -> The nightmare is a league that falls apart by week 6 because half the managers are casuals who stop setting their lineups.
- -> The nightmare is a clunky, slow app that makes managing your team a chore.
- -> The desire is to prove you're smarter than your friends, your colleagues, your family. It's about bragging rights.
- -> The desire is the thrill of a close matchup, the genius of a waiver wire pickup no one else saw, and of course, winning the pot.
Your ad copy needs to speak directly to these emotional drivers. We often use a framework called 'Problem-Agitate-Solve' or 'Before-After-Bridge'. It’s incredibly effective.
Here’s how that might look in a few sample ads for your platform:
| Sample Ad Copy Snippets | |
|---|---|
| Angle 1: The 'Serious Player' (Problem-Agitate-Solve) |
Headline: Tired Of Amateur Hour? Body: Another fantasy league ruined by managers who quit by October? The trash talk dies, the pot feels meaningless. You deserve better. Our platform is built for serious players only. Find competitive leagues that go down to the wire. Join a real league today. |
| Angle 2: The 'Better Tech' (Before-After-Bridge) |
Headline: Your Fantasy App Shouldn't Feel Like A Job. Body: (Before) You're trying to set your lineup, but the app is slow, the stats are buried, and you just missed a key injury update. (After) Imagine an app so fast and intuitive, managing your team is actually fun again. All the data you need, right where you expect it. (Bridge) That's our platform. Download and see the difference. |
| Angle 3: The 'Winning Edge' | Headline: The Unfair Advantage Your League Mates Don't Have. Body: Stop relying on gut feelings. Our platform surfaces the key stats and trends that actually lead to wins. Get insights you won't find on ESPN or Yahoo. It's time to dominate your league. Start building your championship team now. |
You'll need a realistic view of the numbers
The question I always get is "What will my cost per user be?" And the answer is always: it's the wrong question. The right question is, "How much can I afford to spend to acquire a profitable user?" The answer to that lies in your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).
Once you know what a user is worth to you over their lifetime, you can make intelligent decisions about ad spend. You stop chasing a cheap Cost Per Install (CPI) and start investing to acquire high-value users. You need to do this math for your business.
Let's run a hypothetical calculation. You’ll need to plug in your own numbers, of course.
- -> Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What does an average user generate in revenue per year? (e.g., from league fees, premium features). Let's say it's $50/year.
- -> Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue after payment processing etc? Let's say it's 80%.
- -> Annual Churn Rate: What percentage of users do you lose each year? Let's say it's 30% (meaning a user sticks around for about 3.33 years).
The simplified LTV calculation is: (Annual ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Annual Churn Rate.
| Hypothetical LTV Calculation | |
|---|---|
| Metric | Value |
| Average Revenue Per User (Annual) | $50 |
| Gross Margin | 80% |
| Annual Churn Rate | 30% |
| LTV Calculation | ($50 * 0.80) / 0.30 = $133.33 |
In this scenario, each user you acquire is worth about $133 in gross margin to your business over their lifetime. A healthy LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio is 3:1. This means you can afford to spend up to $44 to acquire a single user and still have a very successful, profitable business model. Suddenly, a $5 or even $10 Cost Per Install doesn't look so scary, does it? It looks like a bargain, as long as you're acquiring the right kind of user.
This is the math that unlocks aggressive, intelligent scaling. You're not guessing anymore. You have a hard number that defines success. In our experience with gambling and prize draw-type platforms, the key metric is always Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). For one client, we generated £107k in revenue at a 618% ROAS. That’s the kind of result that comes from focusing on the back-end numbers, not just the front-end cost per click.
Your offer needs to be seamless
Finally, we need to look at the offer itself. In B2B, we often talk about the "Request a Demo" button being the worst call to action. For a consumer app like yours, the equivalent is a clunky, high-friction signup process.
When a user clicks your ad, their journey to becoming an active player must be as smooth as possible. Your App Store or Google Play page is your new landing page. It needs to sell the app just as hard as the ad did.
- -> Use the benefit-driven headlines from your ads.
- -> Use screenshots and a short video that show off how slick and easy-to-use your UI is. Show, don't just tell.
- -> Use social proof! "Join 300,000+ fantasy players who have already made the switch" is an incredibly powerful line. You have to use it.
The 'offer' isn't just the app, it's the reason to download it *now*. This could be a special launch promotion ("Your first league entry is on us!") or creating urgency around the start of a sports season ("Draft your NFL team before kickoff!"). Make the decision to download a no-brainer.
This is the main advice I have for you:
This is a lot to take in, but the core principles are what will separate a successful launch from a failed one. It's not about finding a magic "growth hack." It's about a disciplined, data-driven approach to user acquisition.
| Area of Focus | Recommendation | Why it Matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Core Strategy | Set all campaign objectives to Conversions (App Installs/Registrations). Ignore Awareness/Reach objectives entirely. | This forces the algorithm to find you users who will actually take action, not just cheap eyeballs. It aligns your ad spend directly with business growth. |
| 2. Audience Targeting | Immediately build and test US Lookalike audiences from segmented lists of your best existing 300k users (e.g., top spenders, most active). | This is your unfair advantage. It's the fastest path to finding your ideal customer profile in a new market with minimal waste. |
| 3. Ad Messaging | Craft ad copy that speaks to the emotional drivers of US fantasy players (competition, winning, community, better tech) instead of just listing features. | Features are logical, but emotion is what drives clicks and downloads. Your message must resonate to be effective. |
| 4. Financials & Measurement | Calculate your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) to establish a maximum profitable Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). | This gives you a clear target, frees you from chasing low-quality cheap installs, and provides the financial framework to scale aggressively and intelligently. |
While these principles are the right foundation, the execution is where it gets complex. The difference between a good campaign and a great one lies in the daily and weekly optimisations, the constant creative testing, and the deep understanding of how the ad platforms are changing. This is where having an experienced partner can make a significant difference, saving you time and a lot of wasted ad spend in the process of finding what works.
If you'd like to go through this in more detail and have us take a closer look at your plans for the US market, we offer a free, no-obligation initial strategy session where we can map this out further.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh
