Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out. I saw your post and it's an interesting challenge you've got there. A $14,000 budget for a new app is a solid start, and I'm happy to give you some of my initial thoughts and guidance based on what we've seen work for other software and app clients. It can be a bit of a minefield when you're starting from scratch, so hopefully this gives you some clarity.
I'd say you first need to think about your budget and platforms...
My first thought is about that budget and the platforms. $14k is a decent pot to play with, but when you split it three ways across Facebook, X, and Reddit, and then try to fund three different objectives (installs, signups, re-engagement) all at once, it's going to get spread incredibly thin, realy fast. You risk not spending enough on any single platform to get meaningful data or momentum. You might end up learning a little bit about what doesn't work everywhere, but not much about what *does* work anywhere.
Before you even think about ads, you need to think about the user. Who is this construction worker? Where do they actually spend their time online? Are they scrolling through X between jobs, or are they more likely to be in specific communities on Facebook or Reddit? My gut feeling, without doing deep research, is that X might be a bit of a dead end for this specific audience. It tends to skew more towards media, tech, and politics. You could easily burn a few thousand dollars there and get very little back for it. It would be a costly mistake to make at this early stage.
I'd probably recomend starting with just one or two platforms where you have the strongest reason to believe your audience is active. Facebook has massive reach and its targeting can be quite powerful, even if it's not perfect for B2B. You can still target by job titles, interests in construction brands (like DeWalt, Makita, etc.), or behaviours. Reddit is also a very strong contender because of its community-based nature. You can directly target subreddits like r/Construction, r/electricians, r/Plumbing, and other trade-specific communities. The users there are already engaged in the topic, which could lead to much higher quality installs. I remember one app campaign we worked on; Facebook gave us the volume, but it was Reddit that brought in the most engaged users who stuck around. It's a pattern we see quite often.
You probably should simplify your funnel at the start...
Your idea for a funnel is logical – installs, then signups, then re-engagement. It's the right way to think long-term. But for your initial campaign with this budget, I'd say you should simplify it right down. For the first month or two, your one and only goal should be **app installs**. That's it. Focus all your energy, budget, and optimisation on driving that single metric down in cost.
You can, and should, still track sign-ups as a secondary metric to see what the quality of your installs is like from different platforms and audiences. But don't split your budget trying to run separate campaigns for signups. The logic is simple: you can't get a sign-up without an install first. So, maximise the top of your funnel. Get thousands of people to download the app. Once you have that volume and you've found a reliable, cost-effective way to get installs, you can then start to analyse the in-app behaviour. You might find that 90% of users don't complete the signup. That's not an advertising problem anymore; that's an app onboarding problem. You'd then work on improving your in-app flow, maybe incentivising the signup with a promise of full feature access. But trying to solve that with ad spend from day one is putting the cart before the horse.
For B2C app installs, you're generally looking at a cost per install (CPI) of around $1-$5 in developed countries. This can vary wildly, but it's a rough ballpark. Your app is a bit of a hybrid, it's for workers in an industry, so it might lean a bit higher, but it's a free app solving real problems, so that should help. The main point is to get a high volume of installs first. Once you have a user base, you can then focus on re-engagement campaigns later down the line to bring lapsed users back to use the timesheet or expenses features. It's a much more cost-effective way to progress.
We'll need to look at who you're actually targeting...
This is probably the most important part to get right and where most DIY campaigns fall down. You need to go deeper than just "people in the construction industry." Who *exactly* is the ideal user? Is it a 25-year-old apprentice plumber, or a 45-year-old site foreman? Their online habits will be completely different. You need to build a few of these ideal customer personas.
Once you have that, you can build your audiences. On Facebook, avoid broad interests like "Construction." You'll get everyone from architects to DIY dads. It's too diluted. You need to be more specific. I'd recomend layering interests to get closer to your target. For example:
- Interest 1: Job Title (e.g., 'Electrician', 'Builder', 'Carpenter')
- AND Interest 2: Employer (e.g., major construction firms if applicable)
- AND Interest 3: Brands (e.g., people who have shown interest in pages for 'Milwaukee Tool' or 'DeWalt')
This is how you start to filter out the irrelevant people. You're aiming for audiences that contain a significant number of people that fit your persona. It's better to have a smaller, more relevant audience than a massive, broad one. For new accounts, you have to start with this detailed targeting. Only after you get a few hundred conversions (installs in your case) can you start to experiment with lookalike audiences, which are often the best performers.
Your ad creative and copy needs to speak directly to the pain points your app solves. Dont just say "all-in-one construction app." Be specific. Here's a few quick ideas for angles:
| Pain Point | Example Ad Copy Headline |
|---|---|
| Sorting out carpooling | Tired of chasing petrol money? Sort carpools in seconds. |
| Complicated timesheets | Log your hours on-site, not at home. Simple timesheets are here. |
| Finding coworkers on a big site | Can't find Dave the plumber? Message any coworker on site. |
You'd want to test these different angles with both image and video ads to see what resonates. A short, punchy video showing how easy it is to use one of these features could work wonders.
You'll need realistic expectations for your costs...
So, what can you expect for your $14,000? It's impossible to promise anything, as performance depends on so many factors. But we can make some educated guesses. I remember one app growth campaign where we helped a client get over 45,000 signups at under £2 cost per signup across Meta Ads, Tiktok Ads, Apple Ads, and Google Ads. However, for a brand new launch, your costs will likely be higher as the platforms' algorithms are still learning.
Let's do some rough maths. If you focus the entire budget on Facebook and Reddit and aim for a blended Cost Per Install (CPI) of, say, $4.00, which is a fairly conservative estimate:
$14,000 budget / $4.00 CPI = 3,500 app installs
Getting 3,500 construction workers to install your app would be a fantastic result for a launch campaign. That's a solid user base to start learning from. From there, you'd look at your install-to-signup rate. If only 10% are signing up (350 users), you know you need to improve your onboarding. If 50% sign up (1,750 users), you know your app is hitting the mark and you can confidently invest more into scaling up your ads. This is why focusing on that one initial KPI is so important. It gives you a clear, simple benchmark for success.
This is the main advice I have for you:
| Area of Focus | Recommendation | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | Start with Facebook and Reddit only. Pause plans for X. | Concentrates budget on platforms where the target audience is most likely to be active and engaged, preventing waste. |
| Objective & Funnel | Dedicate 100% of the initial budget to App Install campaigns. | Simplifies optimisation and provides a clear primary KPI (Cost Per Install). Maximises user volume to gather data. |
| Targeting | Use specific, layered interests on Facebook and target relevant subreddits on Reddit. Avoid broad terms. | Ensures ads are shown to a highly relevant audience, improving CTR and lowering CPI over time. Better quality of installs. |
| Creative & Messaging | Create ads that highlight specific solutions to worker pain points (e.g., timesheets, carpooling). | Relatable messaging drives a stronger response than generic feature lists. It answers the user's question: "What's in it for me?" |
| Measurement | Focus on CPI as the main success metric. Track the install-to-signup rate as a secondary health metric. | Provides a clear benchmark for ad performance and helps diagnose where users are dropping off (ads vs. in-app). |
This all goes to say: there's a lot to get right. It's not just about turning on an ad and hoping for the best. It's a process of methodical testing, careful analysis, and strategic optimisation. Getting these foundational elements wrong with your first $14k could mean you end up with very little to show for it. That's often where getting some professional advice or managment can make a huge difference, ensuring that every dollar you spend is working as hard as it possibly can to build that initial user base for you.
We're always happy to jump on a free consultation call to talk through this stuff in more detail and give you a more bespoke plan of action. Sometimes a quick chat can clear up a lot of questions.
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh
