Solved: Running ads to get more users for my startup app?

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Following your enquiry, I'd like to share some initial thoughts and guidance from my experience. It’s a common question for startups – you've built the app, now how do you get people to actually use it? You mentioned Temu and AliExpress, and it’s true, they seem to be everywhere. But their model is built on massive volume, tiny margins, and a budget that could probably buy a small country. For a startup, that's not a realistic path.

The real question you need to ask isn't "should I run ads to get more users?". The real question is "how much can I afford to pay for a user who will actually stick around and eventually make me money?". That's a completely different problem, and it's the one that will decide if your startup lives or dies. Getting a million downloads from users who open the app once and then delete it is just a very expensive way to go out of business.

So, before you spend a single pound on an ad, we need to sort out the fundamentals. Let's get into it.

We'll need to look at your numbers... or rather, one number in particular

The most important metric you're probably not tracking yet is your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). Tbh, this is the foundation of any successful paid advertising strategy. Without it, you’re flying blind. You have no idea if a £5 cost per install is a bargain or a disaster. The LTV tells you exactly what a customer is worth to your business over their entire relationship with you. Once you know that, you know how much you can spend to get one.

Let's break down how you'd calculate it. It looks a bit technical, but the concept is simple. It's basically your average monthly revenue per user, adjusted for your profit margin, and then projected over the average lifespan of a customer.

Here’s the maths:

LTV = (Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA) * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

Let's make this real with an example for an app. Imagine you have a subscription model:

• -> Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What's the average amount a paying user brings in each month? Let's say your subscription is £10/month. So ARPA = £10.
• -> Gross Margin %: What's your profit on that revenue after things like app store fees, server costs, etc? Let's say your margin is 70%.
• -> Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of your paying users cancel their subscription each month? A 5% churn is pretty common for apps, so let's use that.

Now, let's plug those numbers into the formula:

So, in this scenario, every paying user is worth £140 in gross margin to you. Now we have a number to work with. A healthy business model often aims for a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. This means you could afford to spend up to £46 (£140 / 3) to acquire a single paying customer and still have a very profitable business. Suddenly that £1-£5 cost per install we see on Meta ads looks pretty attractive, doesn't it? But remember, thats a cost per install, not a cost per *paying* customer. If only 1 in 10 installs converts to a paying customer, your CAC is actually 10x your cost per install. This is the maths that separates startups that scale from those that burn out.

I'd say you need to fix your offer before you run any ads

This is probably the biggest reason why startup ad campaigns fail. The offer is weak. For an app, the worst possible offer you can make is asking someone to pay upfront. The second worst is "Book a Demo". Nobody wants to be sold to, especially not for an app they've never heard of.

Your offer’s only job is to deliver an "aha!" moment. A moment where the user experiences the value of your app so clearly that they sell *themselves* on it. The absolute gold standard for apps and software is a frictionless free trial or a freemium plan. No credit card details, no hoops to jump through. Just download and use.

Why? Because you're not trying to generate MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads) for a sales team to chase. You're trying to create PQLs (Product Qualified Leads) – people who are already convinced because the product itself has proved its worth. The sale becomes a simple upgrade, not a battle of persuasion. I've worked with numerous B2B SaaS clients, and the ones that scale fastest are almost always the ones with a seamless free trial. One client we work with generates over 1,500 trials a month on Meta ads precisely because their free trial is so compelling and easy to start. Another client saw 5082 software trials at just $7 each. This dosent happen without a strong, frictionless offer.

So, before you write a single line of ad copy, look at your onboarding. Is it a fortress or an open door? Make it an open door. Let them in, let them experience the magic, and you'll earn the right to ask for their money later.

You probably should define your customer by their nightmare, not their demographic

Forget "males aged 25-34 who like technology". That tells you absolutely nothing useful and leads to generic ads that get ignored. To make your ads work, you need to understand your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) not as a demographic, but as a person living through a specific, urgent, and expensive nightmare that your app solves.

Your ICP isn't a person; it's a problem state. What is the burning pain that keeps them up at night? What frustration makes them want to throw their phone against the wall?

Let's imagine you've built a project management app for small creative agencies. -> The Demographic View: "Creative agencies with 5-15 employees." (Boring and useless). -> The Nightmare View: "The agency owner who just lost a major client because a deadline was missed, again. She's terrified her best designer is about to quit out of burnout from the constant chaos. She feels like her dream business is slipping through her fingers because of disorganisation."

See the difference? The second one is a story. It's emotional. It's a pain you can speak to directly in your ads. Your ad doesn't sell "better project management"; it sells "an end to the chaos that's killing your business and your passion." Once you've defined that nightmare, you can find where these people hang out online. What podcasts do they listen to? What industry blogs do they read? Are they in specific Facebook groups or subreddits? This intelligence is the blueprint for your targeting. Do this work first, or you have no business spending money on ads.

You'll need to choose your ad platform wisely

Once you know who you're targeting and what your offer is, you can decide where to find them. This isn't about just spraying your ads everywhere. It's about being strategic. Broadly, it breaks down into two camps:

1. People actively searching for a solution (High Intent)

These people are problem-aware. They know they have a pain, and they're actively looking for a cure. You don't need to convince them they have a problem, you just need to convince them your app is the best solution.

-> Google Search Ads & Apple Search Ads: This is your top choice for high-intent users. When someone searches "best app for tracking freelance invoices" in the App Store, you want to be right there. Apple Search Ads, in particular, can be incredibly effective. I remember one app campaign we worked on where a mix of platforms including Apple Ads drove over 45,000 signups at less than £2 a pop. The key is to target specific, problem-oriented keywords, not broad terms. You'd want to test keywords like "invoice tracker app", "client management software for freelancers", "app to send payment reminders", etc.

2. People who DON'T know they need a solution (Low Intent / Discovery)

These people are scrolling through their feeds, not actively looking for you. Your job is to interrupt their scrolling with a message so relevant to their "nightmare" that it stops them in their tracks. This is about creating demand, not just capturing it.

-> Meta (Facebook/Instagram) & TikTok Ads: These platforms are unmatched for this kind of discovery-based advertising. Their targeting algorithms are scarily good at finding people who *look like* your ideal customers, even if those people haven't realised they need you yet. You can target based on interests (e.g., people who follow certain industry leaders, use competing software, or belong to relevant groups), behaviours, and by creating lookalike audiences of your best existing users. This is where you tell the "nightmare" story. For B2C apps, this is often the primary growth channel.

For a new app, I'd suggest starting with a small budget on both. Use Apple/Google Search to capture the low-hanging fruit of people already searching, and use Meta to test your messaging and start building an audience of people who resonate with the problem you solve.

You'll need a proper targeting strategy

Just choosing Meta isn't enough. You have to tell the algorithm who to find. A lot of people get this wrong. They test random audiences without any structure. A better way is to think of it like a funnel, from cold audiences to your warmest prospects, and prioritise them.

Here’s how I usually structure and prioritise audiences for an app or eCommerce account:

You start by spending most of your budget at the top (ToFu) to fill the funnel, but you make sure you have campaigns running to retarget the people who drop off at each stage. As your account gathers more data, your lookalike audiences and retargeting will become more and more effective, and your costs should come down. We saw this with a medical SaaS client where we reduced their Cost Per Acquisition from a painful £100 down to just £7 by refining this exact funnel structure.

I'd say you should stop trying to be clever with your ads

Here’s an uncomfortable truth: most startups are terrible at writing ads. They try to be clever, witty, or they just list features. Your ad copy has one job: make the user feel seen, understood, and offer them a bridge from their personal hell to a better reality. The best formulas are the simplest.

For an app, the Before-After-Bridge framework is killer:

-> Before: Describe their world right now. Paint a vivid picture of their nightmare. "Another Sunday evening ruined by the 'Sunday Scaries'. You're staring at a chaotic mess of sticky notes and a to-do list that feels impossible. Your week hasn't even started, and you're already behind."

-> After: Show them the promised land. What does life look like with your app? "Imagine waking up Monday morning, opening one app, and seeing your entire week perfectly organised. You know exactly what to focus on. You feel calm, in control, and ready to win the day."

-> Bridge: Introduce your app as the simple path from A to B. "Our app is the bridge that gets you there. Download for free and plan your first perfect week in under 5 minutes."

This structure works because it focuses on the transformation, not the features. Nobody cares that you have "AI-powered task synchronisation". They care about feeling less stressed on a Sunday night. Speak to the feeling, and you'll get the click.

We'll need to look at the biggest mistake you can make...

Finally, a word of warning. You might be tempted to run a "Brand Awareness" or "Reach" campaign on Meta. It seems logical, right? "I need more people to know about my app!"

Do not do this. It is a trap.

When you set your campaign objective to "Reach," you are giving the algorithm a very specific command: "Find me the largest number of people inside my targeting for the lowest possible price." The algorithm, being the ruthlessly efficient machine it is, does exactly that. It seeks out the users who are least likely to click, least likely to engage, and absolutely, positively least likely to ever download anything or pull out a credit card. Why? Because those users' attention is cheap. Nobody else is bidding for them.

You are actively paying the world's most powerful advertising platform to find you the worst possible audience for your app. You'll get impressive-looking numbers for reach and impressions, and it will feel like you're doing something, but your user count wont budge.

For a startup, awareness is a byproduct of performance, not a prerequisite. The best awareness you can get is a new user loving your app and telling their friends. That only happens through conversion. Always, always, always optimise your campaigns for the action you actually want. Set your objective to "App Installs" or "Conversions" (for a trial signup on your landing page). It will be more expensive per impression, but you'll be paying for users, not just eyeballs.

This is the main advice I have for you:

This is a lot to take in, I know. Running paid ads effectively is a specialism in itself. But if you focus on getting these fundamentals right, you'll be ahead of 90% of other startups trying to do the same thing. Here’s a summary of the action plan:

As you can see, it's not just about boosting a post and hoping for the best. It's a process of deep customer understanding, strategic planning, and continuous testing and optimisation. Doing it right can be the engine that drives your startup's growth. Doing it wrong is a fast way to burn through your funding with very little to show for it.

If you get to a point where you'd rather focus on building your app than becoming a full-time advertising expert, that's where people like us come in. We live and breathe this stuff every day.

We actually offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can take a closer look at your specific situation and give you some tailored advice. It might be helpful to have a second pair of expert eyes on it.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh