Solved: Startup Ad Spend Strategy on a Bootstrapped Budget

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your situation. It's a common spot to be in for a bootstrapped founder, trying to figure out how to get that initial traction without a massive VC-backed budget.

The short answer is that "blowing up your app" isn't really about how much you spend, but *how* you spend it. Just pouring more money into what you're currently doing probably won't get you where you want to be. You need a bit of a shift in thinking from just chasing traffic to acquiring actual, valuable users. Lets get into it.

We'll need to look at your customer's problem, not your traffic numbers...

Right, first things first. Forget the idea of 'blowing up'. That's vanity. What you need is a solid, predictable way to get customers. Most founders get this wrong. They build an app, then try to find people to use it. You need to do it the other way around: find a painful problem, and then show how your app is the only solution.

Forget sterile, demographic-based profiles like "millennials interested in tech". That tells you nothing and leads to generic ads that speak to no one. To stop burning cash, you must define your customer by their pain. You need to become an expert in their specific, urgent, expensive nightmare.

Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't a person; it's a problem state. Is your app for a new manager terrified of their first performance review? Is it for a student drowning in revision notes before their final exams? That's your target. Not 'managers aged 25-35' or 'students'. The pain is what matters.

Once you've isolated that nightmare, everything else falls into place. Your ad copy writes itself. Your targeting becomes laser-focused. You're no longer shouting into the void; you're whispering a solution into the ear of someone who is desperate to hear it. Do this work first, or you have no business spending another pound on ads. It's the difference between a campaign that works and one that just drains your bank account.

You probably should rethink your channel strategy...

Your current mix of a bit of Google Ads and organic social is a classic bootstrapped approach, but it's probably not going to get you the growth you want. Organic social is a long, hard grind when you're starting from zero. It takes months, if not years, to build an audience that trusts you enough to download an app. You don't have that kind of time.

Small budget Google Ads can also be a money pit if you're not careful. If you're targeting broad keywords, you're competing with companies with much deeper pockets. You end up paying for clicks from people who are just browsing, not ready to solve a problem.

You need to choose your main battleground. For an app, there are basically two types of paid channels:

-> For people actively looking for a solution: This is where Google Search Ads and Apple Search Ads come in. People are literally typing their problem into a search bar. If your app solves that problem, you need to be there. Apple Search Ads can be particularly effective because your ad appears right at the top of the App Store search results, at the exact moment someone is looking to download an app like yours. It's as high-intent as it gets.

-> For people who don't know they need a solution yet: This is for social media ads on platforms like Meta (Facebook/Instagram) and TikTok. Here, you're interrupting them while they're scrolling. Your ad needs to grab them by the throat and show them a problem they didn't even realise they could solve. This is harder, but it's how you create new demand and can often be cheaper per install if you get the targeting and creative right.

So which one is for you? It depends on your app. Are people already searching for what you do? Start with Apple and Google search. If not, you'll need to create the demand on social. Either way, pick ONE channel and focus all your initial energy and budget there. Don't spread yourself thin.

In terms of cost, it varies massively, but for B2C app installs, you are generally looking at something in the range of £1-£5 per install in developed countries. We had one app client get over 45,000 signups at under £2 each across Meta, TikTok, Apple and Google Ads, so it is definitely achievable. B2B is a different beast and will be significantly more expensive.

I'd say you need to understand your numbers before spending a penny more...

Okay, this is probably the most important part of this whole letter. The question "how much should I spend?" is the wrong question. The real question is, "How high a cost per install can I afford to acquire a truly great user?"

The answer lies in its counterpart: Lifetime Value (LTV). This is the total profit you expect to make from a single user over the entire time they use your app. If you don't know this number, you're flying blind. You have no idea if your £3 cost per install is a bargain or a disaster.

Here's a simple way to calculate it for a subscription app:

1. Average Revenue Per User (ARPU): What do you make per user, per month? Let's say it's £15.
2. Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue after app store fees, server costs, etc? Let's say it's 70%.
3. Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of users cancel their subscription each month? Let's say it's 5%.

Now, the calculation is:

LTV = (ARPU * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

LTV = (£15 * 0.70) / 0.05
LTV = £10.50 / 0.05 = £210

In this example, each user is worth £210 in gross margin to your business over their lifetime. Now you have the truth. A healthy business model aims for at least a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. This means you can afford to spend up to £70 (£210 / 3) to acquire a single paying user.

Suddenly, that £3 cost per install doesn't just look good, it looks incredible. You can see how this math completely changes the game. It frees you from the tyranny of cheap installs and lets you focus on acquiring high-value users, even if they cost a bit more upfront. Use the calculator below to play with your own numbers.

You'll need a message they can't ignore...

Once you know whose nightmare your solving and what you can afford to pay to reach them, your ads need to speak their language. That means no more boring feature lists. No one cares that your app has 'AI-powered synchronisation'. They care about what it *does* for them. It needs to sell the destination, not the aeroplane.

The best way to do this is with a framework called Before-After-Bridge.

Before: You describe their current world, their nightmare. You twist the knife a little. You show them you understand their frustration on a deep level.
After: You paint a picture of the dream world, where their problem is gone. This is the "after" state they'll be in once they use your app.
Bridge: You introduce your app as the simple, easy bridge to get them from the 'before' to the 'after'.

For example, if your app helps people learn a language:

(Before) "Another holiday booked and you're still pointing at menus? Feeling embarrassed you can only say 'hola' and 'gracias'?"
(After) "Imagine confidently ordering dinner for the whole table in fluent Spanish, charming the waiter and impressing your friends."
(Bridge) "Our app gets you conversational in 15 minutes a day. Download now and your first lesson is on us."

See the difference? It's not about features; it's about transformation. This is what gets people to stop scrolling and actually click the download button. It connects with an emotion, not just a logical need.

You'll need to forget 'brand awareness' for now...

This is an uncomfortable truth about advertising on platforms like Meta. When you set your campaign objective to "Reach" or "Brand Awareness," you are giving the algorithm a very specific command: "Find me the largest number of people for the lowest possible price."

And the algorithm does exactly what you asked. It seeks out the users inside your targeting who are least likely to click, least likely to engage, and absolutely, positively least likely to ever install an app or pull out a credit card. Why? Because those users are not in demand. Their attention is cheap. By choosing 'awareness', you are actively paying the world's most powerful advertising machine to find you the absolute worst possible audience for your product.

As a bootstrapped startup, this is suicide. You cannot afford to spend money on 'getting your name out there'. Every pound must be an investment with an expected return. Awareness is a byproduct of having a great app that solves a real problem and making sales, not a prerequisite for it.

That is why, for the foreseeable future, 100% of your ad budget must be spent on campaigns with a CONVERSION objective. On Meta, that's 'Sales' (even if your app is free, you optimise for installs or in-app events). On Google, it's 'App promotion'. This tells the algorithm: "Don't just find me people. Find me people who are like the people who have already downloaded and used my app." This is the only way to build a scalable, profitable user acquisition engine.

So, what should you really be spending?

Let's bring this all back to your original question. I can't give you a single number, because as you've seen, it depends entirely on your LTV. But I can give you a framework.

I usually recommend a starting test budget of around £1,000 - £2,000 per month for a single channel. This is enough to get statistically significant data within a few weeks, but not so much that it'll break the bank if your first few attempts don't work. Your goal with this initial budget isn't to get thousands of users. Your goal is to find ONE winning combination of audience, ad creative, and messaging that gets you installs below your affordable CAC. That's it.

Once you find that winning combination, that's when you start to scale. You don't just increase the budget randomly. You do it slowly, maybe 20% every few days, and watch your cost per install like a hawk. If it stays stable, you keep scaling. If it starts to climb, you pull back and investigate why. Maybe the audience is saturated, and it's time to test a new one.

This is the process. It's not a 'set it and forget it' machine. It's a system of constant testing, learning, and optimising. It's more science than art, and it requires patience. But it's how you build a sustainable growth engine for your app, rather than just getting a temporary spike in traffic from an ad campaign that you can't replicate.

This is the main advice I have for you:

I know this is a lot to take in, and it's a very different way of thinking than just "running some ads". This disciplined, numbers-driven approach is what separates the apps that grow sustainably from the ones that burn through their cash and disappear.

It can be a lot of work to set up and manage correctly, especially when you're also trying to run the rest of the business. This is often where getting some expert help can make a huge difference, saving you from making costly mistakes in the beginning and accelerating your path to finding what works.

If you'd like to go through your specific situation in more detail, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can have a look at your app and your goals and give you a more tailored plan of action.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh