Maximizing Global Sales for foodspring during Black Week

Success Stories

117%


uplift vs. control group on pre-announcement communications

46%


uplift vs. control group on main Black Week campaign

20.8%


revenue attributed to CRM during Black Week


The Challenge

Peak seasons, such as Black Friday, have transformed from retail phenomena into global shopping extravaganzas, presenting unparalleled opportunities for businesses to enhance sales and deepen customer engagement.

Originally rooted in the US, events like Black Friday, along with Cyber Monday, Christmas sales, and end-of-season clearances, are pivotal times when retailers offer substantial discounts on their offerings, captivating a worldwide audience.

A robust Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy emerges as the cornerstone for navigating these frenetic periods successfully. Marketing teams meticulously prepare well in advance to develop a comprehensive user journey that leverages CRM insights to maximize sales efforts. This preparation includes deploying exclusive early-access deals for customers, crafting targeted promotion emails, and implementing a strategic post-purchase engagement plan. These initiatives are designed to not only capitalize on the immediate sales opportunities but also to strengthen long-term customer relationships.

By integrating key CRM practices, companies can effectively manage the surge in consumer interest, ensuring a seamless experience that fosters loyalty and drives significant sales uplift.

foodspring wanted to stand out from its competitors in that worldwide sales week, by preparing and delivering an impactful CRM strategy across 6 markets to capitalize on the exclusive deals available on their website during that time.

We delivered a sequence of communications before Black Week to build momentum and throughout the sales period, giving us time to assess the results and adapt our send-outs as needed. This flow was personalized based on users’ goals (losing weight, building muscle, holistic health), localized for each country (ES, IT, DE/AT, FR, UK), and also adapted to the availability of products and discount rates in each market.

Hypothesis

By offering a tailored series of emails, tailored to each user and market, we could capitalize on the Black Week momentum and increase sales generated by CRM.

Goals:

  1. Generate 60% of the Q4 CRM revenue during November
  2. Generate 15% of total revenue from CRM channels

Examples of tailored Black Friday email campaigns

The Solution

The setup

We designed 10+ emails to create a tailored user journey, while maintaining CRM health metrics in a healthy range. Most users received up to 5 emails for the Black Week period.

The flow started with a Black Friday Week Pre-Announcement (see pic below), to generate enthusiasm ahead of the sale. We followed by promotional emails during the Black Week, highlighting at least 3 products with unique discounts per markets, and personalized for the users’ goals. Before the end of the Black Week, we sent other communications to play with urgency, nudging users to get the deals before it’s too late thanks to on-point, engaging copywriting.

We used canvases to be able to be more efficient in our personalization, along with liquid logic to create content that would change depending on the users’ country, language, and goal.

Black Friday is a cornerstone of our eCommerce strategy. With careful planning, personalized content and clear messaging, we were able to drive excitement and re-activation amongst our consumer base.

Katherine Sparshatt — Senior Manager eCommerce, foodspring

The Results

  1. Reached the November Monthly Target (103,7%); 76% of the Q4 OKR.
  2. Best day YTD and Second best in the history of foodspring (total sales).
  3. 20,8% of the revenue came from CRM during Black Week.
  4. Pre-announcement generated a 116.8% uplift vs. the control group
  5. Black Week main campaign generated a 46.07% uplift vs the control groups
  6. Bounce rate: 0.02% / Unsubscribe rate: 0.3%

The learnings

Learning #1: Differentiation through Dynamic Content

During peak seasons, the digital landscape becomes highly competitive. Our strategy focused on differentiating our communications to capture customer attention effectively. We ensured our copywriting was not only engaging but also infused with a sense of urgency to prompt action. Additionally, we incorporated GIFs in our emails to add a dynamic and visually appealing element. This approach helped our messages stand out in crowded inboxes, making a memorable impact on our audience. Using a countdown can also be beneficial.

 

Learning #2: The Power of Pre-Announcements

We discovered that pre-announcing our sales had a significant positive impact on revenue. By capitalizing on the anticipation and excitement leading up to the event, we were able to warm up our customers to the upcoming deals. Our pre-announcement communications needed to be clear and strategically direct customers to areas that maximized their interest and potential spend. Similarly, offering exclusive deals to your most loyal customers before the general sale is proved to be effective, reinforcing their value to your brand and enhancing revenue.

 

Learning #3: Prioritizing Long-term Engagement

Peak seasons offer an excellent opportunity to not only boost immediate sales but also to re-engage former customers and strengthen long-term relationships. We tailored our outreach to churned users by personalizing content based on their previous shopping preferences, demonstrating our understanding and value of their individual needs. This strategy not only contributed to immediate sales uplift but also rekindled relationships with lapsed customers, fostering long-term loyalty.

Learning #4: Minimizing Lost Sales through Abandoned Cart Strategies

An integral part of our peak season strategy involved addressing the issue of abandoned carts. By implementing a dedicated flow to engage customers who had not completed their purchases, we significantly reduced lost sales. This effort was crucial in achieving our sales targets and demonstrated the importance of a holistic approach to customer engagement, ensuring that potential sales were not left unaddressed.

 

Learning #5: Balancing Email Frequency with Health Metrics

During peak seasons, increasing the frequency of email communications can be an effective strategy to capture attention amidst heightened competition. However, it’s crucial to balance this with vigilant monitoring of health metrics to ensure ongoing effectiveness and deliverability. By paying close attention to bounce rates, unsubscribe rates, and adhering to a sunset policy, companies can maintain the overall health of their email campaigns. Adjusting strategies based on these signals ensures that increased communication does not adversely affect customer perception or engagement, thereby safeguarding long-term CRM success.


“foodspring is a German web-based e-commerce D2C company, serving 6 different markets across Europe. They are enthusiastic nutritionists, sports experts, and athletes. Their goal is to develop the most natural and innovative foods of our time. No matter whether this is all about sports nutrition, functional foods, or superfoods – we take food to a whole new level. Every one of our products has its promise of quality. Best ingredients are processed sustainably to maintain the nutritional value.”

Client: foodspring
Website: https://foodspring.com
Services: CRM / Retention / Engagement


How a New, Seasonal Apple Search Ads Strategy Helped Planta Harvest a 335% Increase in Installs

How a New, Seasonal Apple Search Ads Strategy Helped Planta Harvest a 335% Increase in Installs

335%

year-on-year increase in installs (January to July)

380%

increase in year-on-year ASA spend for same period


The Challenge

Planta is a (fantastic) example of an app solving a need and quickly ushering users towards the aha! moment, with slick CRM and eye-catching design. Quite simply, the Planta app identifies your house plants, then notifies you when it’s time to water, fertilize, mist, and clean. There’s also nifty features that diagnose plant diseases and recommend optimal light.

The plantcare category has proven fertile ground for new entrants to the market, with increased competition for Apple Search Ads (ASA) during high season. In light of this, Planta wanted to continue to acquire users and make sure that seasonal spikes in search volume were efficiently converted into growth. To do so, Planta approached Phiture to refresh user acquisition in the US market, while keeping the Return on Investment (ROI) up – and Cost Per Install down.

The Solution

We prepared our ground in the fallow months of November and December, ready for the growth season that begins in January when many users seek to change their plantcare habits. We prepared by exploring the plantcare category, closely observing Planta’s competitors, and identifying potential areas for improvement. We also started with low-hanging fruit, such as tweaking the campaign structure and expanding the keyword list and optimizing keyword performance.

Just like with plantcare, we knew that acquiring more users in an increasingly busy marketplace depended on finding the right ratio of multiple factors, and continuously tweaking them for success in light of the changing environment.

Phiture’s multi-faceted approach rested on expanding new campaign types, in particular Discovery and Probing campaigns. The aim of this was to expand our generic keyword list, which would reap a huge harvest in search volumes later.

At the same time, new Custom Product Pages (CPPs) highlighted different features of the app to appeal to new users, and we experimented with different ASA placements, such as the “Search Tab” and “Product Pages.” We knew from experience that CPPs were likely to lead to an extremely cost-efficient scaling of the campaigns.

Once we were convinced we had the right mix to seed growth, we scaled up. To ensure Cost Per Sale stayed within budget, we had open communication with our friends at Planta, with updates of blended targets and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) of new users, informing our bidding strategy to keep our campaigns profitable. We also developed an automated report internally to check the lower funnel performance to make sure it was growing nicely.

Our 380% increase in year-on-year ASA spend for January to July was rewarded with a 335% year-on-year increase in installs for the same period.

The Results

The results of these US campaigns were tremendous. Our 380% increase in year-on-year ASA spend for January to July was rewarded with a 335% year-on-year increase in installs for the same period. The strategy of new campaign types and new ASA placements helped volumes, making the most of the seasonal growth. In particular it was the Generic campaigns that really contributed to the rapid growth, though the fertile mix of campaign types, placements, CPPs, automation rules, and continuous optimizations all played their part.

Even more impressive was keeping the Cost Per Install below target for the entire engagement, which was the result of continuous maintenance and careful bid optimization from our Performance Marketing Team.

To ensure long-lasting growth, at the end of the engagement we passed on all our learnings to Planta so future growth could be managed during their low season.


Planta’s mobile app offers individual care schedules and reminders for your plants, recommendations, step by step guides, identification, light meter and more.

Client: Planta
Website: https://getplanta.com
Services: Performance Marketing, Apple Search Ads


How we used Meta ads to secure signatures for a crucial climate referendum

How we used Meta ads to secure signatures for a crucial climate referendum

261968

signatures collected


The Challenge

Klimaneustart approached Phiture with a singular, vital challenge: collect 175 000 signatures from Berliners over a three week period for a petition, starting immediately. The stakes were high; by reaching this threshold of signatures Klimaneustart’s campaign would help trigger a referendum to make Berlin climate neutral by 2030. Our Performance Marketing Team got to work.

“We really appreciate the incredibly valuable input Phiture gave us for our project- especially as our goals were a little out of the ordinary! They went above and beyond to make sure the social campaigns worked for us and were very grateful for their expertise. Thanks again!”

Klimaneustart

The Solution

The solution was an acquisition strategy via Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and rested on twin strategic aims. One: reach as many people as possible. Two: direct users to Telegram groups via a lead generation campaign. Tracking was extremely limited, but by using the reach of ads and the people joining Telegram groups as an approximate indicator for signatures – and success – the Team set about testing different target audiences. This was achieved by honing in on users based in Berlin, and focussing in on those with sustainability interests as well as ‘lookalikes’ based on user interactions.

The Results

The broad reach campaign helped significantly expand the pool of users aware of the initiative and ultimately interacting with the page. Over the three week period, Phiture and Klimaneustart reached over 500,000 people and achieved over 1,000,000 impressions on Meta. Overall Klimaneustart was able to surpass its signature goal to reach a total of 261,968 signatures.


Klimaneustart Berlin is a grassroots movement that promotes exchange between citizens, science, and politics on an equal footing. The declaration of the climate emergency in 2019 and the convening of the Berlin Climate Citizens’ Council in 2021 go back to successful popular initiatives of ours.
The organization is currently working together with an alliance of more than 26 organizations to make Berlin 2030 climate-neutral. For this end, they rewrote the Berlin Climate Protection and Energy Transition Act and collected over 260,000 signatures to bring about a referendum. Their proposal will be put to the vote on March 26, 2023.

Client: Klimaneustart
Website: https://klimaneustart.de
Services: Performance Marketing


How we helped Pura Mente define an ASO strategy

How we helped Pura Mente define an ASO strategy

387%

Increase in first-time installs


The Challenge

Pura Mente is the number one meditation app in Spanish speaking markets. The challenge was how to maintain this leading position, especially in the highly competitive app stores. With this goal in mind, Phiture was tasked with auditing Pura Mente’s current ASO activities and finding areas for improvement in keyword optimization, creative visuals, and descriptive copy. In addition, Pura Mente were keen to establish their own ASO team and maintain cutting-edge ASO practices once their cooperation with Phiture ended.

“Working with Phiture was an exceptional experience, as they shared invaluable insights on ASO, retention, growth and beyond.”

Juan Hardoy, CMO
@ Pura Mente

The Solution

360° Audit:

Phiture began by creating an overview of Pura Mente’s current mobile growth efforts. Not only did this include performing an ASO audit on Pura Mente’s current app store practices, but a review of additional growth activities such as Performance Marketing, Retention and Customer Relationship Management, User Interface and User Experience.

By identifying where the initial strengths and weaknesses lay, Phiture found a number of opportunities for development and could confidently make recommendations for areas requiring further attention during the experimentation phase.

Experimentation Phase:

Drawing on the expertise of its Design, Performance Marketing and ASO teams, Phiture entered into an experimentation phase where different variables of video, product screenshots and descriptive copy were A/B tested against one another over a six month period. By experimenting in this way, and by building on the cumulative learnings of 25 iterations, Phiture was able to accurately identify the optimal combination of app store page components for Pura Mente’s future install growth.

Upon conclusion of the cooperation, Phiture was able to provide Pura Mente with a solution for producing “creative hits” by first testing creative concepts and then extending the resulting wins through a process of iteration. The themes and variants used to build these creative assets were defined by Phiture’s marketing and creative staff, with regular input from data and product teams too. In this way Pura Mente were able to benefit from Phiture’s established culture of cross-team collaboration.

The Results

As a result of the cooperation with Phiture, Pura Mente saw their first installs increase by 387%. Of this increase 9,638 came within the first seven days of experimental testing. Phiture were systematic and transparent in all experimentation activities and kept Pura Mente informed of the planned actions and results every step of the way.

The knowledge behind how this increase in installs was achieved was also delivered to the client. Phiture created a dossier of recommendations for future ASO activities, as well as recommendations for performance marketing strategies, user interface developments and user experience improvements, enabling the Pura Mente team to conduct future experiments.

The partnership allowed Pura Mente to witness the inner processes of an industry-leading ASO consultancy and gain invaluable experience when building their own in-house ASO team later in the cooperation. As well as receiving weekly updates, Pura Mente was granted special access to Phiture’s own mobile growth toolkit and data analysis dashboard.

Phiture are pleased to learn that after this cooperation, Pura Mente have built an ASO team dedicated to creating new growth strategies. By using Phiture’s recommended Monthly Creative Ideation Process, Pura Mente’s in-house ASO team now conducts weekly meetings to analyze experiment results, process data and benchmark for future campaigns.


Pura Mente is a meditation app for Spanish-speaking people.

Client: Pura Mente
Website: https://puramente.app
Services: ASO

 


How Phiture’s localization expertise helped Sololearn identify new markets and reduce cost per trial by 40%

How Phiture’s localization expertise helped Sololearn identify new markets and reduce cost per trial by 40%

30+

Markets

-49%

Cost-per-Install (ASA)

-40%

Cost-per-Trial (ASA)


The Challenge

Sololearn is a leading online learning platform and aims to make learning to code simple and accessible, all through its mobile app. Sololearn wanted to improve its performance across all channels while also understanding the impact of new markets. For this challenge, Phiture’s positive track record with app performance marketing in lots of different markets as well as our capacity to quickly turn around localized creative concepts, was a key factor in Sololearn’s decision to partner with Phiture.

Working with Phiture was easy, as we found a fast and efficient iteration model for our Paid User Acquisition strategy. You can tell that they know what they are talking about and they know how to listen and include customer feedback in their processes and strategies.

If I had to highlight two aspects, it would be the integral management of the creative process, as well as the quality and granularity of the reporting (going from the operational to the most granular possible).

David Sánchez, 
Head of Growth @ Sololearn

The Solution

To understand which markets had the most potential for Sololearn’s services, Phiture set about localizing keywords and creative assets for Apple Search Ads (ASA) and Google App Campaigns (GAC).

We quickly created an extensive campaign structure for ASA in the ‘Tier 1’ markets Sololean wished to target. The structure of this campaign allowed us to continuously expand the keyword lists in different languages and markets with the aid of keyword automation scripts, as well as to test the Custom Product Pages (CPPs) for the main keyword themes. We used the learnings gathered from these Tier 1 campaigns to efficiently test new markets and scale expansion in Tier 2 markets.

For GAC, we created multiple rounds of creative assets to test various creative themes in both Tier 1 and Tier 2 markets. The scale of these tests were adjusted according to market size, with the creatives being localized into multiple languages for higher conversion rates.

The Results

Over the course of six months, Phiture tested 20+ new markets on GAC and 30+ new markets on ASA. In the process, we tested more than ten different creative localized themes and observed an uplift in all main metrics across both Tier 1 and Tier 2 markets.

Within the first month, for ASA, Installs, Signups, and Trials increased by +14.76%, +29.94% and +14.66%, respectively while Cost per Install, Cost per Signup, and Cost Per Trial dropped by -49.94%, -47.21% and -40.18%, respectively.

For GAC, Installs and Signups increased by+35.57% and +48.01%, respectively while Cost per Install and Cost per Signup dropped by -50.34% and -54.58%, respectively.

The learnings from both channels, in terms of volume and positive unit economics, ultimately informed Sololearn’s expansion strategy.


Sololearn is on a mission to build the most fun, accessible, and effective technical learning experience worldwide. We aim to help anyone, anywhere bridge the technical skills gap to future, life-changing careers. We’re changing the way people learn how to code by building a habit-forming experience for people to learn at their own pace, with bite-sized lessons and unique ways to practice.

 

Client: Sololearn
Website: https://sololearn.com
Services: Performance Marketing

 


How Lifesum Increased its Conversion Rate to Premium by 12.58%, with the Help of B.Layer In-App Messages

How Lifesum Increased its Conversion Rate to Premium by 12.58%, with the Help of B.Layer In-App Messages

12.6%

increase in conversion rate to premium plan


The Challenge

Lifesum is a leading nutrition platform that helps people make conscious decisions toward a healthy and balanced lifestyle. A major part of Lifesum’s engagement strategy is using In-App Messages. For this end, Lifesum needed a tool that would use minimal development resources, allowing their Product Marketing Team to be self-sufficient and execute quickly.

Lifesum needed a tool that would contribute well to their broader mobile growth aims, easily slotting into their day-to-day work and strategy to help increase engagement and retention of users. The tool would need to be simple to use while at the same time ensure that IAMs are on brand, eye-catching, and consistent. These messages would also need to be able to use this tool for surveys, to capture the preferences of their users.

“BLayer has been instrumental in helping us onboard users successfully, promote specific features inside the app, distribute content in various formats such as Video IAMs, as well as run multi-step IAMs and surveys to gather user feedback and provide more personalized messages based on their input.”

Kristijan Arsov, Lifecycle Marketing Manager

@ Lifesum

The Solution

B.Layer was a natural fit for this requirement. B.Layer is designed to help mobile apps’ CRM teams create custom designed IAMs simply, rapidly, and without coding.

Of particular value to the Lifesum team was B.Layer’s brand assets feature to make sure all IAMs are always on brand in terms of fonts and colors, while the templates make sure all IAMs look consistent in terms of layout, size, and button designs.

Existing messages are also easily duplicated, allowing the user to change out the images, copy, and CTAs, and have a brand new message ready in a matter of minutes. B.Layer’s functionality to create a survey IAM also met a core requirement of Lifesum. All messages that are built in B.Layer can then be exported as HTML and uploaded to the CRM tool.  In one particular instance, Lifesum created a multi-step survey which asked users what kind of physical activities they enjoy. Depending on the answers, users were led to different, further questions, and ultimately to different meal plans that best suited their activities, for example the “Runner’s Diet.”

The Results

Using B.Layer’s IAMs, the Lifesum team have recorded impressive wins. In reference to the multi step survey mentioned above, Lifesum measured a +12.48% increase in conversions to Premium among their segment of Free users, while in the Premium segment, Lifesum measured a +22.88% increase in users who started a Meal Plan (any), a +58.82% increase in users who selected the “Runner’s Diet” Meal Plan, and a +294.28% increase in users who selected the “Eat, Lift, Repeat” Meal Plan.

Working with B.Layer has saved the Lifesum team time and resources, allowing their Product Team to quickly create custom IAMs. The smooth integration with Braze means that once a message is ready, Lifesum only need to download the ZIP file with all the assets and upload it into a Braze campaign.

Lifesum have also launched multiple In-App Surveys with different goals built in BLayer, using this feature in use cases such as registering users’ interests in specific challenges or giveaways, or asking users about their lifestyle preferences and then using the data to suggest personalized content.


Lifesum is the world’s leading nutrition platform, helping over 55 million global users to improve baseline health through better eating. Whether the goal is to lose weight or simply have more energy throughout the day, the Lifesum app offers science-backed, personalized nutrition at scale and features a variety of meal plans, healthy recipes, trackers and more based on users’ goals, dietary restrictions and lifestyle. Visit Lifesum.com for more information.

 

Client: Lifesum
Website: https://lifesum.com
Services: Retention, B.Layer

 


How Targeted In-App Messages Super-Charged Headspace’s Push Opt-Ins

Success Stories

157%

uplift in push opt-ins


The Challenge

Headspace is one of Phiture’s oldest clients and is today a well-established, global brand, switching to a full subscription model in 2021. The team at Headspace approached Phiture for help after noticing opt-in rates on iOS were relatively low, especially in the German market. Push notifications contribute to Headspace’s user experience, so it’s important to encourage as many users as possible to opt in as efficiently and unobtrusively as possible.

“In a world in which we are bombarded with notifications and emails every day, Headspace and Phiture combined forces to overcome the challenge of re-opting in unsubscribed Headspace users. Phiture quickly understood the assignment and supported every step of the process, from ideation to execution, to gathering insightful data, optimizations, and implementing tests that considered localized nuances. Working together, we have been able to run experiments that ultimately increased our contactable user base.”

Carolina Neves, International Lifecycle Marketing Manager

@ Headspace

The Solution

Phiture implemented a new strategy to encourage push notification opt-ins, based on user lifecycle. Free trialists and existing subscribers now received different opt-in prompts. For free trialists, Phiture tested the idea of asking users to opt-in to remind them of their free trial ending, thus avoiding dissatisfaction. For subscribers, Phiture launched several initiatives depending on language settings. For the German language segment, an ‘opt-in nudge’ was implemented in the onboarding canvas, without interrupting meditation sessions. For the English language segment, the opt-in initiatives were triggered when users opened the app (unless they started a meditation). The window for the in-app message was also increased to last up to 3 weeks, helping prolong the opportunity to win back less active users.

The Results

Implementing this strategy took three months, and, by the end, the revamped user journey with targeted in-app notifications yielded fantastic results. Phiture achieved an +118.35% uplift in push opt-ins in the German language segment of free trialists. We also reached a  +157.05% uplift in the English language segment of members in GDPR countries that had completed one meditation.

These initiatives have increased the total percentage of users that opted in to push notifications for both Android and iOS, proving that the right message at the right time is crucial – this is especially important with Android 13’s changes to push notification permissions. Headspace now has a higher reachable audience to target with regular communications.


Headspace is the everyday app for feeling better — with guided lessons on mindfulness, sleep, and simply remembering to breathe.

Client: Headspace
Website: https://headspace.com
Services: Retention, B.Layer

 


How we successfully scaled Hallow’s TikTok audience to support growth in key markets

How We Successfully Scaled Hallow’s TikTok Audience To Support Growth in Key Markets

300%

increase in installs and purchases

412%

increase in installs during Lent

230%

increase in installs during Easter


The Challenge

How to scale TikTok as a channel to further Hallow’s growth, incorporating seasonal campaign launches with a specific focus on key markets to support ambitious growth goals.

“Phiture has been an insanely valuable partner over our high growth period during the last 6-9 months. Salah, Maria, Diogo, and Mila were all extremely knowledgeable and came in immediately (and every week) with recommendations and action items to continue lowering our CACs and overall helping us to scale our channels and markets. Our scale and success on a number of channels wouldn’t be possible without Phiture.”

Evan Laird, Head of Marketing

@ Hallow

The Solution

We began by testing targeting options with TikTok, to determine appropriate segments within the potential audience. We then established a creative testing mechanism that focused on identifying creative wins quickly and efficiently; eventually unlocking User Generated Content as a key to success on TikTok, and ultimately expanding to additional markets. Phiture also helped Hallow with the big Lent and Easter campaign launches on TikTok.

Hallow Case Study feature graphic

The Results

On TikTok we were able to see early results within 3-5 weeks, which led to an increase in installs and purchases of almost 300%. Since then, TikTok has been established as one of the key marketing channels for Hallow. During the main events for Lent and Easter; we managed to scale up the volumes while maintaining performance efficiencies achieving increases in installs of 412% for Lent, and 230% for Easter.


Hallow is a Catholic prayer & meditation app to help you find peace, deepen your relationship with God, and sleep soundly every night.

Client: Hallow
Website: https://hallow.com
Services: Performance Marketing, TikTok

 

Hallow logo


How We Slashed Once Upon's Cost Per Install (CPI) with Different Apple Search Ads Strategies

How We Slashed Once Upon's Cost Per Install (CPI) with Different Apple Search Ads Strategies

32%

year-over-year decrease in cost per install (CPI)

240%

ROI in 2021


The Challenge

Once Upon launched in 2017 and represented a new frontier for the photo books industry, being app-only. After several years of sustained organic growth Once Upon was ready to add to its app product and expand its customer base. The motivated team wanted to acquire as many new customers as possible, however it was important to maintain a low cost per install and cost per engagement. For Once Upon, the key engagement metric is known as cost per second post. This is very industry-specific and refers to the second time a user posts a picture in the app.

Phiture, who manages Once Upon’s app advertising, was tasked with finding a solution that could reduce the costs of such engagement while still keeping pace with ambitious acquisition goals.

“In Phiture we found a partner who could guide us with their expertise to quick wins. They massively helped to decrease our cost per install while their strategic thinking also drove engagement with users on our platform: a double-edged success.”

Johan Schiller, Co-Founder & Chairman of the Board

@ Once Upon

The Solution

Phiture’s Consultants took time to analyze Once Upon’s existing identifying Apple Search Ads (ASA) as a key strategic area for improvement for Once Upon, and presented Skai’s App Marketing solution as a great fit for their needs. To increase volume at an efficient cost per acquisition and maintain a profitable ROI, Phiture tested different strategies in different markets, including experimentation with distribution order rules, targetting returning users, and launching weekend campaigns.

These experiments quickly improved the performance of Once Upon’s ASA campaigns and drove outstanding results. In addition, for the first time, Once Upon’s mobile measurement partner data was organized with advertising performance data in a single platform. This allowed for high-level optimization and data-driven decision-making, ultimately contributing to more awareness and business for Once Upon.

The Results

Phiture drove big improvements to performance which included a dramatic 32% year-over-year decrease in cost per install and a 61% year-over-year decrease in cost per second post. This represented a ROI of over 100% in the first months of the engagement in 2020, while for the whole of 2021, Phiture achieved an incredible ROI of approximately 240%.

Additionally, Phiture nearly tripled the number of Apple’s App Store targets in the process testing over 12,500 keywords.


Once Upon allows its users to quickly, easily, and beautifully make photo books from pictures on their phones, and was launched on the App Store and Google Play in 2017, in Skellefteå, Sweden. Once Upon has print shops in Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia while the app is available in 12 languages and has nearly three million downloads. Once Upon photo books have been sold in 109 countries worldwide.

Client: OnceUpon
Website: https://onceupon.photo
Services: Performance Marketing, Apple Search Ads

 


soundcloud case study

Optimizing SoundCloud's Onboarding With the Help of Motivational Theory

Success Stories

soundcloud case study phiture

+18.5%

increase of creators completing the key onboarding metrics


The Challenge

SoundCloud is an artist-first platform powered by an ecosystem of creators uploading content for consumption by SoundCloud’s vast user base of listeners. Providing creators with a distribution platform and the opportunity to interact with millions of unique listeners creates a feedback loop benefiting both creators and listeners. The more music creators upload, the more opportunity they have to build a following, whilst also providing a richer experience for listeners on the platform.

With this in mind, SoundCloud seeks to increase the number of first time uploaders (creators) to return and upload more music. A cluster segmentation analysis showed that early lifecycle behaviors and validation metrics affect creator retention down the line. SoundCloud identified three critical events that, if performed within the first few days of a creator’s first upload, will lead to:

  • Higher long-term creator retention and lower churn for core creator activities
  • Higher session counts
  • Higher subscription conversion rates

Increasing retention is a common goal amongst industry leaders – and is becoming increasingly difficult as the competitive landscape for sharing and streaming music becomes crowded. Leveraging personalized lifecycle marketing is one of the key levers to activate & engage new creators early on by nudging them toward key creator actions early on in their lifecycle.

Understanding this shift away from simply educating users during onboarding, the goal was to design an experience that prompts creators to complete these actions within their first three days, i.e., with a sense of urgency.

“Through their expertise in behavioral science, Phiture helped us both onboard and retain first-time creators in our platform, an essential goal for SoundCloud’s success. The creator onboarding series had the exact result we were hoping for, showing the usual knowledge and expertise we’ve come to expect from them.”

Marcus Holder, Senior CRM Manager
@ SoundCloud

The Solution

Phiture designed an experiment that utilized a well-researched psychological concept called the “endowed progress effect” and activated the power of in-app messaging.

The “first upload series” is a series of CRM communications that is triggered as an onboarding program when a user uploads their first track. It is growth marketing’s first chance to reinforce SoundCloud’s value props and help creators finding success connecting with listeners, getting their music heard and beginning to build a following) quickly.

The “endowed progress effect” is a phenomenon whereby people provided with artificial advancement towards a goal exhibit greater persistence towards reaching the goal (Nunes and Drze, 2006).

With this theory in mind, we built a creator onboarding series that uses a psychological framework to drive creators to complete 3 key metrics that have been identified by SoundCloud to increase creator retention.

soundcloud

The Results

+18.56% uplift in creator onboarding – i.e., creators completing key metrics identified by SoundCloud.

Motivating new users to complete key events within their first three days helps to reduce the time spent by artists getting set up on the platform, increasing their opportunity to interact with listeners and build a following. Optimizing onboarding in this way, utilizing innovative new research and concepts, helps to balance the quantitative with qualitative. It is important to utilize psychological concepts as a lever for CRM experiments, as this approach can help to identify high-impact tests based on well-researched concepts that are rooted in evidence-based, human psychology.


SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website based in Berlin, Germany, that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio.

Client: SoundCloud
Website: https://soundcloud.com/
Services: Onboarding, CRM, In-App

 

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