After seeing dozens of new iOS apps struggle with paid ads, they ultimately failed by burning thousands of dollars because they didn’t know one or all of these five key things to maximize their chances of success.

This article has a straightforward goal: to save you thousands of dollars in consulting fees or unnecessary SaaS costs by helping you allocate your budget wisely to grow your app.

Ads are an investment

This one will sound cliche, but most people forget that by giving your money away to Meta or Google, you will get something in return, and that’s not always the case.

You pay these tech giants for a straightforward reason:

1. Show your product to their users and offer them incentives to start using it by paying them per 1,000 impressions.

When you're a new app with almost no budget, the game relies on maximizing your learning by minimizing losses as much as possible. And trust me, knowing that ads are an investment is the first step to being aligned.

The following points in the article may help you save time and money.

Less is more

If you are new to this world, my recommendation, after managing over $200 million in ad spending and advising more than 50 apps, is to focus on one thing and ensure you truly understand it.

How does this translate to the real world?

1. Start with one ad network instead of multiple at the same time. For example, start with Meta.

2. Run one or two ad campaigns simultaneously.

3. Target one country to analyze user behaviour.

4. Don’t overinvest in ad production, just keep it simple.

5. Let the algorithm do its job. Do not affect the learning phase.

The hypothesis is simple: it is more likely to excel at one thing by focusing on it.

If you want Apple’s ask for Apple’s

A big mistake beginners make is to optimize for installs when they are looking for specific in-app events like:

1. Trial started

2. Subscriptions

3. Purchases

4. Onboarding completed

The thing is quite simple. If you want something, ask for it. Like in the real world. But with ads, there’s a caveat. And this is the hidden word that will define if it will work: “signals”.

This essentially means that to optimize for trials (which, of course, will be more expensive than installs), you must ensure that you can generate as many conversions as possible to send back to the ad network for optimization purposes.

For example:

1. You have an iOS app that offers a seven-day free trial

2. Started to run ads on Meta, optimizing for trials

3. You have a daily budget that’s so low that you struggle to generate at least five trials per day

4. The result is that Meta won’t be able to learn fast enough, resulting in bad performance

5. A counterpart for this will be to switch and optimize for installs

For this case, you must target at least 10 trials per day per campaign. If your cost per trial is $30, you must have a daily budget of at least $300.

In the next part, you will learn how to maximize the number of signals you send to the ad networks.

Measurement is not like the web

Pixels for tracking are not the most common thing in the app (mobile) world, especially for iOS. 

We won’t go into detail about privacy changes and how the new measurement framework works, but the things that you should know are:

1. iOS makes it hard to measure revenue

2. Data comes with considerable delays

3. Having the proper setup involves complex processes 

4. New terms may confuse you while you learn about them

5. There are multiple measurement methods, leading to confusion

However, this is a simple checklist you could follow to make sure you have the proper measurement setup if you are starting to run ads on Meta to maximize the amount of signals (or any other ad network):

1. Install the Meta SDK

2. Make sure all the events are being triggered at the right time

3. Configure the conversion values (within the events manager in Meta)

4. Launch your first iOS campaign

5. Analyze the raw data to ensure everything is working (you can use a tool like Appstack)

Key takeaways

1. Don’t be naive and expect to lose money by investing in ads. This is a business, and it involves risks.

2. The one who does a lot doesn't squeeze much. Do one thing and become the best at it.

3. Don’t ask for things you can’t afford. Optimizing for trials or purchases is excellent, only if you have the proper budget.

4. Measurement is not easy; that’s why it’s essential to have a solid foundation and support if you are new to this world