Distribution Playbooks
Getting a product in front of the right people — the channels founders bet on, the partnerships that scaled, and the underrated distribution plays most people skip. Each one is quoted from the founder who ran it.
266 tactics · page 6 of 9
“We ask people in onboarding where they came from and we found that to be actually the most reliable way of doing attribution. At the end of the day just asking people where they heard about us — if they say Facebook it's one thing, word of mouth something else.”
Simple Where-Did-You-Hear-About-Us Survey Beats Fancy Attribution Software
Opal tried multiple attribution platforms but found a direct onboarding survey question the most actionable signal. At seven people there's no bandwidth to act on granular campaign-level data anyway — knowing that most conversions come from Facebook vs. word of mouth is enough to allocate resources. The dumbest measurement is often the most reliable and the most actionable.
“One very small change: we made the referral program look better and added a tiered reward system — invite five people get the free year, invite 20 get a lifetime sub, a special prize at 50. This led to 80% improvement in how many people sent the referral to at least one person.”
Tiered Referral Rewards UI Delivered 80% More People Sending at Least One Invite
Opal improved its referral program with a tiered reward structure and visualized progress in a well-designed UI. The result was an 80% improvement in single-invite sends. No new incentive budget was required — the change was purely structural, transforming an opaque invite screen into a gamified goal with clear progression milestones that motivated users to take that first share action.
“Performance marketing does only amplify what has already started way earlier in the funnel. Conversion campaigns only amplify what exists already — they don't create anything as such.”
Performance Marketing Only Amplifies Existing Demand — It Creates Nothing
Incrementality testing at Deezer confirmed a counterintuitive truth: turning off upper-funnel campaigns made performance campaigns collapse, not just slow down. The implication is that every conversion ad, retargeting pixel, and search campaign depends on prior brand exposure to do its job. Invest in brand first, then let performance harvest what brand planted.
“For us partnering means an extended reach — and the mathematics are positive for us. For our partners, bringing music to their clients brings emotional connection and helps them connect better with younger target audiences. It's really about finding a win-win relationship.”
Bundles Are a Retention Tool, Not Just a Discount — They Raise the Floor
Deezer built distribution through hardware and retail bundle partnerships — Sonos in the US, Mercado Libre in Latin America — treating each bundle as a retention mechanism, not a revenue discount. Users bundled into a service they already pay for churn far less than direct subscribers. For smaller apps, the same principle applies: embedding into platforms users already pay for converts acquisition economics and improves long-term retention simultaneously.
“Users care a lot about what their cohorts say — that's one of the better ways to understand if it's worthwhile to download. Having good store ratings is more important than just affecting your rank.”
Good ratings are a conversion mechanism, not just a ranking signal
Michael targets 4.5+ stars not primarily to climb search rankings but because ratings are social proof that directly influences the download decision. He acquires apps that already have strong ratings because high ratings are a lagging indicator of real product utility — and utility drives almost every other metric: retention, referrals, organic word of mouth.
“Cross-promotion starts helping when you have loyal users who really like what you do. But you have to be very explicit — tell users 'this is my app, you would like it' — versus confusing it with an ad.”
Cross-promotion must be explicit and from a known brand to drive installs
Maple Media found generic app-carousel cross-promotion ineffective. What works is explicit, brand-attributed promotion: 'from the maker of WeCal.' Native integration also outperforms banner ads — for example, embedding a finance-focused podcast section inside a stock app, then pointing to Player FM. The common thread is transparency: loyal users follow developers they trust.
“I look at UA as supplemental to everything else we're doing, not the other way around. If I'm fishing in the exact same pond as every other weather app, how am I going to create a competitive advantage?”
Treat paid UA as amplifier of organic — not the foundation of the strategy
Every weather app buys the same keywords; every competitor bids on the same Facebook audiences. Michael's response: build brand through PR, partnerships, and native content distribution so that paid spend amplifies an already-working organic engine. Apps that make paid the foundation have no competitive moat — and discovered this the hard way when ATT degraded their attribution.
“We had meta going it was tens of thousands of dollars a day and most of it was behind one creative it was performing really great and it had five stars in the description and meta approved it they said looks good but then meta decided you know what not good and they took it down on a dime.”
Single-Creative Concentration on Meta Destroyed Campaigns Overnight — Diversify at 30% Max
Running tens of thousands per day through a single Meta creative is a single point of failure. Meta can ban a creative with no warning — even approved ones — which sends customer acquisition costs vertical overnight. The rule that emerged: no single creative should account for more than 30% of ad spend. Diversify or accept catastrophic platform risk.
“We reduced price significantly really significantly and it helped not just increase conversions and improve retentions but... it unlocked paid user acquisition because with this price conversions are enough to provide enough signals to networks and to get the traffic profitably.”
Cutting Brazil Prices Turned It Into a Top-3 Market — Lower Price Unlocked Profitable Paid UA
Flo significantly cut Brazil prices and saw Brazil become a top-3 or top-4 market. The unexpected multiplier: the higher conversion rate from the lower price produced enough signal quality for Meta and Google to find profitable audience segments — making paid UA work in Brazil for the first time. The right regional price doesn't just improve organic economics; it unlocks an entirely new paid acquisition channel.
“Our International Revenue is growing and even this grow is speeding up for example this year we like Revenue out of Rich English speaking world increased like almost 80%... my prediction that long term Flo will even more money originally than in United States.”
International Revenue Will Outgrow the US — Non-English Markets Are Accelerating
Flo grew non-English-speaking market revenue ~80% year over year while traditional English-speaking markets grew more modestly. Dmitry's prediction: international will eventually surpass the US entirely. Apps that wait until English markets plateau to invest in regional pricing and localization will be starting from zero when the window closes.
“what apple did not like was that they had kind of lost control over uh content discovery on on the iphone right so when when the app store was first launched i mean that was how you discovered apps right it was it was through going to the app store... that changed over the years and the way that people discovered apps um was through advertising right and primarily facebook advertising”
ATT Was About Apple Reclaiming Distribution Control — Not Just Protecting Privacy
The most accurate framing of ATT is Apple reclaiming the gatekeeping role Facebook had taken from it. When ad-driven discovery replaced App Store editorial, Apple lost leverage to trade featuring for iOS feature adoption. ATT reset that balance. Developers who understand the true motivation can better predict Apple's future platform moves.
“you always have to turn on paid ua you've always got to turn on paid marketing there's varying you know sort of timelines you know over which you have to confront that reality but it is a reality you've always got to turn it on”
Organic Growth Always Hits a Ceiling — Paid UA Is a Question of When, Not If
Apps that rely purely on organic hit an asymptote. Eric has advised PE funds on dozens of acquisitions — the pattern is always the same: organic-first teams never build paid UA capability, the business stalls, and the acquirer installs a CMO who triples it via paid. Build that muscle early to avoid the painful forcing function.
“facebook had become like kind of a drug for them i mean it's just like they were addicted to it and it was just so easy to only use facebook... that's a classic sort of blunder from a from just a commercial perspective you never want to be totally dependent on another platform”
Single-Platform Dependency Is a Classic Blunder — ATT Just Made Everyone Experience It
ATT devastated teams who ran all their UA through Facebook because diversification felt unnecessary when the machine worked perfectly. The lesson is not specific to ATT — it applies to any distribution channel. Single-platform dependency means you are one policy change away from a business crisis. Build multi-channel capability before you need it.
“they sort of they take whatever boundary you set or whatever standard you set around efficiency and they they reach that but no more right... they could blow out your campaigns and get you 400 row ass but if you told them you only need 110 by day 7 that's what that's what you're going to get”
Ad Platforms Hit Your ROAS Target Exactly — Set It Too Low and Leave Money Behind
Facebook and Google automated bidding hits your ROAS target exactly — not beat it. If you set Day 7 ROAS at 110%, they'll buy cheap traffic to dilute the average down to that number if they start over-performing. Set bid targets based on a real LTV model, not a conservative floor you feel comfortable with.
“trying to work out some pipeline of like we try concepts on android where we can still do kind of mass testing and then we promote the the conceptual winners to ios but then we've got you know fewer variants success there so we've got to kind of adapt that for the ios environment”
Test Creative Concepts on Android at Scale, Then Promote Winners to iOS
Post-ATT, mass creative testing on iOS is severely degraded — no closed attribution loop. Android retains granular tracking, making it the right place to test creative concepts at scale. Winners then get adapted for iOS where you run fewer, more validated variants. It's lossy signal transfer but the most practical workaround available.
“what I did was first get a huge list of journalists who were writing in the Marine space and then basically wrote the article for them had all the image ready to go so like this if they wanted it was like drag and drop ready to go here's your piece of content that you needed to execute today done.”
Write the Article for the Journalist — Make Their Job Drag-and-Drop Easy
Journalists face constant pressure to produce content. Adam got press coverage in marine trade publications by writing the draft article himself and attaching all ready-to-use images. Some still wanted an interview — that's fine — but the baseline was zero friction. In niche trade press, where your target customers actually read, this is a high-ROI move that most app founders never attempt.
“for BRP looking at us like we are a risk I think for any big company to say hey I want to partner with you... my goal throughout the entire process was just to mitigate that risk as much as possible.”
You Are a Risk to Any Large Partner — Your Job Is to De-Risk Their Decision
When Bombardier Recreational Products reached out about an integration, Adam reframed the whole negotiation: BRP wasn't doing them a favor — BRP was taking on risk by working with an unproven startup. His playbook: find the internal champion, be hyper-responsive, over-deliver on every small commitment, and never ask for more than you can execute on. The goal is making your champion look like a genius for backing you.
“straight user acquisition probably we're looking at 25% of our total user acquisition is coming through like our partnering facilitation... we also know that a lot of people who are coming from our organic channels I.E like untracked... I've also heard about us from these other things as well.”
Partnerships Drove 25% of Direct UA — Plus an Untraceable Halo Effect on Top
About a quarter of Wavve's user acquisition traces directly to their partnerships. On top of that, the credibility from BRP and Freedom Boat Club influenced organic installs that could not be attributed. In niche markets with dense hobbyist communities, partnerships carry a word-of-mouth multiplier that broad consumer apps rarely see. Track the direct numbers but don't discount the brand halo.
“there becomes another press release... and so then there's this other harder untangle benefit of that partnership spinning your PR again to then hopefully facilitate another opportunity.”
Press Leads to Partnerships, Partnerships Generate More Press — Build the Flywheel
Adam's growth flywheel: get press in niche trade publications, industry players notice, inbound partnership inquiry arrives, the partnership creates a joint press release (partner's team promotes it too), more recognition follows, next partnership opens. Each step converts small leverage into bigger leverage. It's not one PR hit creating a hockey-stick; it's a compounding chain that builds durable visibility.
“to optimize any campaign or any adset you need to get 50 conversions a week in your first seven days of launching so that's your first hurdle can I get my 50 conversions in a week firstly.”
Scale Paid UA in Funnel Stages — Installs First, Then Push Deeper as Volume Allows
Hannah's framework for scaling performance marketing: start by optimizing for app installs only. The algorithm needs 50 conversions in the first 7 days to learn. Once install volume is stable, duplicate the campaign and optimize for sign-up, then trial, then a custom engagement event. Jumping to deep-funnel optimization before hitting volume thresholds means paying for learning you cannot use.
“if we're testing a messaging test we will have the exact same design but with four different messages on there against a control which one of these messages will be our control once we then find out which message works best we'll take that one message and put it into four different concepts.”
Test Message First, Then Test Format — One Variable at a Time
Hannah runs creative tests in two phases: first, take one design and test four different messages against a control to find the winning message. Then take that winning message and test it across four completely different creative formats (UGC, iMessage mock, notes-style, etc.). This isolates variables and prevents conflating message performance with format performance — a common mistake that wastes budget and produces ambiguous results.
“at the moment with some of our companies we're seeing 60% visibility or so in Facebook in mattera versus what we see in our MMP so we actually look at that as our source of Truth are we seeing the results that we need to see in our MMP.”
Use Your MMP as the Source of Truth — Platform-Reported Numbers Can Be 60% of Reality
Meta may report only 60% of the conversions that your mobile measurement partner (Appsflyer, Adjust, Singular) actually records. Hannah's rule: never use platform-reported data as ground truth for scaling decisions. Use your MMP numbers to judge campaign success and to set scaling thresholds. The platforms have incentives to show favorable numbers; your MMP has no dog in that fight.
“when you're running on Android at the moment there aren't these kind of rules... you don't have to get this 120 plus installs per day so if you have a lower budget it can actually be good to test on a platform like that.”
Test on Android First When Budget Is Low — No 120-Installs-Per-Day Constraint
iOS requires 120+ installs per day per campaign to generate reliable SKAdNetwork postbacks for post-install event optimization. Android has no equivalent constraint — just 50 conversions a week for Meta, or 10 per day for Google. For early-stage apps or those with limited budgets, starting creative and messaging tests on Android is a legitimate shortcut that preserves iOS budget for scaling once winners are found.
“how much are you spending on meta how much you spending on Tik Tok Google add all of that together and then look at how many people have done these kind of actions overall so how many installs have you got overall from every channel including organic.”
Measure Blended Cost Per Trial — Total Spend Divided by Total Trials Across All Channels
Post-ATT, per-channel ROAS is noisy at best and misleading at worst. Hannah's practical replacement: sum all paid channel spend, divide by total trials from every source including organic, and track that blended cost-per-trial over time. This captures the halo effect of ads on organic installs and prevents you from wrongly cutting a channel because its platform-reported numbers look bad.
“from literally November 1st until literally November 30th the performance is just terrible... December 1st will always be a really good day for us.”
November Is Always Terrible for Digital Ad Performance — Shift Budget to Brand Awareness
Every year, e-commerce advertisers flood the auction from November 1st through November 30th, driving CPMs up and direct-response performance down for digital subscription apps. Hannah's playbook: don't fight it. Shift November budget toward cheap-CPM brand awareness boosts ($1-2 CPM vs. $7-12 for direct response), wait for December 1st when e-commerce budgets exhaust, and double down December 15th through January — what Meta calls Q5.
“There's two things you can do to earn sweat coins you can either start walking or you invite a friend for five sweat coins and that created quite a lot of that intrinsic virality where we made the earning sweat coins essentially earning sweat coins is the user experience.”
Solve Cold Start by Embedding the Referral Mechanism Into the Core User Journey
Sweatcoin's referral program wasn't a separate screen or a growthy pop-up — it was one of two primary actions on the core 'earn' screen, right alongside walking. This made inviting friends feel like a natural part of the product, not a growth mechanic bolted on. Once Anton had the currency (the coin) to fund referral rewards, growth could be self-sustaining. The structure transferred from being stuck at 40K users to growing at 300/day within months.
“There were some people that maybe had like 10,000 followers which is not insignificant but there was no way for them to monetize... we created a special marketplace level that would only open up to users that had invited 30 people successfully.”
Mid-Tier Influencers Had No Monetization Path — Sweatcoin Built One Into the Product
Sweatcoin discovered that early power-users bringing in hundreds of installs had social audiences of 5K-50K followers — not big enough for traditional brand deals, but not small either. Existing influencer platforms required agency intermediaries and had opaque ROI for the influencer. By creating a secret marketplace tier that unlocked after 30 successful invites (with escalating prizes up to a flat-screen TV for 5,000 installs), Sweatcoin gave these mid-tier creators a direct, transparent monetization path inside the product.
“You need to create what we call a ground swell... that is best done when you do it through the influencers that you're friendly with but those influencers need to develop a content that's very native to the channel... then it's being picked up by the main thing by the user to user virality and then the organics kick in.”
Virality Is Uncontrollable — But You Can Engineer the Sequence That Triggers It
Anton describes a three-stage process to turn sporadic viral spikes into a somewhat repeatable engine: (1) ground swell from friendly native-content influencers, (2) velocity of user-to-user invites increases until algorithm pick-up, (3) app store organics compound the spike. You can't predict when a spike happens, but you can seed the conditions repeatedly. Sweatcoin went from uncontrolled 30K/day spikes followed by crashes to stable, consistent growth.
“Instead of just pumping ads through Facebook and trying to find someone who fits a profile, you spend a lot more time really narrowly targeting your demographic, your niche, and then finding ways for them to find your product organically.”
ATT is short-term pain but forces organic acquisition that builds lasting asset value
ATT degraded Facebook targeting efficiency — CACs rose 20-30% and install-to-subscribe rates fell because apps could no longer reliably reach their ideal user. Eric Crowley frames this as a forcing function: the companies that adapt will build organic acquisition engines (partnerships, content, influencers) that are not dependent on two tech companies in San Francisco. Those organic channels show up in enterprise value at exit; a Facebook-only channel does not.
“Pink Bike partners with the trail associations for mountain bikers, and those trail associations now act almost as the marketing partner of Pink Bike to let consumers know that all the trail detail is on the PinkBike app.”
Partnership distribution: PinkBike's trail associations became a zero-CAC acquisition engine
When paid acquisition becomes unreliable, the apps that win embed themselves in their community's existing infrastructure. PinkBike (TrailForks) distributed through trail associations — the very organisations their target users already trust — with zero ad spend. Eric cites Strava and Pray.com/NFL as parallel examples. These partnerships are earned, not bought, and compound brand value in a way a Facebook campaign never can.