Founder Playbook · Sub Club by RevenueCat
11 tactics from Nicole Page & Lucy Levy
Optimizing Funnels, Pricing, and Retention at Zumba — Nicole Page & Lucy Levy, Zumba
Watch the full episode“We spend a lot of time looking at our data and pulling out specifically people that downloaded the app and then churned or took one class and then churned and we spend a lot of time talking to those people as well.”
Interview Churned Users Specifically — They Tell You What Kept Them From Converting
Most product teams over-interview power users and get survivorship-bias feedback. Zumba deliberately pulled churned segments from their data — one class then quit, downloaded but never opened — and ran structured conversations with them. The result: they discovered a major churn driver was users preferring in-person classes, which shaped the app's class locator feature.
“We saw that about 70 even more% of the people coming through onboarding were saying that they were beginners we did research to validate that so now really we're really focusing the product on that beginner experience the intensity of the classes the complexity of the classes to try to cater for that audience.”
75% of Users Are Beginners — So the Whole App Should Be Built for Beginners
Zumba had a brand built on die-hard fans but discovered through onboarding data that 75%+ of app users were self-identified beginners. The correct response was to stop trying to serve all segments and double down on beginner content — simpler choreography, lower intensity — so that audience actually reached the aha moment and stayed.
“Once we built programs we saw a huge improvement in our numbers people that joined programs were watching two times as many videos as people that weren't enrolled in the programs our month retention went up it about doubled after for people that joined programs.”
Goal-Based Programs Beat a Content Library — 2x Watch Time, Doubled Monthly Retention
Users who landed in a free content library had decision paralysis and lower engagement. Zumba swapped to goal-based programs: users declare a goal (weight loss, stress relief, fun) and receive a curated progression. The result was 2x video consumption and roughly doubled monthly retention for program participants — the guided experience beat the library every time.
“We had a hypothesis about longer onboarding and we started experimenting with guiding the user through an onboarding experience that kind of got to know them… we saw that that onboarding experience actually led to a much higher conversion than without having the longer onboarding.”
Longer Onboarding With Personalization Converts Better Than Rushing to the Paywall
Zumba's team initially believed the fastest path to the paywall was best. Testing proved the opposite: a longer onboarding that asked about goals, showed value-proving interstitials, and personalized the first program shown led to significantly higher conversion. The friction of answering questions built perceived value — users arrived at the paywall already invested.
“We saw that you getting them to a shorter trial led to higher commitment higher engagement them rushing into giving it a try and and we actually didn't see a drop in conversion we saw a huge improvement in conversion from trial to paid.”
7-Day Trial Beat 30-Day: Shorter Commitment Drove Higher Engagement and No Conversion Drop
Contrary to intuition, Zumba's 7-day trial on the annual plan outperformed longer 30-day trials. Shorter trials created urgency — users rushed to actually try the classes rather than treating the trial as indefinite access. Trial-to-paid conversion improved significantly with no drop in raw conversions. A short window forces real engagement.
“We are now at monthly $14.99 no free trial which led to great results so I highly recommend it for anyone that is hesitating definitely try it.”
Remove Free Trial on Monthly to Get Immediate Revenue From Lower-Intent Users
Zumba dropped the free trial on their $14.99/month plan entirely. Users who choose monthly over the annual plan tend to be lower-intent — a trial often means they test and churn without converting. Charging upfront for the monthly option filters for genuine intent and produces immediate revenue, while the annual free trial handles higher-intent users separately.
“We see a 17% lift on lifetime value that more than offsets the drop in the initial conversion… it can be very scary because you can see CPA climb and you're like let me turn this off because if you don't focus on the big picture you always get caught up on the CPA increasing.”
App-to-Web: 35% Conversion Drop but 17% LTV Lift — Watch Lifetime Value, Not Just CPA
Zumba's first app-to-web test dropped initial conversion 35%. Their second iteration cut that to 25%. But web subscribers had far better retention and avoided Apple's cut, producing a 17% LTV lift that more than covered the conversion loss. Lucy's warning: CPA anxiety will trick you into killing a test that's actually winning — always measure downstream.
“We gave them the most stripped down view on the web where we just showed them what they selected we tried to replicate how Apple has that view has that window on the app when you do an inapp purchase so that it looks very familiar and that actually helped us with the conversion a lot.”
Strip the Web Checkout to Match the In-App Purchase Feel — It Lifted Conversion
After package selection on the paywall, Zumba's web checkout page shows only what the user already chose — no additional options, no form clutter, just a confirm button defaulting to Apple Pay or Google Pay if available. Mimicking the familiar IAP confirmation sheet reduced cognitive load and meaningfully improved the web conversion rate.
“We found that three classes seems to be the aha moment after three classes they really seem to be much more likely to be a long-term user so we're trying to get them to the three classes where a lot of our communication early on is focused on getting them to the three classes.”
Three Classes Is the Aha Moment — All Communication Should Drive Users There
Zumba pinpointed their retention inflection point through data: users who complete three classes show dramatically higher long-term retention. Every onboarding prompt, push notification, email, and in-app counter is now designed to drive toward that three-class milestone. They even default the weekly goal-setting widget to three classes and explain why three matters.
“People really didn't want to engage not in the context of the class they weren't looking to take the class and then go into a community and talk about it… we're going to try again with a more contextual approach.”
"If You Build It They Will Come" Community Failed — Contextual Engagement Is the Answer
Zumba built discussion threads around classes — users could chat about their health journey or the workout they just took. Almost nobody participated. The insight: digital community needs to be embedded in the moment of experience, not offered as a separate destination after the fact. Their next attempt targets contextual interaction during the class, not a standalone forum.
“We treat every new launch as a experiment and as a hypothesis that we're testing… even features that we launched last year we check in on them and say is this still working for our users is this still delivering the results that we need.”
Treat Every Launch as a Hypothesis — Even Successful Features Get Checked Again Later
Zumba's team built a culture of continuous hypothesis testing — not just for new launches but retrospectively for shipped features. A feature that worked six months ago might be underperforming now. Lucy described this as non-attachment to ideas: the only goal is app improvement, not defending past decisions. This mindset especially matters at a 24-year-old brand where legacy thinking runs deep.