CASE STUDY | User Acquisition
Liftoff Helps Popular Fintech Brand Increase iOS Activations by 62%
Even established Fintech brands can find growth opportunities with targeted user acquisition
Marketers from big brands often try to expand their presence by using social media or omnichannel marketing campaigns. While these are effective brand promotion tools, they are less effective compared to more focused user acquisition. Instead, platforms like Liftoff that specialize in mobile UA can help brands that are experiencing slowing growth continue to scale.
When the Fintech brand first outlined its goals, the focus was on increasing the rate of activated users (eg. sync a card or make a payment), at a target cost of $10 or less per activation.
Liftoff’s solutionWhen working with brands big and small, Liftoff’s team kickstarts various best practices to ensure the company has the greatest chance of success.
The first step was to decide how Liftoff’s machine learning (ML) should optimize the brand’s campaign. Liftoff proposed what is known as a “run-of-network”, an approach that lets our ML evaluate and bid across all supply inventory and optimize based on the client’s preferred metrics—in this case, click-through rates (CTR) and cost per install (CPI). By assessing the largest amount of inventory possible, our ML can determine which apps and inventory drive the best performance and which do not. With a run-of-network approach, Liftoff is able to access inventory efficiently, keeping costs down while driving high rates of engagement.
The second step was to ensure we had a stable, consistent budget to work with. New customers tend to “chase” performance, which fluctuates frequently, adjusting budgets based on everchanging results. With a stable budget, Liftoff is able to run a steady campaign in the first 1-2 weeks, giving both the ML and our teams the necessary runway to begin optimizing for performance, in this case $10 per new user activation.
Results
From the start, the popular fintech brand had two goals: (1) lower activation costs to $10 or less while (2) scaling the number of new activations. The results of the campaign didn’t disappoint, outperforming on both goals:
- Within the first quarter, Liftoff increased the number of new activations by 62% on iOS and 140% on Android.
- On Android, CPAs decreased from $9.96 to $5.69 (43%).
- On iOS, CPAs fell from $3.57 to $1.50 per activation, a 58% decrease and far below the brand’s goal.
Following the success of the campaign, Liftoff is now one of the brand’s top three media partners. The app is reaching new users and experiencing healthy growth, and aims to increase spend to capture more users in the coming months.
