I've scaled multiple apps past $400,000/yr and it always comes down to the same 5 marketing channels, in this guide i'm going to show you step by step how to abuse all 5 to scale your app
lets dive right in
#1 Scale with UGC
UGC stands for user generated content. you can see a great example above
3.9M views from a reaction + text hook + app demo format these are timeless formats that always work.
UGC basically means doing this at scale
you hire college students or anyone really to post 30 to 60 videos per month for your app.
the whole game with UGC is volume.
99% of founders hire 1 creator, get 3 videos, see mediocre results and say UGC doesnt work.
brother... you need volume.
30 to 60 videos a month per creator. and ideally you have multiple creators running at the same time.
i pay $10 to $15 per video plus performance bonuses when the videos actually go viral:
100k views = $150 250k views = $300 500k views = $600 1M views = $800
and yeah, a creator can make up to $815 on one video but if your app is good and your onboarding cooks
1M views will make you a whole lot more than $815. probably you will make anywhere from 2X to 5X your investment.
for example, this Nicoll one of our UGC creators who got our app a pretty good ROI with a 30 videos/mo
and yeah, a creator can make up to $815 on one video but if your app is good and your onboarding cooks like ours did.
1M views will make you a whole lot more than $815. probably you will make anywhere from 2X to 5X your investment.
the insane part of UGC is what happens when something works.
when one of your creators cracks a format that pops off you immediately tell every single other creator to copy that format.
you repeat that winning format until it stops working. then you find the next one.
thats how UGC scales from 1 viral video to 100M views in a month
but in order to actually find viral formats to give to my UGC creators I like to use an web app called layers.com which basically examines your whole app and gives you a tinder like interface with a bunch of viral formats specifically for your app that you can skip or save.
Theres 2 ways to use this tool, you can either use it to find whats hooks are working for your niche and give those to your UGC creators to recreate
or tell Layers to replicate these viral formats with AI in literally 1 click and it does a pretty good job
then basically post these videos yourself to promote your app
battle tested tips for UGC: → always sign a contract → text your creators at least once every single day → to find creators, scroll TikTok in your niche and DM them manually → or hire your most TikTok addicted cousin to send 100 DMs a day
#2 Scale with Influencers
this is one of my favorite methods.
because 1 good influencer can literally kick start your entire app overnight.
this is what happened with my first app Snapout. I hired 1 influencer at $1 CPM meaning 1000 views = $1 paid to them.
the first video they posted went viral and made me $20,000 in the first 30 days, this same thing has continues to happen ever since across all of my apps.
Influencers are a calculated move.
the $1 CPM deal means if they don't perform, you don't pay. if they go viral then you both win.
but don't sell it as a $1CPM sell it as $1,000 for 1M views its a sales tactic, $1,000 naturally sounds a lot better than $1
in my experience 1M views = $2,000 to $5,000 in revenue depending on your niche and how good your onboarding is.
influencers are better than UGC for going viral quickly but they are usually more expensive and harder to close.
Good influencer vs Bad influencer
A good influencer will have an average views above 10k or very close and ideally be smaller in following anywhere from 10 to 50k.
huge influencers with 500k followers will usually tell you $5000 per video but a smaller influencer is likely to not have experience running paid promos.
which makes your deal more acceptable, though it is important to note you know you found Gold when its a micro influencer getting crazy engagement with little following.
here is the proccess for closing an influencer deal:
- find influencers posting in your niche on TikTok or IG
- DM or email them directly
- pitch a $1 CPM deal
- negotiate and sign a contract
- send them a brief on how to show the app
- follow up every single day until they post
battle tested tips: → cap every deal at $1,000 total CPM → always get a contract signed before they start → text them every single day or the video never gets made → once you find a format that works with one influencer, brief all the others to copy it
#3 Faceless content/ AI SLOP
most underrated channel on this whole list. and most people completely mess it up.
they make a faceless account.
post 3 random videos with 3 different styles. get 200 views. and say faceless content doesn't work.
thats not faceless content. thats just a pinterest feed
here is how faceless content actually works.
→First you find a viral format in your niche. →then you replicate it endlessly. →different hook but same structure.
for example I recently found this breathing app while researching in layer.com thats pulling in millions of views doing a hold your breath challenge
they post 4 times per week and look at their feed its all the same thing, but slightly different challenges.
Thats how you run a succesul faceless account. faceless content is also ideal because it is easily automated inside of layers.com
using their slideshow generation feature.
and For faceless there are essentially 3 different formats you can run with
>1: AI slop videos ( like this one right here) which targets a niche, in this case christians and promotes their app via manychat automations.
basically someone comments " bible" and that person then gets an automation with the app link
> 2: Character format for example this is a consistent character style to teach people fitness and sell their app or guide
> 3: Theme pages, for example this is a food theme page selling a cooking app as their product
there are many different ways to do faceless content the people who say faceless content is dead are broke.
#4 Founder led content
This one is basically just making content yourself
thats literally it.
I've done this myself and generated millions of views. its really not that hard.
The key when copying a viral format is to really replicate everything the music, the lenght of the video, the pacing, the vibe
virality is not luck is engineered, and every second of the video matters.
i don't do this as my main channel. but i encourage everyone to try it. people like @cormachayden_ have scaled their app to $300k/mo doing this.
another good example is the push scroll guys they scaled their app to $100k/mo making founder led content then runnning it on ads
founder led builds the viral sense in you.
when you are making content yourself you start to understand what hooks work. what makes people stop scrolling. what format gets people to share.
and once you have that understanding you can teach it to your UGC creators and influencers.
which makes every other channel on this list work better.
so even if you have money to spend on creators you should still be making at least some founder content.
operate like a true founder.
#5 Paid ads ( Tiktok and Meta )
paid ads are the best growth channel on this list.
because once you crack a good CPA ( cost per acquisition ) and find a few winning creatives you can scale endlessly.
this ties into all the other channels UGC, Influencers, Faceless and founder led if you find success in any of those,
you are going to want to run ads on your winning creatives, because if it performed organically, it will most likely perform on ads
though setting up your ads can be pretty hard which is why most people dont even try or give up while they are at it.
which is why I partnered up with Layers.com for this article, they allow you to setup your ads in literally 2-3 clicks
rather than the traditional method which can take days and an Iron will Thank you Layers for sponsoring this article
Once your ads are setup the process goes like this
these 5 channels are not supposed to run separately. they are supposed to feed each other.
→your UGC post in volume and find hooks and angles that works → you tell your influencers to use that hook as well for guaranteed virality → your influencers videos go viral → you put those video into paid ads along with ur UGC content → the ads tell you exactly what messaging converts behind paid → you put that messaging into your onboarding → your onboarding converts better → you make more money → you put more money into finding the next winning angles →once you have a CPA that works, increase budget by 25% every week →and the loop starts again.
thats how you go from $10k to $30k to $70k.
drop any questions in the comments. and doom scroll my account, i literally give it all away.
