01
Evaluation and diagnosis
We audit measurement first (MMP, SKAN), then unit economics: LTV by channel, payback, retention curves. Then channels, store pages, creatives and the in-app funnel.
Deliverable: audit report
Product growth
Mobile App Marketing Agency
Applica is a mobile app marketing agency for subscription apps in FinTech, WellTech and EdTech. Our 25+ specialists run paid user acquisition, App Store Optimization, ad creative production and paywall experiments as one growth system measured by LTV, CAC and payback period. Since 2022 we have worked with 50+ Tier-1 apps across the US, the UK and Western Europe, including AirHelp, Drops and Fabulous, and generated $13M+ in incremental revenue for clients.
Most app marketing services are bought one channel at a time. A media buyer here, an ASO freelancer there, a design studio for creatives. Each one optimizes its own metric, and nobody owns the number that decides whether the app grows: what a paying user costs and how long the business waits to get that money back. We own that number from ad click to store page, from install to trial, from trial to paid subscription.
A call with a senior growth lead about your CAC, LTV and the funnel step that leaks the most.
- Paid UA, ASO, creatives and paywall in one plan
- One KPI model: LTV, CAC, payback, ROAS
- Meta, Apple Ads, Google, TikTok and more
- Weekly creative testing cycles
- Built for subscription and in-app purchase apps
Clutch 5.0
19 reviews
$13M+
incremental revenue for clients
50+
Tier-1 apps
500+
growth experiments to date
Business of Apps, Top App Marketing Company 2024
App marketing results measured in revenue
NEMO, FinTech
Paid acquisition was growing while deposits were not. We rebuilt the creative pipeline and the channel mix around cost per deposit instead of cost per install. Cost per deposit fell 4x overall, 8x on Meta and 3x on Google Ads. 700+ ad creatives produced and tested.
Workout for Women, Health and Fitness
Growth had hit a ceiling: one funnel, one creative approach. We combined Meta campaigns with web funnels and a weekly creative cycle. Subscriptions grew 27x, cost per acquisition on the web funnels fell 5x, and 200+ creatives were produced between July and October 2024.
More installs, same revenue? Your funnel is disconnected
Installs are the cheapest part of app growth to buy and the easiest to misread. When acquisition, the store listing and the paywall are managed by different people, spend goes up and revenue stays flat. Four breakpoints cause most of it.
The business cost is predictable: CAC rises, payback stretches beyond what finance will accept, the budget gets cut, and growth stalls as soon as the first channel stops scaling. This is what makes subscription app marketing different from marketing a one-off purchase.
This is not a small-app problem. RevenueCat's State of Subscription Apps 2026, based on 115,000+ apps, found that only 17.3% of newly launched apps reach $1K in monthly revenue, and only 4.6% reach $10K within two years. Source: RevenueCat, State of Subscription Apps 2026.
We do not add one more channel to that setup. We connect acquisition, the store and the product into one system, then scale the parts that pay back.
Book a strategy callPaid UA optimised for installs, not payback
Campaigns hit their CPI target while ROAS falls. The channel looks efficient in the ad dashboard and loses money in the cohort report. Nobody notices until the monthly revenue number comes in.
A store page built for organic, not for the traffic it gets
Paid traffic lands on a listing written for App Store search. The ad promised one thing, the screenshots show another, and a third of the budget is spent before the user reaches the product.
Ad creatives that fatigue faster than they are replaced
One concept carries the account. Frequency climbs, CPM follows, results decay. Without a testing pipeline the team is always one week behind the decline.
Onboarding and a paywall that lose the user after the install
Installs arrive, trials do not. The pricing screen was designed once and never tested against the audiences the ads actually bring.
Mobile app marketing services under one growth plan
Our mobile app marketing services help subscription apps acquire users who pay and stay. They cover the full set of app promotion services: paid user acquisition, App Store Optimization, ad creative production, conversion rate optimization, paywall and retention work, and the analytics layer underneath all of it.
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Paid user acquisition
Scaling spend without losing ROAS is a structure problem before it is a bidding problem. We build the account structure, the audience and event setup, and the budget rules, then scale by marginal return rather than by last week's average. Channels: Meta Ads, Apple Ads, Google App Campaigns, TikTok Ads and more.
Read more: paid user acquisition and our user acquisition services.
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App Store Optimization
Your store page is the only screen every user sees, paid or organic. We work keywords, metadata, screenshots, custom product pages and in-app events on both the App Store and Google Play, so the listing converts the traffic you are already paying for.
Read more: app store optimization services
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Ad creative production
Creative is the main lever left in paid acquisition, and volume without a method is just spend. We produce UGC, statics and video, 10,000+ ads to date, and test ad creatives in structured batches so each round teaches the next one.
Read more: ad creative production
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Conversion rate optimization
Between the ad and the subscription there are four or five screens where most of the money is lost. We test the store page, onboarding and web funnels against real cohorts, not against opinion, and we measure the conversion rate at every step.
Read more: conversion rate optimization
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Paywall, monetization and retention
Pricing, trial length, offer structure and lifecycle messaging decide the LTV half of your unit economics, and they drive retention and ARPU. We treat them as experiments with a hypothesis and a readout, not as a redesign.
Read more: retention and engagement
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Analytics, attribution and A/B testing
Bad data leads to bad growth decisions. We set up and audit your MMP, build SKAN conversion value models, design the A/B testing programme and build the reporting your team actually reads.
Read more: A/B testing and data analysis
In-house team, freelancers or an app marketing agency?
Three ways to run app growth, and each fits a different stage.
An in-house growth team gives you the most control and keeps every learning inside the company. It works when you can hire the full set: user acquisition, creative, ASO, analytics and product. Hiring one UA manager and hoping they cover the rest is where this model usually breaks.
Freelancers or single-channel vendors are the cheapest way to get one job done well. They are a poor fit when the problem crosses disciplines, because nobody is accountable for the number between them.
A full-funnel app marketing agency gives you several disciplines working from one KPI model immediately. You trade some control for speed and for a team that has already made these mistakes on other apps.
Our take: hire in-house if you can staff all five roles. Pick freelancers if only one channel is missing. Bring in an agency if you need several disciplines on one KPI model now, not in four months.
| Criteria | In-house team | Freelancers | App marketing agency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Scale with budget for 5+ hires | One channel, one task | Several disciplines needed now |
| Time to launch | 2 to 4 months of hiring | 1 to 2 weeks | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Cost structure | Fixed salaries | Hourly or per project | Monthly retainer |
| Creative testing capacity | Limited by headcount | Usually none | Weekly cycles |
| Measurement expertise | Depends on the data hire | Rare | Built in |
| Knowledge retention | Stays in the company | Leaves with the contract | Documented and handed over |
| Main risk | Slow to assemble, expensive to be wrong | No owner of the full funnel | Weak fit if the agency is channel-only |
We also work alongside in-house teams, owning the disciplines you have not hired for yet.
Measurement you can trust after ATT
Our iOS app marketing services start with measurement, because after ATT the channel dashboards are not enough on their own. If you no longer trust them, you are right not to.
For Drops we rebuilt the SKAN model in Singular to get richer iOS campaign data before scaling Meta, Google and Apple Ads. Drops case study
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MMP setup and audit: AppsFlyer, Adjust, Singular
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SKAN conversion value models for iOS campaigns
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Web-to-app funnels that restore first-party data
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One revenue view, reconciling RevenueCat, product analytics and ad platforms
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Cohort reporting by channel: LTV, payback and ROAS on day 7 and day 30
Engagement models and what app marketing costs
Most agencies will not answer the cost question before a call. Here is how ours works.
Our fee is a fixed monthly retainer. Once monthly ad spend passes $30,000, we add a percentage of that spend on top, so the fee follows the budget we manage rather than the hours we log.
What sets the retainer: how many channels you run, how many markets, how much creative volume you need each month, and whether we also take the store page and the funnel.
On budget: meaningful creative testing on a social channel like Meta needs roughly $10,000 a month per funnel, which is the practical floor for readable results. Most of the apps we work with spend $30,000 a month or more.
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Full-funnel growth partnership.
Monthly retainer covering UA, ASO, creatives and product experiments, with one KPI model across all of them. This is the model most subscription apps start with.
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Single-service engagement.
ASO only, or creative production only, when you have the rest covered in-house.
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Free entry points.
A free ASO audit and the LTV:CAC calculator.
How we build and scale your app marketing strategy
Realistic timelines: ASO ranking changes show in 4 to 8 weeks. Creative concepts are tested in 3 to 4 variations and read after 24 to 48 hours.
More on the process: how we work.
How we build and scale your app marketing strategy
Realistic timelines: ASO ranking changes show in 4 to 8 weeks. Creative concepts are tested in 3 to 4 variations and read after 24 to 48 hours.
More on the process: how we work.
01
Evaluation and diagnosis
We audit measurement first (MMP, SKAN), then unit economics: LTV by channel, payback, retention curves. Then channels, store pages, creatives and the in-app funnel.
Deliverable: audit report
02
Strategy and KPI architecture
We set targets for CAC, payback, LTV and ROAS, rank experiments by expected impact, and agree the rules for scaling and cutting spend before any budget moves.
Deliverable: KPI model
03
System design
We build the experiment pipeline, channel structure, creative workflow and ASO program, and validate attribution before scaling spend.
Deliverable: test roadmap
04
Integrated execution
ASO and ad messaging stay aligned, creatives are tested weekly, product changes are prioritised by cohort quality, budget shifts by marginal return.
Deliverable: launch plan
05
Measure, learn and scale
We reconcile data on a fixed cadence, document every experiment, and feed creative learnings into the next production cycle.
Deliverable: monthly report
Bring us your CAC, LTV and payback numbers
Tell us what a paying user costs you today, what they are worth, and which channel you want to scale next. We will tell you which part of the funnel is holding the other parts back, and what we would test first.
A senior growth lead replies within one business day and the first call is a working session, not a pitch.
A new channel on its own rarely moves revenue. We are looking for apps where connecting acquisition, the store and the product changes the revenue line.
Ad channels and tools behind our app campaigns
As an app advertising agency we run campaigns and experiments inside the stack your team already uses. Our iOS app marketing services and Android work use the same channel set.
Ad networks
Meta, Apple Ads, Google App Campaigns, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, Unity, Moloco
Attribution (MMP)
AppsFlyer, Adjust, Singular, Branch
Product analytics
Amplitude, Mixpanel, Firebase
ASO and store testing
AppTweak, SplitMetrics, AppFollow, Sensor Tower
Subscriptions and paywalls
RevenueCat, Superwall, Purchasely, Qonversion
CRM and engagement
Braze, OneSignal, Customer.io
Use a different stack? We work inside the tools your team already pays for.
On channel choice, our view on sequencing is here: Apple Search Ads vs Meta Ads.
Why subscription apps choose Applica as their app marketing company
Applica turned a complex, global launch into a clean win.
Ewa Tkaczyk Director of Ecommerce at AirHelp - 1
Subscription first
50+ Tier-1 apps across FinTech, WellTech and EdTech. We work only in Tier-1 markets and do not run e-commerce or lead generation accounts, so every benchmark we hold is from apps like yours. That is the difference between us and a general app promotion agency.
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One KPI model for every channel
UA, ASO, and product work from shared LTV, CAC, and payback targets. There is no version of the report where the channel looks good and the business does not.
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Creative volume with discipline
10,000+ ads produced, 3 to 4 variations per concept, weekly iteration.
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Experiments, not opinions
500+ funnel growth experiments designed and run to date, documented in a shared knowledge base your team can read.
- 5
Market recognition
Business of Apps, Top App Marketing Company 2024. Clutch 5.0 from 19 reviews. See all recognition and partnerships.
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A cross-functional senior team
25+ specialists in UA, ASO, creative, product and analytics. Founded in 2022 by a team that built and launched its own app.
App marketing for FinTech, WellTech and EdTech apps
FinTech.
Creative compliance slows most teams down, and cost per first deposit is the only number that matters. For NEMO we cut cost per deposit 8x on Meta. FinTech app marketing
WellTech.
Growth depends on web funnels and paywall economics more than on install volume. Workout for Women grew subscriptions 27x in four months. WellTech app marketing
EdTech.
Many language markets, high creative volume, thin margins per market. For EF Hello we tested 350+ creative concepts. EdTech app marketing
We also work with Travel, Productivity, Photo and Utilities apps. If you are choosing a mobile app marketing company with proven results in your vertical, start with the case studies.
Frequently asked questions
What does an app marketing agency do?
An app marketing agency helps an app turn installs into paying users, from the plan to the daily work. That covers paid user acquisition across Meta, Apple Ads, Google and TikTok, App Store Optimization, ad creative production, and conversion work on onboarding and the paywall. A full-funnel agency measures all of it against one model: LTV, CAC and payback period.
How is marketing a subscription app different from marketing other apps?
Subscription apps are judged on revenue per cohort, not on install volume. The install is only the first of five or six steps, and most of the money is decided later, at the trial start and the first renewal. In subscription app marketing, pricing, the paywall and retention sit inside the acquisition plan. They are not a side project.
Should we start with ASO or paid user acquisition?
Start with ASO if your store page converts below category median, because every paid click lands on it and you are already paying for that leak. Lead with paid UA when the store page already converts at or above median and the team needs scale and data fast. In practice we run both, with ASO first by a few weeks.
How do you measure app marketing results after Apple's ATT?
We rebuild measurement before scaling spend: MMP setup and audit, SKAN conversion value models, web-to-app funnels that restore first-party data, and one reconciled revenue view across RevenueCat, product analytics and the ad platforms. Reporting is by cohort, with LTV, payback and ROAS on day 7 and day 30.
How much does an app marketing agency cost?
We charge a fixed monthly retainer, and once monthly ad spend passes $30,000 we add a percentage of that spend on top. The retainer is set by how many channels and markets you run and how much creative volume you need. Most of the apps we work with spend $30,000 a month or more on media.
What is the minimum budget to work with Applica?
There is no hard minimum. In practice, meaningful creative testing on a social channel such as Meta needs about $10,000 a month per funnel, so that is the practical floor. Most of the apps we work with spend $30,000 a month or more, which is also where our fee starts including a percentage of spend.
Which ad channels do you run?
For most subscription apps, the core mix is Meta, Apple Ads, Google App Campaigns and TikTok. As an app advertising agency we also run Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, Unity and Moloco where the economics support it. Channel choice follows the unit economics, so we usually start with two and add a third only after payback holds.
How long does it take to see results?
ASO ranking changes typically show in 4 to 8 weeks. Creative tests are read after 24 to 48 hours, and a creative pipeline shows its effect on CPA within a month. Changes in payback period need a full cohort cycle, so plan on one quarter before the unit economics verdict is reliable.
Do you work with Android and Google Play apps?
Yes. We run ASO on both the App Store and Google Play, and Google App Campaigns alongside Meta and TikTok for Android acquisition. Android usually needs a different creative mix and a different paywall approach, and we test them separately rather than copying iOS.
Can you work alongside our in-house growth team?
Yes, and it is a common setup. As a mobile app marketing agency we take the disciplines you have not hired for, such as creative volume, ASO or measurement, and work from the same KPI model as your team. Everything we build is documented and handed over, so the knowledge stays with you.
Learn more about app growth
Client feedback
The quality of their work is the best I’ve seen. Thanks to Applica, I've seen a 30% increase in product page views and downloads, as well as great improvements in revenue.
Morgan Trudeau
CEO at Magnify Technologies
Client feedback
Applica has a quality team that truly wants to be an extension of our business.
Andy McBride
Owner at Meal Plan App
Client feedback
Applica Agency is more knowledgeable in this area than most other providers we've used in the past.
Michael Brandon
CEO of Slumber Group
Let’s work together
Scale your business with Applica
Client feedback
The quality of their work is the best I’ve seen. Thanks to Applica, I've seen a 30% increase in product page views and downloads, as well as great improvements in revenue.
Morgan Trudeau
CEO at Magnify Technologies
Client feedback
Applica has a quality team that truly wants to be an extension of our business.
Andy McBride
Owner at Meal Plan App
Client feedback
Applica Agency is more knowledgeable in this area than most other providers we've used in the past.
Michael Brandon
CEO of Slumber Group