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Product growth

Mobile User Acquisition Agency

Applica is a mobile user acquisition agency for subscription apps in FinTech, WellTech and EdTech. Its UA team plans and runs paid media on Meta Ads, Apple Ads, Google App Campaigns and TikTok Ads, produces the ad creatives in-house, and scales budgets by cost per paying user and payback period. Applica has managed $100M+ in ad spend and produced 10,000+ ads for apps such as NEMO, TouchRetouch and Drops.

Most agencies will tell you what an install costs. Far fewer will tell you what a paying user costs, and almost none will move budget on that number weekly. That is the job we take.

Book a strategy call Check your payback

A senior UA lead reviews your channels, creatives, and measurement, and names the first three changes.

  • Meta, Apple Ads, Google and TikTok run as one budget
  • Budgets moved by cohort payback and ROAS
  • In-house ad creatives, tested every week
  • MMP and SKAN measurement set up before scaling
  • Custom product pages and web-to-app funnels for paid traffic

Clutch 5.0

19 reviews

$100M+

ad spend managed

10,000+

ads produced

Business of Apps Top App Marketing Companies 2024 badge

Business of Apps, Top App Marketing Company 2024

Why paid growth stalls before the budget runs out

Paid growth rarely stops because the budget ran out. It stops because one part of the system cannot take more money. Five breakpoints cause most of it.

The business cost is the same in every case: cost per payer rises, payback stretches, and budgets get cut before campaigns finish learning.

The market is not getting easier. AppsFlyer's Top 5 Data Trends Report found that non-gaming apps spent $53B on paid user acquisition in 2025, up 18% year over year, and that iOS spend inside non-gaming grew about 40%. More money is competing for the same users. Source: AppsFlyer, Top 5 Data Trends Report.

We fix the system first: channels, creatives, store pages and measurement. Then we add budget.

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One channel carries the spend

Meta takes 80% of the budget and sets the blended CAC. Every budget increase buys a worse user, because the channel is already deep into its own audience. There is nowhere to move money to, so the only lever left is bidding.

Apple Ads budget goes to your own brand

Brand keywords look efficient because those users were going to find you anyway. When we took over TouchRetouch, 94.2% of Apple Ads spend was going to brand terms. Non-brand search, where new users actually are, had 5.8%.

Creatives fatigue faster than the team replaces them

One concept carries the account, frequency climbs, CPA follows. Without a pipeline producing and reading tests every week, the team is always reacting to a decline that started two weeks ago.

iOS measurement hides the real cost per payer

After ATT, the ad platform, the MMP and your revenue data disagree. Campaigns get judged on CPI because cost per trial is not trustworthy, and the wrong campaigns get scaled.

Paid traffic lands on a page built for someone else

The ad promises one thing, the store listing was written for organic search, and the web funnel was built for a different audience. A third of the money is spent before the user reaches the product.

User acquisition services for subscription apps

Our mobile app user acquisition services help subscription apps buy installs that turn into trials and paying users. They cover channel strategy, campaign management, ad creative production, custom product pages, web-to-app funnels, measurement and weekly budget reallocation. The methodology behind them lives on our performance marketing for mobile apps page.

  • Channel strategy and media planning

    Most apps scale one channel until it stops working. We set the channel mix, the geos, the budget split and the KPI targets up front, so the second and third channels are ready before the first one saturates.

  • Campaign management and bidding

    Daily optimisation against CAC, ROAS and payback rather than against CPI. Budget moves by marginal return: the question is never what performed best last month, but where the next dollar earns most.

  • Ad creative production and testing

    UGC, statics and video produced by our own team, tested in structured batches. Read more: ad creative production.

  • Custom product pages for paid traffic

    The store page is the last screen before the install, and most paid traffic lands on one written for organic search. We build custom product pages that match the ad the user just saw.

  • Web-to-app funnels

    For Meta and TikTok traffic, a web onboarding and checkout step can both lift conversion and restore first-party data. Read more: web-to-app funnel.

  • Measurement and attribution

    MMP setup and audit, SKAN conversion values, Meta AEM, and one reconciled revenue view. Read more: A/B testing and data analysis.

  • Reporting and budget reallocation

    Weekly decisions, documented. You see which cohorts paid back, what we moved and why, before the next week starts.

Paid channels we run and what each one does

As a mobile app user acquisition agency we run four core channels and test beyond them once the economics hold.

Channel Role in the mix Best for Main KPI
Meta (Facebook, Instagram) Main scaling channel, broad targeting led by creative Volume at a controlled cost per trial Cost per trial or purchase
Apple Ads High-intent App Store search, brand defence plus non-brand growth Users already searching your category Cost per trial, ROAS
Google App Campaigns Android scale and iOS reach across Search, YouTube and Google Play Breadth beyond social Cost per in-app event
TikTok Younger audiences, UGC-led creatives New creative angles that travel back to Meta CPA
Snapchat Ads, Reddit Ads, Pinterest Tests for specific audiences Niche verticals and communities CPA
Moloco, Unity Programmatic scale once core channels saturate Incremental volume at target ROAS ROAS

Which channel comes first depends on your platform split, your price point and how much creative your team can feed. We wrote the sequencing logic here: which paid channels to run first, and the Apple Ads against Meta comparison here: Apple Search Ads vs Meta Ads.

Ad creatives built for testing, not for approval

On Meta and TikTok, creative is the targeting. Our creative team sits inside the mobile UA agency work rather than next to it, so the people reading the test results brief the next batch.

How it runs: 10,000+ ads produced to date, 3 to 4 variations per concept, first read after 24 to 48 hours, new batch every week. Formats are UGC, statics and video.

Creative learnings travel across channels. On a navigation app we ran, a video that won on Meta became the first screenshot of an Apple Ads custom product page. Cost per purchase fell 64% and CPM fell 45%.

Read more: ad creative production and how to test ad creatives on Meta.

UGC ad creatives tested by a mobile UA agencyUGC ad creatives tested by a mobile UA agencyUGC ad creatives tested by a mobile UA agency

UA measurement we set up before scaling

If you no longer trust your channel dashboards, you are right not to. Any app UA agency should rebuild measurement before adding budget. We do it in the first two weeks.

The experiment design behind this sits in A/B testing and data analysis.

For NEMO we fixed iOS attribution problems that were inflating CPAs before touching the budget. For Drops we rebuilt the SKAN model in Singular before scaling Meta, Google and Apple Ads.

  • MMP audit and setup: AppsFlyer, Adjust, Singular

  • SKAN conversion value schema and Meta AEM

  • Probabilistic modelling combined with SKAN and AEM in one view

  • Reconciling ad platform, MMP, RevenueCat and product analytics data. Read more: reconcile Mixpanel, RevenueCat and Stripe data

  • Cohort reporting: cost per trial, cost per payer, ROAS on day 7 and day 30, payback

In-house UA team, freelance buyer or a UA agency?

Three ways to run paid acquisition, and each fits a different stage.

  • An in-house UA team gives you the most control and keeps every learning in the company. It works when you can staff UA, creative and analytics, and spend enough to keep all three busy.

  • A freelance media buying specialist is the cheapest way to run one channel well. The model breaks when the problem sits between channels, creative and measurement, because nobody owns the number in the middle.

  • A user acquisition agency gives you several channels, creative volume and measurement at once, from a team that has already made these mistakes on other apps.

Criteria In-house UA team Freelance buyer UA agency
Time to launch 2 to 4 months of hiring 1 to 2 weeks 2 to 3 weeks
Monthly cost structure Fixed salaries Hourly or per channel Retainer, plus a share of spend at scale
Channel coverage Limited by headcount One channel Four or more in parallel
Creative capacity Depends on a designer Usually none Weekly batches in-house
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

  • Our take: build in-house when you can staff all three roles and keep them busy. Use a freelancer when the gap is one channel. Bring in an agency when you need channels, creative volume and measurement at the same time.

  • We also work next to an in-house UA manager rather than replacing them, taking the channels or the creative volume the team cannot cover. We do not work as outstaff.

  • What stays yours. The ad accounts, the MMP, the creative files and all the data belong to you. We work inside your accounts. Where it helps scaling, for example to get past new-account limits on Meta, we can also run spend through our own accounts.

How our UA services are priced

Our mobile user acquisition services are priced on one model. 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.

Before any of that, check the maths yourself with our LTV:CAC calculator.

Ways to work with us

  • Full UA management across all channels

  • UA plus ad creative production

  • Working next to your in-house UA manager, taking the channels or creative volume the team cannot cover

What the first 90 days with our UA team look like

This is how work with an app user acquisition agency should start: diagnosis before spend.

More on how we run engagements: how we work.

Applica logo

01

Audit, weeks 1 to 2

Ad accounts, MMP and SKAN setup, unit economics by channel, creatives, store pages and the funnel.

Deliverable: audit report

02

KPI model, week 2

Targets for cost per trial, cost per payer, ROAS and payback, plus the rules for scaling and cutting spend.

Deliverable: KPI model

03

Restructure and first launch, weeks 3 to 4

Account structure rebuilt, first creative batch live, measurement fixes shipped.

Deliverable: launch plan

04

Scale what works, weeks 5 to 8

Budget moves to the winning channels, geos and creatives. Custom product page tests start.

Deliverable: weekly report

05

Expand, weeks 9 to 12

A new channel or a new market, a web-to-app funnel, and a review with your team.

Deliverable: quarterly plan

Send us your CAC and the channel you want to scale

Tell us what you spend each month, which channels you run, and what a paying user costs you today. We will tell you which part of the system is capping the budget and what we would change first.

A senior UA lead replies within one business day. The first call is a working session on your accounts, not a pitch.

We are not looking to run one more campaign. We are looking for apps where fixing channels, creatives, store pages and measurement together moves the cost per payer.

Book a strategy call Check your payback

Why subscription apps choose our mobile user acquisition agency

They showed a good blend of experience in the team setup, and the quick turnaround in activating campaigns was impressive.
Pras Murukesvan Pras Murukesvan Growth Marketing Head at Nemo Money

As a mobile app user acquisition company we sit inside a wider growth team. The full picture is on our app marketing agency page.

  1. 1

    UA connected to the product

    The same company runs your paywall and onboarding experiments, 500+ of them to date. Cheaper installs cannot hide weak conversion when one team owns both ends.

  2. 2

    Creative in-house

    10,000+ ads produced, 3 to 4 variations per concept, a new batch every week. No waiting on an external studio between tests.

  3. 3

    ASO and UA as one loop

    Search term data from Apple Ads feeds the store page, and store page tests feed the ad creative. On TouchRetouch those syncs ran every two weeks.

  4. 4

    Spend experience

    $100M+ in ad spend managed across Meta, Apple Ads, Google App Campaigns and TikTok.

  5. 5

    Subscription focus

    FinTech, WellTech and EdTech, 50+ apps in Tier-1 markets. We do not run mobile games or e-commerce, so every benchmark we hold comes from apps with trials, paywalls and renewals.

  6. 6

    Recognition

    Business of Apps, Top App Marketing Company 2024. Clutch 5.0 from 19 reviews.

Frequently asked questions

What does a mobile user acquisition agency do?

A mobile user acquisition agency plans, buys and optimises paid media so an app gets users who pay. That covers channel strategy, campaign management on Meta, Apple Ads, Google App Campaigns and TikTok, ad creative production and testing, and the measurement underneath. A good one is judged on cost per paying user and payback, not on installs.

How do you measure user acquisition on iOS after ATT?

We set up measurement before scaling spend: an MMP audit, a SKAN conversion value schema, Meta AEM, and probabilistic modelling read together in one view. Then we reconcile ad platform, MMP, RevenueCat and product analytics data, and report by cohort: cost per trial, cost per payer, ROAS on day 7 and day 30.

Which paid channel should a subscription app start with?

It depends on your platform split, price point and creative capacity. Meta usually comes first for iOS subscription apps because creative volume moves it fastest. Apple Ads comes early when category search demand is real. Google App Campaigns leads on Android. We rarely recommend starting with more than two.

What is the difference between user acquisition and performance marketing?

UA services are the acquisition half: buying installs and first conversions across paid channels. Performance marketing is the wider discipline, including retention campaigns, web funnels and the measurement model around them. Our methodology sits on the performance marketing page, while this page is the UA offer itself.

How much do user acquisition services 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 ad 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.

Do you produce the ad creatives?

Yes, in-house. Our creative team works inside the UA team, producing UGC, statics and video in batches of 3 to 4 variations per concept, every week. We have produced 10,000+ ads and ship a new batch every week. If you have an internal creative team, we brief them instead and keep the testing cadence.

Who owns the ad accounts and the data?

You do. The ad accounts, the MMP, the creative files and all campaign data stay yours, and we work inside your accounts. Where it helps scaling, for example to get past new-account spend limits on Meta, we can also run budget through our own accounts alongside yours.

How fast can campaigns go live?

Two to three weeks from kickoff in most cases. Weeks one and two cover the audit, the KPI model and the measurement fixes, and the first restructured campaigns with a fresh creative batch launch in weeks three and four. Where accounts and tracking are already clean, it is faster.

Can you work alongside our in-house UA manager?

Yes, and it is a common setup. We take the channels or the creative volume your team cannot cover and work from the same KPI model, with one shared reporting view. Everything we build is documented and handed over. We do not work as outstaff.

More on paid user acquisition

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

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

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

Michael Brandon

CEO of Slumber Group

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