Question from Reddit user:
Hello, everyone! I’m currently running ads for an app that utilizes AI to generate various images with different styles from your selfies.
Despite offering the same features, ad styles, and achieving similar results as my competitors, I’m struggling to reach even half of their success. They’re raking in $400K from 100K installs, while I’m falling short.
I have a theory that requires validation. In this category of apps, there are two subscription options: weekly and yearly.
I suspect that my competitors are strategically firing the yearly subscription event separately to Meta (formerly Facebook) and using it as an optimization event for their campaigns. This approach allows them to target individuals likely to opt for the yearly subscription, resulting in fewer installs but a substantial increase in revenue.
I’m open to exploring alternative theories to test, and I would greatly appreciate your assistance.
Answer from Nabil:
The short answer is:
Your theory is very likely correct, and it is the best practice for high-value subscription apps.
To replicate and exceed your competitors’ success, you need to stop optimizing for app installs or generic trial starts and instead optimize for the specific high-value event that correlates with your desired outcome – either the yearly subscription event itself or, more powerfully, using Value Optimization (VO) on your Purchase event by feeding the actual dollar value to Meta.
This shifts the algorithm’s goal from simply finding new users to finding new, high-revenue-generating users.
The long answer is:
The discrepancy between your install volume and revenue compared to your competitors points to a massive difference in the quality of the users you are acquiring.
Acquiring users who convert to a $100 yearly plan is exponentially more valuable than acquiring a ‘freebie hunter’ who takes a weekly trial.
You need to leverage Meta’s Value Optimization feature, which is designed precisely for this scenario.
For your app, you should aim to use the App Promotion campaign objective, and then set your ad set optimization for either a specific, high-value in-app event, or for ‘Maximize Value of Conversions.’
If you have a high enough volume of yearly subscriptions – typically 50-100 per week per ad set – you could create a custom event like Yearly_Purchase and optimize directly for that.
However, the most sophisticated approach is to use the standard Purchase event, but ensure you are passing the monetary value of that purchase (e.g., $100 for a yearly subscription and $5 for a weekly subscription) to Meta.
By selecting ‘Maximize Value of Conversions’ as your goal, the Meta algorithm will prioritize showing your ads to users in the auction who are most likely to generate the highest revenue, automatically bidding more for the high-value (yearly) subscribers.
This will result in fewer total installs but a significantly higher Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), which aligns with your competitors’ results.
To make this high-value optimization work effectively, especially with the complexities of in-app subscriptions and server-side tracking, implementing the Meta Conversions API alongside a Mobile Measurement Partner (MMP) like AppsFlyer is an excellent solution.
An MMP is vital because it accurately attributes app installs and in-app events back to the correct ad campaign across both iOS and Android.
It acts as a central hub, collecting all your purchase data – including the subscription type and dollar value – directly from the app store and securely forwarding this rich, server-side data to Meta via the Conversions API.
Using the Conversions API ensures maximum data signal quality and reliability by sending data directly from your server (or the MMP’s server) to Meta, bypassing browser or app limitations that can cause data loss.
This clean, complete, and value-rich data set is what empowers Meta’s algorithm to accurately predict and target users who will purchase the high-value yearly subscription, finally closing the revenue gap with your competitors.
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