Growth tactics for mobile apps

Practical growth tactics that work for mobile apps: how to run each one, an example, and when it backfires.

1. 1 Brief creators on one problem and angle
2. 2 Creators film 3 hooks per video
3. 3 Test hooks in small paid ad sets
Awareness
Commission UGC-style creator videos for your paid social ads

Pay creators to film native-looking videos about your product, then test many hooks in paid social to find ads that feel like real posts.

Impact High Effort Medium
Categories: Paid Ads, Social Media
1. 1 Pull each user's yearly stats
2. 2 Show them as a story with share cards
3. 3 User posts their card on social
Awareness
Create a personalised year-in-review recap users want to share

Turn each user's yearly activity into a short, story-style recap with shareable cards, so customers show off your product for you.

Impact High Effort High
Categories: Social Media, Analytics, Email
1. 5 to 6 weeks before Pick one goal and start building a supporter list
2. 3 weeks before Write the tagline and maker comment, record the demo
3. 1 week before Build the launch landing page with tagged links
Awareness
Prepare and run a Product Hunt launch

Plan a Product Hunt launch weeks ahead so the day brings real users, feedback and a lasting listing.

Impact Medium Effort Medium
Categories: Social Media, Content
1. Applicants from customers and campuses
2. Starter ambassadors
3. Active ambassadors
4. Lead ambassadors
Awareness
Start a brand ambassador program with tiers and clear rewards

Recruit students or loyal customers as ambassadors, give them simple missions and rewards that grow with their impact, and keep it honest.

Impact Medium Effort High
Categories: Social Media, Partnerships
1. Search impression
2. Product page view
3. Install
4. First open
Acquisition
App store optimisation for the App Store and Google Play

Tune your app's name, keywords, screenshots and ratings so more people find it in store search and tap install.

Impact High Effort Medium + free tool
Categories: SEO, Conversion, A/B Testing
1. 1 Visitor joins and sees their place in line
2. 2 Gets a personal link to skip ahead
3. 3 Shares it with friends who would care
Acquisition
Build a viral pre-launch waitlist where referrals move you up

Give every waitlist sign-up a personal link and a visible place in line, and move them up each time a friend joins through their link.

Impact High Effort Medium + free tool
Categories: Email, Social Media, Conversion
1. 1 Measure the baseline conversion rate
2. 2 Pick the smallest lift worth finding
3. 3 Calculate sample size per variant
Acquisition
Decide your A/B test sample size before you start

Work out how much traffic a test needs up front, then judge it once, so you stop shipping winners that were never real.

Impact High Effort Medium + free tool
Categories: A/B Testing, Analytics
1. 1 Write hypotheses from customer insight
2. 2 Produce 3 to 5 concepts with hook variants
3. 3 Test with a fixed budget per concept
Acquisition
Build a creative testing system for Meta and TikTok ads

Test ad concepts in a structured weekly cycle, judge them on cost per purchase or install, and move winners into scaling campaigns.

Impact High Effort High + free tool
Categories: Paid Ads, A/B Testing
Free plan that cannibalises

Limits chosen by gut feel or copied from a competitor
Covers everything a small team ever needs
Free plan that converts

Limits set on usage that grows with success
Full core experience so users reach real value
Acquisition
Design a freemium plan that converts to paid

Set free plan limits around the moment users get serious, so the free tier brings in signups without giving away what people would pay for.

Impact High Effort High
Categories: Pricing, Conversion
1. 1 Export customers with value data
2. 2 Keep the top tier by value or retention
3. 3 Upload with consent and hashing
Acquisition
Build lookalike audiences from your best customers

Feed ad platforms a clean list of your highest-value customers so they can find new people who look like them, instead of seeding from everyone.

Impact Medium Effort Low
Categories: Paid Ads, Analytics
1. 1 Visitor joins the waitlist
2. 2 Short survey ranks the queue
3. 3 Batch of users gets access
Acquisition
Launch with invite-only access without faking scarcity

Use a waitlist and limited invites to control load, learn from early users and build demand, with honest reasons for every limit.

Impact Medium Effort Medium
Categories: Conversion, Customer Research
1. 1 Verify students and educators
2. 2 Teachers build the tool into classes
3. 3 Graduates take it to their jobs
Acquisition
Offer free or discounted access to students and educators

Give verified students and teachers free or cheap access so future professionals learn on your product and bring it to work later.

Impact Medium Effort Medium
Categories: Pricing, Partnerships
1. 1 Make the help centre public and crawlable
2. 2 Mine support tickets for real phrases
3. 3 Title each article as the problem
Acquisition
Turn your help docs into a search channel

Write and structure help articles so they rank for the problems prospects search, and use them to bring in new users as well as support existing ones.

Impact Medium Effort Medium
Categories: SEO, Content, Customer Support
1. 1 Sign up and land on the checklist
2. 2 Add the basic details
3. 3 Complete the core setup step
Activation
Add an onboarding checklist that ends at activation

Give new users a short in-app checklist where every step leads to the one action that predicts they will stay.

Impact High Effort Medium
Categories: Onboarding
1. All new signups
2. Took any early action
3. Completed the activation action
4. Still active in week four
Activation
Define your activation metric before you redesign onboarding

Find the early action that separates users who stay from users who leave, then build onboarding around getting people there.

Impact High Effort Medium
Categories: Onboarding, Analytics
High-friction signup

Eight fields, including phone, company and job title
Password rules shown only after an error
Low-friction signup

Email or one-tap Google and Apple sign-in
Optional details asked later, in context
Activation
Reduce signup friction with fewer fields and social login

Cut signup to the minimum, offer one-tap login options and let people try the product before creating an account, so more visitors become users.

Impact High Effort Medium + free tool
Categories: Conversion, Onboarding
1. 1 Measure time to value
2. 2 Pick two or three trial variants
3. 3 Size the test with a calculator
Activation
Test your free trial length instead of guessing

Run a controlled test of different trial lengths, including a reverse trial, and pick the one that produces the most paying customers.

Impact High Effort Medium + free tool
Categories: Pricing, A/B Testing
1. 1 User joins for the solo tool
2. 2 Gets value on day one alone
3. 3 Creates content or data inside
Activation
Build a single-player mode before your network exists

Make your product useful to one person on their own, so early users stay long enough for the network to form around them.

Impact High Effort High
Categories: Onboarding, Customer Research
1. 1 User taps a feature that needs access
2. 2 App explains the benefit in one sentence
3. 3 Single "Continue" opens the system prompt
Activation
Ask for push and location permissions with context first

Request notification, location and camera access at the moment a feature needs it, with a clear reason, so more users say yes and fewer block you for good.

Impact Medium Effort Low
Categories: Onboarding, Conversion
Blank empty state

"No data yet" with nothing else on screen
Users hunt through menus to find how to start
Designed empty state

One line on what this screen is for
A preview of how it looks when full
Activation
Design empty states that lead to the first action

Replace blank screens with a short explanation, a preview of the result and one clear button, so new users know exactly what to do next.

Impact Medium Effort Low
Categories: Onboarding, Conversion
1. 1 Welcome email with one next step
2. 2 Check whether step one is done
3. 3 If stuck, send help for that step
Activation
Send a welcome sequence based on what users do

Replace a fixed drip of welcome emails with a short sequence that reacts to each user's actions and nudges them toward their first result.

Impact Medium Effort Low
Categories: Email, Onboarding
1. 1 User finishes signup
2. 2 Answers 2-3 tap-to-pick questions
3. 3 Answers pick a template and checklist
Activation
Use a 2-3 question welcome survey to personalise onboarding

Ask new users a few quick questions at signup and use each answer to change what they see first, so every user starts on the path that fits their goal.

Impact Medium Effort Medium
Categories: Onboarding, Customer Research
1. 1 Progress bar starts with one step done
2. 2 Complete a short, useful task
3. 3 See progress grow and a small reward
Activation
Use progress bars and small rewards to gamify onboarding

Add progress bars, milestones and small rewards to onboarding so new users feel momentum and keep going until they reach the product's real value.

Impact Medium Effort Medium
Categories: Onboarding
1. Signup Email only, or one-tap social login
2. First session Ask their goal so the first screen fits it
3. First key action Ask company name when they create their first invoice
Activation
Use progressive profiling to collect user data over time

Ask for one or two details at a time, at moments when they make sense, instead of front-loading a long form that scares people off.

Impact Medium Effort Medium
Categories: Conversion, Onboarding, Email
1. 1 User completes the daily action
2. 2 Streak count goes up
3. 3 Losing it starts to feel costly
Retention
Build a streak feature with forgiveness so users keep coming back

Count consecutive days or weeks of use, and add freezes or repairs so one missed day does not wipe out a user's progress and motivation.

Impact High Effort Medium
Categories: Onboarding
1. 1 Customer clicks cancel
2. 2 Picks one main reason
3. 3 Sees one offer for that reason
Retention
Match cancellation save offers to the reason customers leave

Ask why a customer is leaving, then show one relevant offer for that reason, and always keep the cancel button easy to find.

Impact High Effort Medium
Categories: Pricing, Customer Research, Customer Support
1. 1 User sets a goal or starts a task
2. 2 Product logs the intent as an event
3. 3 Rule waits for the right moment
Retention
Send push and email notifications tied to what users want to do

Trigger push and email messages from user intent and behaviour, so each one helps a person finish something they already started or asked for.

Impact High Effort Medium
Categories: Email, Onboarding
1. 1 Customer clicks Cancel
2. 2 One question asks the main reason
3. 3 Offer matched to that reason
Retention
Ask one question when customers cancel

Add a single-question exit survey to your cancel flow to learn why people leave, and save the ones you can.

Impact Medium Effort Low
Categories: Customer Research, Email
1. 1 Key action missing for a set window
2. 2 Split into stalled setups and lapsed users
3. 3 Send one specific, personal email
Retention
Win back users who went quiet

Spot users whose activity has dropped and send them a short, specific nudge back to value before they decide to cancel.

Impact Medium Effort Low
Categories: Email, Onboarding
1. All customers
2. Regulars
3. VIP
4. Top tier
Retention
Create VIP tiers to reward and keep your best customers

Give top customers a visible status with perks they value, so they spend more with you and have a reason not to drift away.

Impact Medium Effort Medium
Categories: Pricing, Customer Support
Monthly plan only

Customer decides whether to renew 12 times a year
Every failed card is a chance to lose them
Monthly plus discounted annual

Customer commits once for the whole year
Discount framed as "2 months free"
Revenue
Offer an annual plan with a clear discount

Give customers a reason to pay for a year up front. You get cash today and fewer chances for them to churn.

Impact High Effort Low
Categories: Pricing
1. 1 Warning at 80% of the limit
2. 2 User hits the limit
3. 3 Prompt names the block and the fix
Revenue
Show upgrade prompts when users hit a limit

Put a clear, helpful upgrade offer in front of users at the exact moment their plan stops them from doing something.

Impact High Effort Medium + free tool
Categories: Pricing, Conversion, Onboarding
1. 1 Find countries with traffic but few sales
2. 2 Group countries into a few price bands
3. 3 Set rounded local-currency prices
Revenue
Offer regional pricing based on purchasing power

Lower prices in countries where your standard price is out of reach, with checks that stop buyers from gaming the discount.

Impact Medium Effort Medium
Categories: Pricing
1. 1 Collect views, carts and purchases per user
2. 2 Start with simple rules such as bought together
3. 3 Place blocks on product page, cart and emails
Revenue
Personalised product recommendations from purchase and browse data

Use what customers bought and viewed to recommend relevant products on site, in email and in-app, and raise order value and repeat sales.

Impact Medium Effort High
Categories: Conversion, Email, Analytics
1. 1 User gets a personal result
2. 2 One tap makes a share card
3. 3 Friends see it in their feed
Referral
Make your users' results easy and attractive to share

Turn the outcomes people get from your product into ready-made cards and links they want to post, so every share introduces you to their friends.

Impact High Effort Medium + free tool
Categories: Social Media, Content
1. 1 Customer has a success moment
2. 2 Shares a give-get link
3. 3 Friend joins with a free month
Referral
Reward both sides of a referral

Run a give-get referral program where the referrer and the new customer each receive something valuable.

Impact High Effort Medium + free tool
Categories: Email, Conversion
1. 1 Customer hits a happy moment
2. 2 Gets a specific one-click ask
3. 3 Friend joins via personal link
Referral
Ask for referrals right after a happy moment

Time your referral request to the moment a customer gets value, not to a random point in your email schedule.

Impact Medium Effort Low
Categories: Email, Onboarding
1. 1 Customer shares personal link
2. 2 Friend joins and qualifies
3. 3 Progress bar moves up a tier
Referral
Reward customers with bigger perks as they refer more people

Build a referral program with tiers, so each extra successful referral unlocks a better reward and keeps your best advocates sharing.

Impact Medium Effort Medium
Categories: Email, Conversion

New tactics and tools, once a week

One practical growth tactic and any new free tools, straight to your inbox. No fluff.

Get on the list

Growth tactics for mobile apps

Commission UGC-style creator videos for your paid social ads

Create a personalised year-in-review recap users want to share

Prepare and run a Product Hunt launch

Start a brand ambassador program with tiers and clear rewards

App store optimisation for the App Store and Google Play

Build a viral pre-launch waitlist where referrals move you up

Decide your A/B test sample size before you start

Build a creative testing system for Meta and TikTok ads

Design a freemium plan that converts to paid

Build lookalike audiences from your best customers

Launch with invite-only access without faking scarcity

Offer free or discounted access to students and educators

Turn your help docs into a search channel

Add an onboarding checklist that ends at activation

Define your activation metric before you redesign onboarding

Reduce signup friction with fewer fields and social login

Test your free trial length instead of guessing

Build a single-player mode before your network exists

Ask for push and location permissions with context first

Design empty states that lead to the first action

Send a welcome sequence based on what users do

Use a 2-3 question welcome survey to personalise onboarding

Use progress bars and small rewards to gamify onboarding

Use progressive profiling to collect user data over time

Build a streak feature with forgiveness so users keep coming back

Match cancellation save offers to the reason customers leave

Send push and email notifications tied to what users want to do

Ask one question when customers cancel

Win back users who went quiet

Create VIP tiers to reward and keep your best customers

Offer an annual plan with a clear discount

Show upgrade prompts when users hit a limit

Offer regional pricing based on purchasing power

Personalised product recommendations from purchase and browse data

Make your users' results easy and attractive to share

Reward both sides of a referral

Ask for referrals right after a happy moment

Reward customers with bigger perks as they refer more people

New tactics and tools, once a week