From 500K to 1M downloads
Three coordinated levers — App Store optimization, paid acquisition, and onboarding conversion — executed in parallel to double the install base in twelve months.
A loved product with stuck top-of-funnel growth.
Habitify had strong retention and a quiet but durable user base — but install growth had plateaued. The product’s value was clear once users were in; the gap was getting them in and getting them through onboarding without dropping off.
Constraints. No paid budget for brand. A small team. A pricing surface that had to keep working without becoming an aggressive paywall.
Three levers in parallel — not sequential.
- App Store Optimization. Get found — improve organic ranking for high-intent terms.
- Paid acquisition. Get in front — Facebook + Apple Search Ads, optimized for cost per install and ROI.
- Onboarding conversion. Once installed, increase the share of users who finish onboarding and sign in.
The bet: each lever has a cap on its own, but stacked, they compound. ASO feeds organic installs cheaply; paid amplifies; onboarding ensures the installs we paid for actually convert.
What we shipped, lever by lever.
ASO experimentation.
- A/B tested app title, subtitle, and description copy against keywords like habit and routine.
- Localized metadata for Japan, Korea, and the United States — different keyword density, different cultural framing.
- Iterated screenshots and store creative on a 4-week cycle.
Paid acquisition.
- Ran always-on Facebook and Apple Search Ads campaigns.
- Targeted churned cohorts for re-acquisition with creative referencing what they last used.
- Held campaigns to a strict CPI and ROI threshold; killed creative that drifted.
Onboarding conversion.
- Compressed onboarding from 7 steps to 4. Cut the questions that didn’t change the experience.
- Moved sign-in after first habit creation — value before friction.
- Layered notifications and email re-engagement for D1 retention.
Brand surface.
- 2nd, 4th, and 5th Product of the Day on Product Hunt — earned distribution, no spend.
The install base doubled in twelve months.
Paid acquisition held an ROI of 15% across the period — meaning growth wasn’t bought at the cost of unit economics. Most importantly, the gains compounded: better onboarding made every paid install and every organic install more valuable.
What I’d do differently.
- Onboarding is the highest-leverage growth lever. A 17-point swing in sign-up rate beats almost any acquisition tactic.
- Localize early. JP and KR responded to keyword and creative changes the US didn’t — and we left growth on the table by treating them as one cohort for the first quarter.
- Cap your guardrails first. Setting a CPI and ROI ceiling before launching campaigns kept us from celebrating volume that wasn’t profitable.