IRL

Scaling a Massive Media Budget to Acquire Users for a Social Media Unicorn

Disclaimer: As of June 2023, IRL has ceased operations following an internal investigation that revealed an overstatement of their user count. We were unaware of this development but remain proud of our efforts in acquiring legitimate users.

IRL, a social media application designed to encourage real-world connections and friendships, seized a strategic growth opportunity amid the lifting of lockdown restrictions and a substantial $200M+ funding injection. 

Problem Overview

While a $200M investment typically signifies substantial resources, IRL, aspiring to be a social media giant, encountered formidable challenges:

  • Attribution difficulties caused by the release of iOS 14.5+.
  • Restrictions on deferred deeplinking for new app install campaigns.
    • This was crucial for a seamless user experience.
  • Stringent data privacy that limited our ability to feed data to ad vendors. 
  • The group feature having to directly compete with the goliath known as Discord.
  • Absence of an existing paid media or ads program.

Highlights

$ K+
Monthly Managed spend
- %
Cost Per Install

Our Approach

Recognizing the need for strategic initiatives, we collaborated with IRL and its legal team to develop a comprehensive plan for user acquisition. We worked together with the IRL team to create hundreds of new groups on their app that were related to popular interests. Our idea was to leverage innate targeting features, such as location and interest targeting, in order to provide a hyper-personalized experience. We executed this campaign across Meta Ads, Google Ads, Apple Search Ads, Snapchat Ads, and TikTok Ads. 

Granular Location-Based Campaigns

Understanding the value proposition of IRL in facilitating real-life connections, we launched campaigns focusing on geolocation. We curated a list of the top 100 cities in the US based on population. Using this list, we created a campaign targeting each city with personalized creative. 

Deferred Deeplinking Post iOS 14.5+

Deferred deeplinking is the practice of linking a user to a specific part of your app after they install. While this is a nice-to-have feature for most apps, it was absolutely crucial for our install flow to ensure a smooth user exprience of the user joining the group they saw in the ad. 

While it was virtually impossible to do this on iOS devices with app install campaigns, we found that it was still possible when linking from a website. As a solution, we theory-crafted a simple landing page with just the "Install on App Store" button - which functioned as a deferred deeplink. It had a 93.7% CTR, meaning we barely added any friction to the existing funnel.

Bulk Creative Generation

While working with IRL, we had no creative support due to the creative team being focused on product. Despite this, we had hundreds of personalized ads to make that were specific to a user's interests. Generating that many pictures and videos would've normally been a constraint - but we had a plan.

Leveraging Bannerbear, we streamlined the process by creating an intake form that scraped information from IRL app groups, generating images based on predefined templates. This approach significantly eased the creative workload, enabling us to achieve unprecedented success at scale.

Gallery