LOVER

Paid Acquisition Case Study

Rebuilding Paid Growth Into a Revenue Engine

I restored Facebook acquisition in July, rebuilt LOVER’s paid-growth engine and connected media scaling to revenue and subscriber economics.

  • Role: Head of Digital User Acquisition
  • Scope: Paid app acquisition + forecasting
  • Channels: Paid social, ASA + channel tests
  • Period: May–December 2021
+124% Q4 revenue vs. Q3
+252% Revenue, August–December
≈50% Lower CPA, August–December
+373% Monthly paid-install growth

Challenge

Facebook was still offline when I joined. I spent May and June rebuilding the acquisition foundation, then restored the channel in July.

At the same time, iOS privacy changes, new pricing and a three-day trial changed the funnel. Growth had to be measured through revenue and subscriber CPA—not installs alone.

Ownership

  • Paid strategy, media planning, budgets, testing and forecasting.
  • Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit and Apple Search Ads optimization.
  • Product and lifecycle work across SKAdNetwork, subscription tracking, pricing, landing pages and CRM.

Approach

  • Compared weekly run rate with targets across spend, trials, subscribers, CPA and revenue.
  • Shifted budget away from weaker downstream performance and toward Facebook’s scale.
  • Paired media tests with tracking, creative, pricing and funnel improvements.

Results

Revenue grew every month from September through December: +61%, +36%, +34% and +20%. Q4 finished 124% above Q3 while CPA fell by approximately half.

+252% revenue Monthly revenue growth from August through December.
≈50% lower CPA Customer acquisition became more efficient as revenue scaled.

From July through December, paid installs increased 373%, free trials increased 518%, paid subscriptions increased 233% and CPI improved 30%.

Exit Analysis: Revenue Up. CPA Down.

LOVER paid-media creative featuring the line Like a personal trainer for your sex life, an app interface, FDA Safer Technologies Program mark and App Store call to action.

Top-Performing Facebook Creative

Built to keep performing

I designed this graphic and the FDA Safer Technologies logos. It remained LOVER’s top-performing Facebook creative for nine months after my exit.

Source: May–December 2021 actualized tracking and manager exit analysis. Facebook was restored in July. CPA is approximate because the exit chart has no point labels. Percentages are rounded.