Overview
This EdTech company launched a promising mobile application aimed at helping young children develop core skills in reading and math. With an engaging interface, gamified lessons, and a strong educational foundation, the app quickly attracted thousands of downloads across iOS and Android platforms. Despite the promising uptake, the business struggled to convert these downloads into paying subscribers and found it difficult to sustain profitable growth.
The primary issues were high customer acquisition costs (CAC), weak retention after the trial period, and a misaligned brand message that failed to resonate emotionally with their ideal audience — ambitious, digitally-savvy parents.
The Challenge
The team behind the app approached us after experiencing disappointing results from several paid advertising campaigns. Their CAC had ballooned to over $120 per user, while their LTV remained under $100. Additionally, trial users often failed to complete onboarding, and only a small fraction converted to paying subscribers. The founder knew the product had value, but the market didn’t seem to “get it.”
They needed more than a new ad campaign — they needed a full repositioning, a compelling user journey, and a customer experience that aligned with the emotional drivers of their core audience: parents.
Our Approach
1. Strategic Repositioning
We began by shifting the brand narrative. Instead of positioning the app as just another “learning app,” we reframed it as a cognitive development tool backed by neuroscience and designed to enhance real-world skills like focus, problem-solving, and early literacy. This messaging better aligned with the aspirations of high-intent parents.
2. Funnel Redesign
We replaced the generic free-trial offer with an engaging quiz-based funnel. The user experience started with a short assessment of the child’s current strengths and growth areas, immediately providing value to parents and building a sense of trust. Once parents completed the quiz, they were presented with a tailored plan and invited to begin a free trial.
3. Visual & Emotional Ad Creative
We created multiple video ad sets showcasing real parents and children interacting with the app in everyday settings. The ads focused on emotional angles — like reducing screen guilt, supporting cognitive growth, and preparing kids for school. CTAs were rewritten to inspire action (“Start your child’s growth journey today”) instead of bland offers (“Try now”).
4. Data-Driven Decision Making
Data became the backbone of every decision we made. Using Mixpanel and Firebase, we tracked granular behavior patterns — from onboarding completion rates to feature engagement per session. We discovered that users who completed the onboarding quiz and received personalized recommendations were 3.4x more likely to activate their free trial.
We also analyzed heatmaps to identify points of friction in the user interface, then conducted A/B tests to validate changes to button placement, color contrast, and screen flow. Marketing attribution reports revealed which ad creatives were driving the highest LTV by cohort, allowing us to shift budgets toward the best-performing campaigns. We ran LTV:CAC ratio comparisons weekly and used retention cohort charts to map long-term engagement by entry source. These insights allowed us to optimize not just for installs, but for revenue-driving behavior.
5. Retention Optimization
To address churn, we introduced a “parent dashboard” within the app that delivered weekly progress summaries, milestone celebrations, and personalized activity recommendations. This gave parents a stronger reason to stay subscribed and engage regularly. Based on behavioral segmentation, we also sent automated nudges when usage dropped below target thresholds, increasing average session frequency by over 28%.
Results
Within just three months of relaunching the marketing and onboarding strategy, the app’s key metrics saw a dramatic improvement:
- Customer Acquisition Cost dropped from $120 to $43
- Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) increased by 40%
- Free-to-paid conversion rate more than doubled
- Ad Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) reached 2.8x across Meta campaigns
- Trial activation rate increased by 3.4x among users who completed the quiz onboarding
- Session frequency rose by 28% after behavioral nudging
Parents not only began subscribing — they began sharing the app with friends and posting about it on social media, creating organic momentum alongside the paid strategy.
Key Takeaway
EdTech founders often focus on curriculum, design, and interactivity — all critical pieces. But if the product doesn’t communicate its value in the language of the buyer (in this case, the emotional, growth-oriented parent), scaling becomes unnecessarily difficult.
By shifting the narrative from “education” to “empowerment,” and optimizing the user journey from the first impression to post-purchase experience — backed by precise behavioral analytics — we turned an underperforming app into a high-retention subscription product with growing profitability.