Sub Club by RevenueCat
Channel Experimentation and the Tiktokification of Video Ads — Ryan Watson, onX
Wed Mar 08 2023Description
The episode covers the success story of On X, a subscription app that focuses on hunting and outdoor activities. It explores the importance of finding underserved niches, the deep connection between hunting and conservation, understanding the hunting audience, effective marketing strategies using channels like TikTok and SEO, influencer marketing and partnerships, optimizing advertising and product positioning, and tracking performance through marketing automation. The episode also highlights the challenges faced by On X in incrementality testing and cross-conversion between apps.
Insights
Finding underserved niches can lead to building successful businesses in the subscription app space.
On X started by selling micro SD cards with maps and eventually transitioned to a mobile app, dominating the market for hunting apps.
Hunting helps manage animal populations and maintain ecosystem balance.
State agencies rely on hunters to decrease animal populations through hunting tags, which also contribute to the conservation of animals. Hunting provides organic and ethical food for families, and trophy hunting can benefit genetic diversity in animal populations.
Understanding the deep emotional aspects of hunting and off-roading experiences is crucial for targeting the hunting audience effectively.
Onyx aims to empower people's adventures and awaken the adventure in everyone. They use channels like TikTok, Facebook, Google YouTube, and SEO to reach their audience.
Short-form video content, influencer marketing, and unconventional channels like TikTok can be effective in reaching the target audience.
Creative content is crucial for relevance and targeting. Onyx works with macro and micro influencers to sponsor podcasts and create video content.
Influencers play a significant role in retention and provide valuable assets for marketing programs.
Ads can be used as a retention strategy, and partnerships are offered as benefits to elite members. The higher priced tier of Onyx's product offers additional features and benefits.
Educational content, marketing automation, and tracking performance are important for user engagement and onboarding.
OnX focuses on rates like install to trial and trial to purchase. They work with Coach Hada as their MMP for attribution.
Efforts are made to optimize advertising and product positioning, with a focus on web sales.
The web funnel is less affected by incrementality testing, and retargeting efforts consider sending users to areas where they can make purchases more easily.
Onyx focuses on building specific apps for specific user passions and observes some cross-conversion between apps.
Some partnerships involve special promotional codes and free access to tools/services to drive more people to the higher tier membership.
Chapters
- Introduction
- Hunting and Conservation
- Understanding the Hunting Audience
- Exploring Marketing Channels
- Influencer Marketing and Partnerships
- Marketing Strategies and Performance Tracking
- Optimizing Advertising and Product Positioning
Introduction
00:01 - 07:29
- On X is a subscription app that focuses on hunting and outdoor activities like ATVs and snowmobiling.
- The founder, Eric Sigfried, created the app to help hunters legally access land by combining various maps and data into a GPS format.
- The app started by selling micro SD cards with the maps and eventually transitioned to a mobile app.
- On X dominates the market in terms of subscription and market share for hunting apps.
- They are expanding their offerings to include other activities like backcountry skiing, off-roading, ATV, dirt biking, etc.
- Finding underserved niches can lead to building successful businesses in the subscription app space.
Hunting and Conservation
07:04 - 14:06
- Hunters often have a deep respect for conservation and renewable resources.
- Hunting helps manage animal populations and maintain ecosystem balance.
- State agencies rely on hunters to decrease animal populations through hunting tags.
- Tags purchased by hunters contribute to the conservation of animals.
- Hunting provides organic and ethical food for families.
- Trophy hunting can benefit genetic diversity in animal populations.
- OnX has a clearly defined audience in the hunting niche, making marketing easier but also harder due to its narrow focus.
Understanding the Hunting Audience
13:49 - 21:08
- Hunting is a relatively small market compared to others, with an estimated 15-17 million hunters in the US and Canada combined.
- Hunters are passionate and have different motivations, such as passing down the tradition to their children or providing food for their families.
- Onyx focuses on understanding the deep emotional aspects of hunting and off-roading experiences.
- The company aims to empower people's adventures and awaken the adventure in everyone.
- Understanding the audience helps with channel selection, targeting via interest, lookalike audiences, and hashtags.
- Channels like TikTok, Facebook, Google YouTube work well for demand generation.
- Search is powerful for niche products and audiences looking for specific items.
- OnX has tested various third-party display and video networks to find effective channels for reaching their customers.
- SEO plays a significant role in OnX's strategy by building valuable content that qualifies the audience and feeds retargeting efforts.
- Using keyword data from search helps inform product positioning and feature development.
Exploring Marketing Channels
20:45 - 28:00
- SEO is undervalued in niche markets and can be used to position products and features.
- Marketers should explore channels that may seem unconventional, like Snapchat or TikTok, as they can yield positive results.
- Short-form video content, popularized by TikTok, has gained significant traction and offers marketers new creative opportunities.
- Both low-fidelity and high-fidelity video ads can be effective depending on the resources available.
- The TikTok style of short-form, low-fidelity videos can also be successful on other platforms like Facebook and YouTube.
- Creative content is crucial for relevance and targeting in the face of privacy challenges.
- Influencer marketing is important for authenticity and brand representation, with Onyx working with influencers at various levels.
Influencer Marketing and Partnerships
27:31 - 34:43
- Onyx focuses on working with the right people who represent their brand well.
- They use macro and micro influencers to sponsor podcasts and create video content.
- Influencers help provide a constant flow of video content for social media platforms.
- Retention is important, and influencers can act as ambassadors for the product, increasing customer lifetime value.
- Influencers also provide valuable photo and video assets for other marketing programs.
- Ads can be used as a retention strategy by reminding customers to use the app.
- Partnerships are offered as benefits to Onyx elite members, increasing wallet share and customer lifetime value.
- Each partnership deal is negotiated differently but aims to provide more value to the customer.
- The higher priced tier of Onyx's product offers additional features and benefits specific to that tier.
- Partnerships may involve discounts or mutual agreements depending on the company involved.
Marketing Strategies and Performance Tracking
34:18 - 41:48
- Different types of deals are made with companies, such as special promotional codes and free access to tools/services.
- The goal is to get more people onto the higher tier membership.
- Educational content plays a key role in helping users understand and utilize the product effectively.
- Marketing automation is crucial for engaging with users and providing a good onboarding experience.
- OnX has a strong in-house creative team but also works with agencies when needed.
- They use Coach Hada as their MMP (Mobile Measurement Partner) for attribution and tracking performance.
- Incrementality testing becomes challenging at scale, so they focus on rates like install to trial and trial to purchase.
Optimizing Advertising and Product Positioning
41:20 - 48:15
- Rates are typically very focused on, especially install to trial and trial to purchase.
- Tight communication with marketing automation partners is critical for launching a new network.
- Incrementality tests with certain partners have come up short due to the niche audience.
- Organic lift from pay-to-play advertising can be seen through increased search results.
- The web funnel is less affected by ETT, allowing for monitoring of organic flywheel ebbs and flows.
- Efforts are made to drive web sales as they generate 30% more revenue.
- Install ads from the top of the funnel tend to drive people naturally through the mobile flow.
- Retargeting efforts consider sending users to areas where they can make purchases more easily, such as a striped flow.
- Onyx focuses on building specific apps for specific user passions rather than bundling them together.
- Some cross-conversion between apps has been observed but is not significant at this point in time.