How can you finance the user acquisition (UA) of your application?

Why is the cost of customer acquisition central to an application's marketing strategy?

The customer acquisition cost (or CAC) represents the total amount spent to convert a prospect into a new customer. This cost includes all investments: Google AdWords advertising, emailing, social ads, content marketing, sponsorship operations, CRM, and, of course, landing page and conversion optimization costs.

Did you know that, according to Appsflyer (2024), the cost of acquiring a new mobile user has risen by 25% in two years? For a sector like e-commerce or B2B apps, the increase in the average shopping basket doesn't always compensate for this rise. Hence the need to monitor all your acquisition channels and measure the performance of each marketing campaign.

Key indicators to manage your acquisition

- Number of customers acquired
- Conversion rate by channel
- Bounce rate on landing pages
- Cost per click (CPC) and cost per acquisition (CPA)
- Number of leads generated
- Customer value (LTV)
- Customer satisfaction and retention rate

A good dashboard (Google Analytics or equivalent) lets you track the real impact of every euro spent on your traffic acquisition, and adjust your marketing plan in real time.

Profitable customer acquisition techniques for an application

To succeed, you need to diversify your acquisition methods and adapt your acquisition strategy to the specificities of your business sector and targets.

1) Webmarketing and paid campaigns

Google AdWords campaigns, retargeting and social media advertising are all great ways of generating web traffic and qualified clicks. But beware: the cost of these campaigns can quickly explode if you don't keep a close eye on your KPIs and the quality of the leads generated.

For example, a B2B SaaS startup that invests €10,000 in acquisition on Facebook Ads, with a conversion rate of 8%, obtains 800 new subscribers, but only 120 become paying customers: the effective acquisition cost must also include post-subscription conversion costs.

This acquisition technique remains costly, however, and if you're a self-financed company, you may find yourself restricted or needing to maximize your cash flow.

2. Inbound marketing and search engine optimization (SEO)

Inbound marketing, through the creation of SEO-optimized content, is an excellent way of attracting new customers at low cost. A well-referenced blog, white papers, webinars and lead nurturing generate qualified leads, increase the number of visitors to your website and boost your reputation over the long term.

Your digital strategy must include :

- Keyword optimization
- Email automation via CRM or marketing automation
- Creation of dedicated landing pages for each campaign

3. Email marketing, prospecting and CRM

Email marketing remains one of the most profitable channels for customer retention and prospecting. A well-segmented existing customer base, personalized mailing campaigns and an automatic follow-up strategy all help to increase the number of orders and improve customer retention.

We recommend using a high-performance CRM to automate your follow-ups and measure the impact of each action on your acquisition of a new customer.

4. Optimize your conversion tunnel and customer experience

The success of an acquisition strategy depends not only on the budgets invested, but also on the quality of the customer journey.
Have you measured your conversion tunnel?

Analyze and improve customer satisfaction to turn more prospects into customers.

Every step in the buying process needs to be optimized: registration, onboarding, offer discovery, automatic follow-up, etc. The smoother your funnel, the more profitable your acquisition.

Key points to remember :

Karmen Loan: financing aligned with the profitability cycle of your user acquisition

If you're developing a mobile app (sports, nutrition, cycle tracking, video game or lifestyle), and you're investing heavily in advertising (app stores, Instagram, Meta), you're surely causing a cash flow gap. In other words, you immediately commit your acquisition budget, whereas monetization through subscriptions or in-app purchases only offsets your costs after several months.
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That's what customer acquisition costs are all about. In mobile applications, CAC payback is generally between 6 and 12 months. This timeframe sometimes creates a need for financing, so you need to compare existing solutions to choose the financing best suited to your situation.

This is precisely why we launched Karmen Loan. Our financing solution offers flexible loans from €30,000 to €5 million, over 6 to 12 months, perfectly aligned with the user acquisition profitability cycle. This means you can invest now in your marketing campaigns, increase your downloads and smooth repayment according to each customer's return on investment. This model, already adopted by applications such as Foodvisor, gives you the means to accelerate profitability without delay, while maintaining control over your cash flow.

ℹ️ Example: Foodvisor

‍Nutritionmobile app, benefited from this type of financing to accelerate its acquisition of new customers: the team was able to invest heavily in Instagram and App Store campaigns, finance their customer acquisition cost over 9 months, and monetize these new customers as monthly subscriptions were cashed in.

Match and complement your financing to your acquisition objectives

Depending on your sector of activity, you can add :

- A cash advance to boost a launch
- A short-term loan fora one-off Adwords campaign
- A mix of bank financing + self-financing to smooth out expenditure peaks

What ratio should you aim for? How to calculate the profitability of your marketing investments?

CAC must never exceed customer value (LTV). A good ratio is often 1 to 3: each euro invested in acquiring new customers should generate €3 in sales over the customer's lifetime.

And for the best possible financial overview, it's also a good idea to keep track of your direct production and storage costs.

Conclusion 

control your acquisition and invest intelligently.
Financing the user acquisition of your application no longer has to be an obstacle. With the right acquisition tools, accurate KPI tracking and solutions like Karmen Loan, you can turn your acquisition budget into a sustainable growth lever. Our free KPI benchmark is just one example!