App Doubles Revenue at Half the Ad Budget with Web2App

Project summary

1. English on Smartphone started as a side project from a team of three – an English teacher, a marketer (Vasiliy), and a developer (Sergey) – with just $20K and limited time outside their day jobs.

2. The team’s initial UA strategy focused on direct-to-store campaigns on Instagram and Facebook.

3. They reinvested every dollar into UA, but revenue barely kept up with spend. CAC was $30–$40, and by month seven, they were considering pulling back.

4. Everything changed when they spotted a competitor running a web2app funnel. That led them to FunnelFox.

5. Vasiliy and the team launched their first funnel in just three evenings using FunnelFox’s no-code builder.

6. With the new funnel live, they doubled revenue while cutting ad spend in half.

7. The team then added upsells, increasing revenue by another 10%.

Challenge

The team launched English on Smartphone as a passion project – just three people building on the side, with $20K to invest. They didn’t realize just how competitive the language learning space was – and if they had, they might’ve thought twice. But they were already in.

Initially, the team ran direct-to-store campaigns on Instagram and Facebook, offering a 7-day paid trial that rolled into a weekly, monthly, or annual subscription. Most users chose the weekly plan.

For seven months, the team kept pushing. Every dollar earned went straight back into UA. CAC stayed stuck at $30–$40, and revenue only covered the cost of acquiring new users. Meanwhile, ad prices were rising, and growth just wasn’t happening.

Turning point: launching a web2app funnel

The team was days away from cutting spend when they saw a competitor’s web2app ad funnel – and everything changed. Vasiliy started researching web2app, asking around. Someone recommended FunnelFox, and that’s where things shifted.

Solution

Within just three evenings, Vasiliy and Sergey built their first funnel using FunnelFox’s no-code builder. They created a landing page, added a lead capture form, built a lightweight paywall, and set up web payments.

Here’s the English on Smartphone funnel flow:

Ad → landing page → lead capture → paywall → checkout → app download → automated subscription renewal

They also created new static creatives and launched fresh campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. If a creative performed, they’d turn it into a video featuring their English teacher recording engaging lessons.

The new approach wasn’t complicated – but it worked.

How it works

No-code funnel builder

FunnelFox gave the team everything they needed to build their funnels – landing pages, lead capture form, onboarding, paywall, and payment logic – without writing a single line of code. They launched their first funnel in just a few hours spread across three evenings.

💡 Now it’s even faster – with FunnelFox’s AI-powered funnel generator, you can launch a full web2app funnel in just 1 minute.

Faster payouts

Moving payments to the web helped the team bypass store payout delays – now, revenue lands in the account within 5–7 days, ready to be re-invested.

No app store fees

Renewals run automatically on the web through the same provider and method selected at web checkout. That means no 15–30% cut from app stores – the team keeps more revenue.

Built-in analytics and conversion tracking

The team could finally see which plans converted best and where to plug in upsells.

💡 FunnelFox helps you run smarter A/B tests with conversions metric, CR, CR confidence levels & intervals, observed power, and p-values, so you can make data-driven decisions.