Meta Ads
App Downloads
User Acquisition
Subscription Growth
First Mate
Lower Acquisition Costs. More Downloads. More Subscribers.
First Mate is a boat management app designed to help boat owners keep important information about their vessel organised in one place.
From maintenance and service history to marine weather, document storage, logbooks and reminders, the app gives boat owners a simpler way to manage their boat and stay on top of important information.
Sleek Marketing developed a targeted Facebook and Instagram advertising strategy focused on reaching Australian boat owners, increasing app downloads and converting more users into subscribers.
The Results
70%
Reduction in App Download Cost
Campaign optimisation dramatically reduced the cost of acquiring new app users through Meta Ads.
30%
Increase in Subscriptions
Increased app acquisition and more targeted advertising contributed to growth in subscriptions.
More App Users
From the Marine Market
Targeted Meta campaigns put First Mate directly in front of relevant boat owners and created a more scalable user acquisition channel.
The Challenge
First Mate needed to reach the right audience, clearly communicate why the app was useful and give boat owners a compelling reason to download it.
Generating inexpensive downloads has limited value if those users don’t engage with the app or become subscribers.
The advertising strategy therefore needed to focus on the complete acquisition journey—from introducing First Mate to new boat owners through to driving downloads and ultimately increasing subscriptions.
The Goals
01
Increase App Downloads
Get First Mate onto the phones of more Australian boat owners.
02
Reduce App Acquisition Costs
Generate more downloads without continually increasing advertising spend.
03
Increase Subscriptions
Turn increased app adoption into growth in subscribers.
04
Increase Brand Awareness
Build awareness of First Mate within Australia’s boating community.
05
Create a Scalable Acquisition Channel
Develop a Meta Ads strategy capable of continually introducing new boat owners to the app.
Our Solution
01
Reaching Boat Owners Through Meta Ads
Facebook and Instagram provide an opportunity to reach boat owners before they begin actively looking for a boat management solution.
Our strategy focused on introducing First Mate to relevant boating audiences and quickly communicating the practical benefits of using the app.
Rather than simply advertising “download our app”, campaigns focused on the everyday problems First Mate helps boat owners solve.
This gave potential users a clearer reason to take action.
02
Selling the Benefits, Not Just the App
A key part of the strategy was communicating what First Mate could actually do for a boat owner.
Advertising highlighted useful features including:
- Maintenance and service history
- Marine weather
- Anchor Mate drift alerts
- Document storage
- Boat logbook
- Maintenance reminders
Different features and messages could be tested to determine which benefits generated the strongest response from boat owners.
This helped make the advertising more relevant while giving potential users a practical reason to download the app.
03
Reducing the Cost of Acquiring New Users
Generating more downloads wasn’t enough.
We wanted to make acquiring those users substantially more efficient.
Campaign performance was continually monitored across audiences, creative, messaging and placements.
Advertising spend could then be shifted towards the combinations generating downloads at the most efficient cost.
04
Turning Downloads Into Subscribers
Downloads were an important acquisition metric, but they weren’t the final objective.
Subscription growth was the stronger commercial outcome.
By reaching more relevant boat owners and improving the efficiency of user acquisition, First Mate was able to increase the pool of potential subscribers entering the app.
The strategy therefore wasn’t simply producing cheaper downloads—it was helping grow the app’s paying customer base.
05
Building a Scalable User Acquisition Strategy
The significant reduction in download cost created an opportunity to scale.
As acquisition became more efficient, advertising could reach more boat owners without costs increasing at the same rate.
Different features, audiences and creative concepts could continually be tested while successful campaigns were scaled.
This created a more sustainable acquisition model for First Mate as the app continued to grow.
The Outcome
Sleek Marketing helped First Mate build a more efficient Meta advertising strategy focused on acquiring relevant boat owners and growing the app’s subscriber base.
Through improved targeting, feature-focused creative and ongoing campaign optimisation, app download cost decreased by 70%.
At the same time, subscriptions increased by 30%, demonstrating that improved acquisition efficiency was translating into commercial growth.
Rather than simply generating more clicks or awareness, Meta Ads became a scalable user acquisition channel designed to bring more boat owners into the First Mate ecosystem and convert that growth into paying subscribers.