Profitable growth in a post-identifier world | UGC & video ad creative production to drive ROAS & scale

I help mobile app companies–including gaming companies like Applovin, East Side Games, Jam City and Scopely, and apps like Bumble, Lingokids, Mojo and FitMind(among others) –acquire new users and achieve profitable, scalable growth in a Generative-AI world.

Offering both managed user acquisition services and done-for-you creative production for teams running their own ads, our clients have continued to not only grow after Apple’s privacy changes, and many have seen their ROAS improve by an avg. of 20-40%.

The secret to our clients’ success is the combination of our deep expertise from having produced 10k+ ads and managed over $100M in ad spend, and our ability to rapidly produce UGC and video ads at volume that can be used to dial in exactly what works, and discard what does not.

📹 HOW WE DO IT📹 

Leveraging a combination of both human and AI creators, we’re able to rapidly produce UGC & video ads that are based on rock solid strategy and research. By testing 50+ (or more) variants a month even at small budgets with our signature rapid testing and iteration process, we’re able to rapidly isolate key elements of winning UGC. This is essential, with our data showing that the tiniest changes can lead to outsized performance.

💻AI VIDEO YOU ASK?💻

Yes, AI video. Now not just AI video, we use both human and AI creators. With the advent of AI we’ve been able to rapidly scale and test in a way we could not before. While many in the industry worry that AI 
Creative appears robotic and doesn't invoke emotion, we’ve found it depends on the inputs you give and the strategy behind your ads. 

📈 RESULTS CREATED📈 

-70% ROAS uplift and 69% CPI improvement for Adventure Communist, an idle-clicking game.

-Tested 100+ creatives for Games2Win, drove 350K+ installs, and 100% increase in ROAS.

-Unlocked month on month growth for hampr, a hyperlocal laundry app while improving cost per purchaser by 55%.

🏎GET STARTED🏎

Reach out here on LinkedIn to get a free consultation on leverage AI-fueled creative production to supercharge your growth.

Email us at: hi@rocketshiphq.com

Shamanth M. Rao

🧠 This is the breakthrough that made AI headshot generation possible

📍 We often think of AI progress as magic - but it’s really a story of simple extrapolation.

I spoke to Rohan Khadatkar, Head of Marketing at InstaHeadshots, on Intelligent Artifice, about how one key technological leap unlocked the entire category of realistic AI headshots.

Here’s how he explained it 👇

ChatGPT made “text to text” easy to grasp.

You type a prompt (text input) and get an intelligent text output. 💬➡️💬

Now, extend that same logic - 
🖼️ text → image
🎵 text → music
🎙️ text → voice

That’s where the next wave of AI breakthroughs began.

In the text-to-image world, the first big leap came when researchers built models that could take a text description - say “a red apple on a table” - and generate a photo-realistic image that looked like a real apple. 🍎

The next leap - the one that made AI headshot generation possible - was even bigger.

It was the ability to take just 8-10 images of a person and train a model to learn their identity. 🧩

Once that became possible, tools could generate realistic portraits that looked like the same person - across different poses, styles, and lighting.

That was the foundation on which the 2023 headshot generation revolution was built. 🚀

From a few sample photos → to a full digital identity.

A tiny dataset - a massive leap.

🎧 Full conversation with Rohan Khadatkar on Intelligent Artifice:
https://lnkd.in/dKSbwGJG

🚀 20-40% ROAS increase for mobile apps in 60 days | AI-fueled UGC & video ad creative production 📹 | 3x Exits | $100m+ ad spend | Meta, Google, TikTok partner

📬 I analyzed 70 ads for Fyxer AI ($17mm ARR AI app)

52% of their ads focus on this BIG emotional trigger….

Relief from overwhelm:

→ Inbox zero before 9am
→ "Drowning in emails?"
→ How I sleep knowing my emails are drafted and organized.

Which probably means... it's working. 

But there's more going on behind the scenes - so I ran it through my Sherlock Holmes Investigator Agent. 

It analyzed every single frame and conducted semantic analysis across the entire ad library - and then I checked it against what I was seeing manually. 

This is how their ads break down:

📝 𝗡𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝘄
↳ Problem → AI solution → transformation
↳ Storytelling showing time saved and productivity gained

💢 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺s
↳ Endless unread emails draining focus
↳ Feeling buried in work emails
↳ Losing hours to inbox triage

⏳ 𝗨𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆
↳ "Experience inbox zero by 9am"
↳ "Start your free trial"
↳ "Overdue replies"

📈 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆
↳ "Start your free trial, no card required"
↳ User testimonials and trust markers

🌸 𝗔𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀
↳ Get to inbox zero by 9am.
↳ Calm mornings and nights.
↳ Get more done without opening another tab

In our full breakdown, I share insights from the ad analysis our system ran, including:

✅ Effortless productivity: "Inbox Zero in minutes, not hours"
✅ Liberation from overload: "Reclaim your time from endless emails"
✅ Smart automation: "Your AI that manages replies while you focus on real work"

Full Notion analysis is here: https://lnkd.in/dsZ7S86c

And if you want me to analyze your competitors ad libraries and see what angles we can find... drop me a DM / email: shamanth@rocketshiphq.com

Happy to run a few for free.

𝗜 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝟱𝟬+ 𝗕𝗮𝗯𝗯𝗲𝗹 𝗮𝗱𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲-𝗯𝘆-𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲 with AI. Every subscription app founder going into Q5/Q1 should internalize these 5 learnings.

When I ran them through 𝗕𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗔𝗜 frame-by-frame, I found 5 psychology patterns that drive their wins.

𝟭. 𝗔𝘁𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗩𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗱 𝗔𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 
↳ "Switching from my old language app felt like going from a rustmobile to a Ferrari" 
↳ They reference 'gamified apps' without naming competitors.

𝟮. 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗲 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘀 
↳ "Have real conversations in three weeks" 
↳ Not "learn fast" 
↳ Not "fluent soon"
Three weeks feels achievable but ambitious.

They show it across formats. 
↳Suspense hooks. 
↳Interactive ads. 
↳ Before/after split screens with date labels.

𝟯. 𝗛𝗮𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗖𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹 
↳ "Built by 200+ language experts" 
↳ They repeat this across every ad format 
↳ Travel testimonials, creator POV, competitor contrasts

Repetition compounds trust.

𝟰. 𝗘𝗺𝗽𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝗘𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 
↳ "You only need 10 minutes a day"
↳ Morning coffee rituals
↳ Freelancer on the go 
↳ Pre-work routines

They show real people fitting lessons into everyday life.
Removes excuses before they form.

𝟱. 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝗣𝘀𝘆𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 

↳ "The pronunciation is too good" 
↳ Frame benefits as complaints
↳ "I regret learning too fast"
Every ‘complaint’ is actually a flex.

It subverts expectations. Makes benefits more memorable.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻:
Show them what life looks like after switching. Make the contrast impossible to ignore.

That's why these ads work longer and power Babbel's creative engine that has driven 18 million subscribers.

Want the full breakdown with actual examples you can apply?

Drop "𝗕𝗔𝗕𝗕𝗘𝗟" in the comments 👇

I'll send you the complete analysis.

Red Bull

Head of Marketing and Growth at MyGroove

Mathemarketing

As an advisor, I help B2C startups with acquisition, retention, and monetization strategies. Whether you're at the pre-market-fit stage or believe you're ready to scale, I can help with: 
- go-to-market and product launch strategies
- mapping out your growth model, to decide where to invest resources
- launching new or optimizing existing growth funnels and loops (paid social advertising, search advertising, virality, content marketing, etc.)
- finding product/market, product/channel, and product/model fits
- setting up growth processes, implementing product analytics and marketing tools 
- user research / JTBD development		
- conversion rate optimization
- optimizing user engagement, retention, and monetization
- hiring for growth and marketing roles

Marketing and Growth Advisor, B2C startups and scaleups

Mimo

I’m leading the Marketing team and used to lead a cross-functional Growth team. In Marketing, we are doing full-funnel marketing focusing on acquiring users through paid and organic channels (apps and web) with healthy unit economics. I am responsible for marketing-led user acquisition, retention, and monetization, including budgets, strategy, spending effectiveness, channels, branding, product marketing, user research, and data analytics. 

When I led the Product Growth team with product designers and developers, we researched, built, and launched new features—from inception to mass adoption—that generated value for users and revenue for the business. We drove new and recurring revenue growth through fast experimentation, improving the subscription funnel and activation, experimenting with paywalls and pricing, decreasing subscriber churn, and implementing new growth loops.

Some of the wins so far:
- 3x organic search traffic in 9 months through SEO
- 180% cLTV increase in 12 months; 100% increase in ARR
- 2x marketing spend in 6 months with healthy unit economics
- 2x organic search traffic through ASO
- 40% increase in D7/D14 user retention and a 50% increase in purchase rates through implementing localization
- 70% virality co-efficient increase in 6 months

Head of Marketing + Product Growth

Storebox

- Scaled paid and organic acquisition. Defined strategy, budgets, KPIs, and marketing channels mix for brand awareness and performance campaigns.
- Defined leads acquisition strategies for self-serve B2C, B2B and Franchise offers. Set up reporting, lead nurturing campaigns, and experimentation pipelines for lead magnets.
- Led the cross-functional CRO team with which we implemented PLG strategies to increase the number of unassisted bookings and secure online revenues.

Wins:
- 57% increase in conversion to purchase rate in 6 months through redesign of the checkout flow and implementing PLG strategies 
- 2x organic user acquisition through SEO

Head of Digital Marketing

Runtastic GmbH

- Led paid and organic acquisition for the adidas Training app, incl. performance marketing campaigns across paid social, search, and ad networks.
- Led cross-functional taskforce (Communications + Brand + Media) to produce new advertising concepts, and early-adopt emerging ad formats.
- Defined experimentation roadmap to expand acquisition channels and enhance campaigns performance through automation.
- Did ASO to improve discoverability through search and listings' conversion rates.

Wins:
- Together with the BI and Data Science teams, created marketing reports to accurately measure performance on a cohort basis.

User Acquisition and ASO Manager at Runtastic / adidas Group

- Led and executed lifecycle marketing strategy for the apps’ userbase: set up user journeys (push, in-app) to increase engagement, retention, and upgrades.
- Integrated mobile analytics tools, defined events taxonomy, and user segments.
- Worked with the Graphic Design department to produce advertising assets covering all types of display, text, and video ads.

Mobile Marketing and Retention Manager

SEO PowerSuite

- Performed a range of online and content marketing activities: created landing pages, blog posts, PRs, and software manuals. Built partnerships with bloggers and influencers for content distribution.
- Managed Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. to grow and engage the community.

Marketing and Communications Manager

dotDigital Group plc

- Led a team of 4 SEO managers focusing on creating and implementing SEO strategies for 15+ UK-based online businesses. Was regularly auditing and optimizing the clients' websites (on-page, off-page, usability) and reporting on the results.

SEM Team Lead

Leading Product Growth and Marketing @ Mimo | Growth mentor and consultant | Reforge practitioner | Teaching digital marketing @ Practicum

Driving growth for B2C products, across both - product and marketing.
- I've held various IC roles in paid UA, SEO, ASO, CRM, and product management. This way, I've learnt the ins and outs of product-led and marketing-led growth strategies. In recent years, I've been leading marketing and growth teams. 
- I’ve helped scale products to +30M users and +20M ARRs
- I adopt a full-funnel approach to growth, integrating acquisition, retention, and monetization to achieve sustainable and scalable revenue increase. I thrive at the intersection of product and marketing, ensuring that both aspects and teams work harmoniously to maximize business outcomes aka revenue
- I believe in the power of quantitative data and user research and that creating value for users is the foundation for driving business success
- I contribute to the growth community as a mentor on platforms like GrowthMentor, offering guidance pro bono. It allows me to share my experience and help other professionals achieve their full potential.
👉 I also consult startups and scale-ups on B2C growth and oh, here’s also my course about growing mobile apps. Rated 4.8/5 by CEOs, founders, product managers, app marketers, and consultants: https://maven.com/mathemarketing/growing-mobile-subscription-apps/

Ekaterina Gamsriegler

I had an incredible time speaking at the Business of Apps #conference in Berlin last week. Since my session kicked off early in the morning, I had the rest of the day to reconnect with the industry peers that I admire, exchange ideas, and learn from the best in the app growth space. 📈 

This year, I took the main stage for a 20-minute talk on SEO as a lever for mobile app growth. A topic that’s controversial but trending. If you’re SEO-curious, you’ll find my slides in the comments below (but please feel free to drop a comment for reach 😄). The session recording should also be available in a few weeks.

Thank you everyone who attended my talk, asked thoughtful questions, came to say hi and chat about growth afterwards, shared knowledge, or tried to sell me something. I genuinely enjoyed every conversation, and very happy I had a chance to learn from/with you: Léa Samrani, Hannah Parvaz, Mantvydas Lisauskas, Artsiom Kazimirchyk, Alper Taner, Sven Jürgens, Yevhen Tarasenko 🇺🇦 🔜 APS Berlin, Irina Merkel, Luca Stefanutti, Anton Tatarynovich (thank you for a very nice intro on stage), Jakub Chour, Jessica Gotti, Gessica Bicego, Vadim Chernikov, Nils Stotz, Marcus Burke, Nathan Hudson 🚀 , Venkat Bugga, Andy Carvell, Frederik Lanwer, David Cremades 🔜 Business Of Apps, APS Berlin, Anatoly Sharifulin, George Natsvlishvili, Ioana Iordache, Michele Paroli and many others. 

Massive thank-you to the organizers Emily Hazlewood, James Cooper, and the team for pulling off another edition of this event and for trusting me the mic for the third year in a row. 😊 

#businessofapps #growth #mobilegrowth #marketing #appmarketing

Leading Growth & Marketing @ MyGroove (a Red Bull company) | Amplitude Product50’s Top Growth Product Leader ’24 | Growth advisor | Women Techmakers Ambassador

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