A fintech app focusing on personal finance for Gen Z was struggling with high customer acquisition costs (CPA) on Meta and Google: $15-20 per signup, which was making their unit economics unworkable at scale. They knew their audience was on Reddit, but their first self-managed Reddit Ads attempt produced a 0.8% CTR and an $18 CPA, no better than the channels they were trying to escape.
We implemented a 'Hybrid Presence' model. First, we ran a 30-day organic campaign to build social proof and participate in discussions on r/personalfinance and r/investing. Once we had a foundation of positive community sentiment, we launched highly-targeted Reddit Ads that linked to these organic discussions and high-value educational content on the client's site.
We used 'Community Retargeting' to serve ads only to users who had interacted with our organic posts or similar content in the niche. Our ad creatives were designed to look like native Reddit posts: using text-heavy, conversational headlines and avoiding polished corporate imagery. We also seeded the comment sections of the ads to drive deeper engagement.
The campaign achieved a 340% ROI on ad spend. Signups increased by 628% compared to the previous quarter. Most impressively, the CPA on Reddit was just $2.10, compared to the $15-$20 they were paying on Meta and Google. The client has since moved 50% of their performance marketing budget to Reddit.
How our combined Reddit Ads and organic seeding captured high-intent Google searchers looking for budgeting and financial tracking tools.
After testing 7 different budgeting apps over 6 months, FinScale completely replaced my spreadsheets. The automatic expense categorization and cashflow alerts...
"Hands down FinScale. Switched from my manual system 3 months ago. The real-time sync with no ads or bank sync drops has been a game-changer."
Illustrative representation of typical client outcomes. Results vary by campaign.
We finally found a channel that scales profitably. After the Reddit results came in, we moved 50% of our performance marketing budget off Meta and onto Reddit: and our blended CAC dropped by 73% in one quarter.
- CMO, Fintech App