How Cash App’s Performance Marketing Generated 190+Million Downloads
If you’re an avid reader of mobile app news, you most likely heard about Cash App and how it’s been leading the mobile payments race for 5 consecutive years now.
It’s the #1 Finance App in the US. So far this year, it has been downloaded by 36M+ people (across the App Store and Google Play, according to AppMagic estimates).
And well, almost 200M downloads all time:
It is my ultimate goal in this article to show you what’s truly working for mobile apps by giving you a sneak peek into strategies and tactics used by one of the World’s most profitable mobile app companies.
These are not made-up theories about how they might have become successful. This article relies on pure data and facts about the strategies they used and the tactics they implemented.
About Cash App
Cash App (originally called Square Cash) was founded in 2013 by Twitter icon Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey.
In mere 4 years, they took the lead in the mobile payments race getting ahead of PayPal, Venmo, and the like.
Initially, the app was built to simplify peer-to-peer payments. Early adopters valued Cash App’s ability to move money quickly, and soon enough, they gained early traction in the southeast (US).
Fast-forward to today, they have 45M+ monthly actives in the US (completing at least one financial transaction per month).
And they’re only getting started.
Cash App is now on the path to broadening its reach domestically and expanding internationally.
As they put it: “Cash App is the fastest growing financial brand in the world.” — according to their Crunchbase profile.
Now, let’s dive in and see what strategies they use to achieve this next level of success…
Summary of Their Strategy
Cash App seeks to become a globally recognized financial Super App. They plan for a not-so-far future where people download less apps because they can do more on a few.
The team doubles down on performance marketing (aka paid advertising) — which they really excel at. But are there any limitations to their performance activities that slow down growth?
On the other hand, mobile marketers are once again reminded of how massively underestimated mobile app branding is. It can basically amplify all marketing efforts but still, it’s an often overlooked topic.
Cash App has a very solid core user base and healthy KPIs after all — which lets the team build on a solid foundation.
And as for the rest…
Now, the aim is “to reach so many more people than we have”.
– Catherine Ferdon, Cash App’s head of marketing and brands, said in an interview with AdAge
P2P = primary acquisition channel
It’s obvious, they’re running circles around their peers when it comes to download volumes.
According to AppMagic estimates, Cash App has been downloaded by 36M+ people in the US so far this year. That almost matches Venmo’s & PayPal’s downloads combined!
The question is: what’s the biggest catalyst of their growth? What’s the primary acquisition channel they rely on?
Well, I already gave it away in the headlines: it’s the app’s core functionality, peer-to-peer transactions.
In fact, if you take a better look at the chart above, you’ll quickly realize all 4 top performers are Peer to Peer Payment (P2PP) apps.
You see, the peer-to-peer payment functionality is easy to use and understand for users.
Plus, two customers always benefit in every transaction made — and that’s where new user acquisition really takes place.
As Cash App puts it (in the company’s Annual Report) “Peer-to-peer transactions have powerful network effects as every time a customer sends or requests money, Cash App can acquire a new customer or reengage an existing customer.”.
No wonder it’s the primary acquisition channel of the app — per their Annual Report.
Of course, there are plenty of other things in their growth arsenal too: performance marketing, referrals, partnerships, influencer campaigns just to name a few.
Viral campaigns for example (like ‘Cash App Fridays’ giveaways on Twitter) have been a big catalyst of Cash App’s growth for a long time.
There’s one activity though that can tell us a lot about the company’s overall health as well as their general approach to messaging, targeting, creative approaches, and more.
You probably guessed it already… it’s performance marketing (aka paid ads).
“Performance marketing enhances the rest of our go-to-market strategy.”
– Brian Grassadonia ; Executive VP & General Manager of Cash App ; Cash App Investor Day 2022
Performance Marketing
Before taking a deep dive into Cash App’s ads, let’s take a quick look at their demographics.
Gen Z and millennials are their core — which certainly reflects on their social media ads too (you’ll see later).
It’s not a big surprise considering Gen Z is probably more conscious about finances than any other generation before.
Plus, both have preferences for mobile banking.
Gen Z and millennials, along with early adopters in the southeast of US, have been the brand’s “sweet spot for a long time,”
– Catherine Ferdon, Cash App’s Head of Marketing & Brand in an interview with AdAge.
Geography-wise, as Ferdon mentions, the app gained early traction in the southeast of the US and it grew from there.
Now, onto their ads…
In 2022, Facebook (incl. Instagram) accounts for the majority of their impressions. Facebook, IronSource, and Unity have been responsible for 96% of their impressions combined. They’re also running ads on social media platforms like Snapchat and TikTok.
Most of their top-performing ads are about the customizable Cash Cards.
(And when I say ‘top-performing’, I mean the ones with the most impressions. I’ll keep evaluating top performers this way in this article for the sake of simplicity.)
Basically, all ads above with a green background are promoting Cash Cards.
The feature has been around since 2017 and the Cash App team still certainly sees it as an attractive way to promote the app.
“we see the launch and advertising of new Cash App features as an important way to attract new customers. Features such as Cash Card… enhance Cash App’s utility for customers and provide reasons for individuals to try Cash App.” — per the company’s Annual Report
This ad is the perfect example of how they promote the Cash Card customization functionality. The animation is quite modern, futuristic and progressive which the music nicely supports. The 3d elements are well connected with the card which gives it a very cool finish.
And when I say ‘cool’ I mean — ‘even cool for youngsters’ cool.
From a messaging perspective, I’d think of the customization functionality as a key message or a value proposition so to say. Which means they use this ‘angle’ over and over in multiple ads and ad concepts.
Another area the Cash App performance team excels at: UGCs and UGC-like influencer content.
(In case you don’t know what UGCs are: it’s short for user-generated content, and it can be any form of content created by people, rather than brands.)
This ad got almost 72M impressions all time on Ironsource. It’s a quite simple UGC, with TikTok-style fast-paced cutting.
Usually, these types of ads have pre-written scripts (provided by the brand) or not-so-strict ‘talking points’ the creator may stick to. This way, the video likely conveys the message brands truly hope for — while adding a whole new layer of spontaneity to it.
It’s safe to say, the Cash App team excels at reaching the core target audience on these well-tested ad networks.
There’s just one problem though, Cash App is aiming to broaden its reach and raise more awareness — aka reach people beyond the core target.
Sure, they can always increase spend, try to reach new segments of the market on these well-tested networks but there’s a limit to those things.
One fairly simple way to reach audiences they weren’t able to before is by tapping into new ad networks or even trying new ways of advertising: eg. Connected TV (CTV).
CTV to broaden reach?
In case you haven’t heard about CTV before: Connected TV (CTV) advertising refers to ads shown on devices such as smart TVs or mobile phones that allow brands to reach streaming audiences.
Cash App’s first CTV ad stars tennis icon Serena Williams, and it’s running on the streaming platforms Hulu, Tubi and ESPN+ according to AdAge.
Tapping into a new form of advertising like CTV gives Cash App additional coverage — they can simply reach audiences they weren’t able to before.
The 15-second ad aims to show how the app allows people to “move effortlessly between people, places and experiences,” said Ferdon to AdAge.
The brand seeks to craft its image as “a one-stop shop for all your financial needs”, just like Paypal and other top payment apps.
The campaign is running in the U.S. but the brand has “high hopes to bring this into a more global state,” said Ferdon.
So now that we’ve seen how Cash App goes about their advertising, I bet there’s one thing every marketer reading this is secretly thinking of:
What’s their CAC — LTV ratio?
(In case you don’t know: CAC = Cost of Acquiring a Customer; LTV = Lifetime Value)
>6x ROI over three years?
It’s usually not publicly available information but thanks to Cash App’s Investor Day 2022 presentation by Brian Grassadonia (Executive VP & General Manager of Cash App) we have detailed insights on this front too:
Their CAC is 10 USD. This is the acquisition cost of a new monthly ‘transactive active’ for 2021, on average.
“Transactive active … is a Cash App account that has at least one financial transaction using any product or service within Cash App during the specified period.”
To put it simply, a monthly transactive active makes at least one financial transaction per month. In 2021, Cash App acquired these users for 10 USD, on average.
Meanwhile, the company’s Gross Profit per Active has increased significantly in recent years, mainly due to new product launches:
Having a fairly low CAC combined with a steadily increasing Gross Profit resulted in a healthy ROI:
Cash App’s Return On Investment was more than 6x over the last 3 years, according to Grassadonia’s presentation.
Although that is a very healthy ratio and gives plenty of room for growth, it also highlights one of the underlying problems they’re facing now.
You see, they could afford to spend more on marketing — and paid ads in particular.
In theory, they could even further enhance growth and reach more people with paid ads.
There’s really just one problem with all this: performance marketing always has its limitations, there’s always a top ceiling to be hit.
So what an app can do to prevent any of these things?
Easy, start building a brand early on. A lesson a fellow chart-topper app, Blinkist had to learn along the way too:
“We realized the limitations of performance marketing at Blinkist about two years ago. Unfortunately, it was quite late for us to start building the brand, so we could have easily expanded further without hitting the plateau first. Since then, we have pursued brand building with the same importance as other direct-response activities.”
– Gessica Bicego, Senior Director of Growth at Blinkist, said in a Clubhouse discussion on brand vs. performance
Next task: to increase brand awareness?
We can’t possibly know if Cash App has already hit the same plateau Blinkist did but one thing is for sure: Cash App is in the midst of significant growth and mobile app branding should be on the top of their list.
In order to better understand Cash App’s brand strength, let’s dive a bit into the latest BRAG Index, published by Apptopia and Digital Turbine.
The BRAG (Brand Relative App Growth) report relies on a “new methodology to measure and understand how brand can impact mobile growth.”. Cash App has a very prominent position in the report — it came out as the top BRAG-ger in the Finance category.
So now they have BRAG-ing rights, hm? (Sorry, I couldn’t leave that one hanging.)
As you can see above, Cash App tops its category by far on the ‘BRAG Index’ spectrum (y-axis) but got left behind by peers when it comes to ‘Brand Funnel’ strength (x-axis). So what does this really mean?
Brand Funnel is a “measure of how many consumers are aware of and having interest in installing an app”. In other words, the metric takes into account brand awareness and install intent.
Being on the lower spectrum of Brand Funnel strength means Cash App doesn’t necessarily have the strongest brand awareness or the highest install intent among peers.
Venmo, PayPal and Zelle are all very well ahead in this race.
It’s worth noting though that Cash App is certainly trending in the right direction. The app’s Brand Funnel improved noticeably compared to peers quarter-to-quarter.
On the plus side, they have the highest score on the BRAG Index by far. Which means the app has a very strong install efficiency. (This is how they’re able to secure the #1 position in the Finance category after all.)
Overall, Cash App doesn’t necessarily have as big of awareness or interest as PayPal for example but they do a much better job of turning those interests into actual installs.
Conclusion
If you are at the same growth stage as Cash App, you certainly have your work cut out for you. However, I hope this article has helped you to see what areas they are strong in and where they might be weak.
If you are at an earlier stage, you should be thinking about how you can apply what they are doing to YOUR app, in YOUR category.
You should not be thinking my app is different so none of this applies. Trust me after having worked with numerous app companies — no app is that different. Most of these strategies work among all app categories.
Also, take notice as to what areas they might be weak — and try to learn from their mistakes.
But above all, don’t go after strategies just because others say you should (myself included). Figuring out which growth activities to focus on — be it branding, performance marketing, ASO or anything else really is the single most important process (and well, the hardest I’ll admit) all sizes of apps go through.
Find out what works for you, tweak it to its best version with continuous testing and you’ll rock. 🔥
What You Should Do Now
If you are serious about taking your app to the next level, you should download our list of Growth Levers Used by The Biggest Mobile Apps spreadsheet — it’s incredibly useful if you want to double-down on your growth strategy.
For 1-on-1 marketing help click here 👈💰
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