Elise Zareie

14 insights on Onboarding and Activation, Paid UA and Creatives from 2 talks and podcasts, each with the quote and a link to the moment it was said.

Onboarding and Activation 3
Paid UA 3
Creatives 2
Monetization 2
Strategy 2
Organic Acquisition 1
Other 1

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Onboarding and Activation

Approach web funnel creation like creative research - you need a deep understanding of your users, but also don't reinvent the wheel. Study existing successful flows in your vertical and adapt proven structures with your unique value proposition rather than starting from scratch.

"I think, uh, it's, for me, it's a very similar approach as creative research, uh, when you're a UA manager, which means that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You don't have to think about something completely from scratch. There are so many flows out there. It's not a new product. I know it's like the, the new hot thing, but in reality a lot of, um, a lot of apps have been doing this for a long time."

Web2App Quizzes: From Side Project to Profit Engine at 18:07 · Featured in Growth Gems #131

Onboarding and Activation

Always give a sense of progression in long web funnels. Users need visual confirmation that their effort is valued and that they're making meaningful progress toward a worthwhile outcome.

"I think like a super simple thing, but showing a sense of progression when you have all those questions is so important. And from a UI perspective, it's it's super easy, but I think it matters so much because you you don't want to be in a situation where you've asked someone to answer 45 questions and they they've done all of this for nothing. You want to give an impression that you you care about those answers."

Web2App Quizzes: From Side Project to Profit Engine at 24:25 · Featured in Growth Gems #131

Sylvain's take:

One technique/screen I like and that Hannah Parvaz has talked about here is to tell them "You're 80% of the way there".

Moongate does something similar in their app with “Just a few more questions.”

Onboarding and Activation

Look for ways to give a snapshot of the app value based on your vertical, a sort of "gamified" version of your main app feature.

"I think like a super simple thing, but showing a sense of progression when you have all those questions is so important. And from a UI perspective, it's it's super easy, but I think it matters so much because you you don't want to be in a situation where you've asked someone to answer 45 questions and they they've done all of this for nothing. You want to give an impression that you you care about those answers."

Web2App Quizzes: From Side Project to Profit Engine at 23:42 · Featured in Growth Gems #131

Sylvain's take:

This is true for the app onboarding of course, but even truer on the web.

Marcus expanded on this and shared you want to create this 'aha moment' before the paywall by delivering genuine value: assessment, mini-product, personalized insights. This transforms the user experience from interrogation to value delivery, making conversion feel natural.

Some web funnel examples:

Moongate’s “recommended playlist”

Praktika.ai’s vocabulary test results
Shared by Elise Zareie
Ahead’s emotional intelligence profile
Shared by Gessica Bicego

And some app funnel examples (more common):

Noom’s "education" quiz
Rise Science's sleep debt and energy schedule (the latter below)
Soundscapes’ “make it yours’
Shared by Marcus

Paid UA

To optimize your web funnel set up, you need to go back and forth between:

Optimizing the "top funnel": creatives, Meta campaign
Optimize the quiz/onboarding itself

Web2App Quizzes: From Side Project to Profit Engine at 46:50 · Featured in Growth Gems #131

Sylvain's take:

Elise also mentioned it takes longer for web campaigns to exit the learning phase, one reason being that conversion events are more expensive if you use paid trials or direct purchases.

Paid UA

If web funnels initially underperform on Meta, systematically test across multiple dimensions: creative formats, geos, audiences, and optimization events. The complexity of web funnels means multiple variables could be the bottleneck.

"I think if it didn't work for Meta, uh, my question would be, have you tried different creative formats? Have you tried different countries? Have you tried different audience? Are you optimizing towards the right event? Um, like at every point between the creative to the web funnel to payment, what, what the conversion looks like. Um, and see where you can improve it."

Web2App Quizzes: From Side Project to Profit Engine at 1:01:53 · Featured in Growth Gems #131

Paid UA

Keep an eye on CPM trends, because with web campaigns you compete with eCommerce and not just apps anymore. This might make it harder to track some countries from the start.

Web2App Quizzes: From Side Project to Profit Engine at 49:23 · Featured in Growth Gems #131

Sylvain's take:

Which countries?

Creatives

You can take the web funnel content itself and test it as an ad to create a coherent experience full-funnel in terms of messaging and visual style.

Web2App Quizzes: From Side Project to Profit Engine at 12:58 · Featured in Growth Gems #131

Sylvain's take:

Marcus mentioned he has seen success with this as well.

This gets even more impactful when you deliver real value in the quiz that you can then "pitch" in the ad. Example: Rise Science with the sleep debt, etc.

Creatives

You might want to have a different creative strategy for web2app vs. app campaigns if the audiences are different.

If you have strong creatives you still want to test them across the board
Consider adapting some creatives. For example, you could show older creators in creatives for web2app.

Web2App Quizzes: From Side Project to Profit Engine at 11:58 · Featured in Growth Gems #131

Sylvain's take:

Beyond the age of the creator, one example Elise mentioned is Runna changing the CTA for web2app to "Sign up online" (vs. Download) so as to not disappoint.

Monetization

Avoid free trials in web funnels due to high cancellation rates and payment failures. Use paid trials or direct subscriptions instead to ensure genuine user commitment and reduce fraud.

"I tend to not do any free trials on the web just because I've seen very high um uh uh cancellations in the end, and like or like people were we couldn't even charge them because they just gave us a credit card with with nothing on it, and therefore I tend to on the trial products always do a pay trial um and otherwise then kind of direct purchase of subscriptions."

Web2App Quizzes: From Side Project to Profit Engine at 27:55 · Featured in Growth Gems #131

Sylvain's take:

I can confirm this first hand. Do not even attempt.

My take is that you can use offers (discounts or free trial) as a fallback. Elise mentioned challenges/friction to port the web free trial to the app but with FunnelFox and RevenueCat I have not experienced that.

Monetization

Web paywalls give you much more flexibility because you're not limited by Apple's approval particularly when it comes to pricing psychology. Example: you can break down the price per day instead of weekly or monthly.

Web2App Quizzes: From Side Project to Profit Engine at 29:15 · Featured in Growth Gems #131

Sylvain's take:

I'd say that "best practices" don't always work best (and depend on your audience) so still worth a test.

Strategy

Treat web funnel development as a product initiative requiring cross-functional collaboration with product, CRM, and lifecycle teams. Not just a paid acquisition thing. The technical complexity demands a more structured, product-like approach than typical marketing campaigns and might require you to create a small cross-functional team.

"I think in order to make it work, you have to collaborate with product, uh, quite a lot. You have to collaborate with life cycle, so CRM, um, and you almost have to create a little team across departments where you work together to build a web funnel. That process, I think, of building a web funnel is more product-like to me than marketing, like because there are a lot of processes like tracking between platforms, analytics, responsiveness of page, integration, QA."

Web2App Quizzes: From Side Project to Profit Engine at 35:37 · Featured in Growth Gems #131

Sylvain's take:

Someone needs to own the web funnel project, and Elise believes it's best to have someone in paid acquisition.

Marcus also mentioned also having someone in QA...Which I second :)

Strategy

Web funnels offer faster iteration cycles than app development, allowing UA teams to bring agile testing methodologies to product teams and accelerate decision-making across the company thanks to faster feedback.

"What's been really rewarding too is bringing some UI perspective to the product and developers. So they tend to work on um app experiences where it's quite slow to see results and it's quite slow to test. With web funnels, we can make some very quick and agile testing and you get to share those those results and that data with the team quite quickly to make decisions and change it."

Web2App Quizzes: From Side Project to Profit Engine at 38:37 · Featured in Growth Gems #131

Organic Acquisition

If you have a web funnel that is converting well, leverage it in other ways or repurpose:

Organic efforts. Example: if an organic social post is going viral, direct users there.
Discounts after cancellation
Simpler funnel for warmer leads

Web2App Quizzes: From Side Project to Profit Engine at 42:10 · Featured in Growth Gems #131

Other

For creative testing, Miro Growth tries to give the same spend to each creative: they don’t use the TikTok split test environment but instead use a rule so that each creative spends the same amount. They try to make sure they get 100 installs per ad to make a decision, and look at IPM vs. benchmarks from the category.

Maximising Creative for UA · Featured in Growth Gems #70

Elise Zareie

Onboarding and Activation

Paid UA

Creatives

Monetization

Strategy

Organic Acquisition

Other

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