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- Introduction
- Discover Incremental Audiences for Finance Apps
- The Importance of In-App and Offerwall Ads for Finance Apps' Growth
- The Cost of User Acquisition for Finance Apps
- In-App Event Tracking & Optimization
- Mapendo’s UA Solution for Finance Apps
In a more and more competitive mobile ecosystem, user acquisition strategies risk becoming saturated and subject to diminishing returns. For finance apps in particular, relying on a limited media mix can limit growth and inflate acquisition costs, so a more deliberate, diversified approach is needed. This article explores how finance marketers can unlock incremental growth by combining and layering new performance channels onto existing high-performing ones, leveraging high-intent touchpoints, refining payment models, and optimizing toward predictive in-app events.
Unlocking incremental audience means adopting an “add, don’t replace” approach: instead of switching off existing high-performing channels like Google and Meta, marketers should continue using what works while testing and layering new performance channels on top. While Google and Meta offer massive reach, their audiences often overlap and do not represent the entirety of the app ecosystem, making it essential to explore additional ad networks and user acquisition platforms that can tap into truly incremental users.
By reallocating part of the budget toward alternative, performance-based models that target high-intent users in real time, brands can test new traffic sources with limited risk, optimize toward the channels delivering the highest-quality users, and ultimately pay only for meaningful actions. Channels such as Connected TV (CTV), which enables household-level reach on the largest screen in the home while directly measuring downstream app sessions and purchases, are increasingly effective for extending reach beyond saturated digital environments.
Similarly, rewarded formats like offerwalls, which are opt-in, incentivized ad experiences embedded within apps, provide a non-intrusive way to drive engagement, monetize non-spenders and improve retention, as users actively choose to complete value-driven tasks in exchange for rewards. Together, these strategies allow finance apps to diversify media mix, reduce diminishing returns from crowded platforms, and unlock growth opportunities while keeping acquisition aligned with broader business objectives.
High-intent digital touchpoints represent one of the most overlooked levers for app growth. Rather than treating the web and app as separate ecosystems, finance apps should use the mobile web as a strategic bridge to re-engage existing customers and convert prospective users into app adopters. Smart banners are particularly effective in facilitating this transition. Unlike traditional web banners, personalized smart banners integrate seamlessly into the mobile browsing experience, without disrupting user activity.
These banners are in fact more likely to boost user acquisition, in some cases increasing click-through rates by up to 60%. Continuous A/B testing of copy, creative assets, and call-to-action messaging further enables marketers to identify high-performing variations and optimize for conversion efficiency. However, performance should not be measured at the click level alone. By tracking in-app events and post-install behaviors, marketers can better understand how acquired users engage with financial features, from onboarding completion to transaction activity, and refine user acquisition strategies accordingly.
In parallel, offerwall advertising can increment engagement when implemented strategically. However, offerwalls require sophisticated segmentation and incentive design to be effective. Users respond differently to rewards, particularly in finance environments where trust and value perception are critical. Identifying the right mix of incentives is essential to maintain relevance across audience segments. In the case of finance apps, these events could be transactional credits, premium feature unlocks, or time-sensitive bonuses. Furthermore, content should be refreshed regularly to prevent fatigue, and prompts should be triggered at natural behavioral breakpoints to minimize perceived intrusiveness.
Ongoing experimentation remains fundamental. Testing reward structures, placement timing, and urgency mechanisms (such as limited-time or multi-credit incentives) enables marketers to balance monetization, retention, and user experience. If strategically executed, these high-intent touchpoints can drive stronger engagement, improve retention curves, and ultimately increase long-term customer value.
Choosing the payment model (or the combined strategy) that best fits the app’s growth needs is fundamental for optimizing the cost of user acquisition. The two most used models are CPI and CPA, which are both performance-based pricing models, meaning that advertisers only pay for concrete results. Cost Per Install (CPI) focuses on installs, and thus new users, and is generally less expensive compared to Cost Per Action. This model is also easy to monitor, since it focuses directly on the volume and cost of user acquisition through installs. On the other hand, Cost Per Action (CPA) shifts the focus of user acquisition toward in-app events, ideally increasing app revenues rather than just install numbers.
In terms of costs, CPA-based user acquisition campaigns are generally more expensive and more complex to set up and manage, since they require more sophisticated tracking and optimization. Cost Per Action is more advanced because it requires tracking specific post-install actions. This model becomes particularly strategic after the install phase of user acquisition, as it focuses on high-value post-install actions like purchases or subscriptions, providing clearer visibility into LTV and ROAS. The downside is that optimization cycles tend to be slower, since conversion events may occur days or weeks after acquisition.
An effective growth strategy for finance apps doesn’t require choosing between CPI and CPA: the strongest user acquisition results often come from integrating both models. CPI works particularly well when the objective is rapid scale: it accelerates user acquisition volume, delivers immediate performance signals, and enables quick testing and optimization. With installs generated at scale, marketers can promptly evaluate early user acquisition metrics such as retention and average acquisition cost to assess campaign effectiveness. In practice, the decision is rarely either-or: many apps use CPI to build initial scale and market presence, then progressively incorporate or transition to CPA once sufficient data and volume allow for more advanced profitability optimization. The optimal mix ultimately depends on the app’s revenue model and operational capabilities.
To effectively optimize user acquisition and app monetization strategies, it is essential to identify the in-app events most closely linked to revenue generation, such as registrations, KYC completion, deposits and transactions. While final conversion events like a first deposit or transaction are strong indicators of monetization in finance apps, they often occur deep in the funnel and may take place more than 48 hours after installation, limiting their usefulness for real-time optimization. For this reason, it is strategically advantageous to identify earlier proxy events, such as completed registration, tutorial completion or verified profile setup, that occur closer to the install but still correlate with long-term user value. These early signals allow user acquisition algorithms to optimize campaigns faster and more efficiently.
In-app events provide insight into user behavior and are fundamental for measuring user acquisition KPIs such as ROI and LTV, as they help determine both the intrinsic value of users and the quality of traffic generated by different user acquisition channels. In regulated sectors such as fintech, events like KYC (Know Your Customer) completion are particularly meaningful, as they confirm verified user identity and signal higher monetization potential while ensuring compliance with AML requirements.
By implementing structured in-app event tracking for post-install analysis, marketers can train user acquisition campaign algorithms to optimize toward high-quality users rather than simple installs. Furthermore, leveraging online touchpoints can effectively drive qualified traffic into the app, improving early funnel event completion rates and accelerating user acquisition performance feedback loops. Ultimately, aligning optimization with predictive, early-stage monetization signals enables more responsive bidding strategies and more efficient allocation of advertising budgets.
Mapendo supports finance apps developers in managing and scaling user acquisition strategies, providing data-driven insights to ensure campaign success. We deliver performance-based user acquisition solutions, enabling finance apps to operate efficiently under a CPA model aligned with their monetization goals. Fully integrated with all major MMPs and operating on a global scale, Mapendo leverages a proprietary technology platform powered by machine learning algorithms to optimize campaigns toward post-install KPIs. Rather than focusing solely on installs, our optimization framework prioritizes high-value in-app events such as registrations, deposits, transactions, and trades.
Our technology continuously analyzes traffic sources and audience segments to determine the most effective combinations for user acquisition, ensuring scalable growth while maintaining performance efficiency. Due to our large experience with finance apps, we already know how to navigate the challenges of a new campaign launch. Also because we are able to cross data from multiple finance apps we have worked with on our platform. We know which solutions will work best, and we are able to identify and target audiences that demonstrate strong monetization potential.
