App onboarding: turn the ad promise into a reason to stay
Ads establish a promise; onboarding gives the user a chance to experience it. Phil Carter’s advice is to deliver a clear first payoff, then identify the behaviors associated with users returning and paying over time.
By NewForm · Updated
Key takeaways
- Give new users an early experience of the value advertised.
- Day-level trial statistics do not establish a universal first-session conversion deadline.
- Define activation using behavior associated with retention in your own product.
- Check whether cancellations reflect a gap between the promise and the product experience.
The conversion handoff from ad creative to product
The RevenueCat State of Subscription Apps report shows that most trial starts occur on Day 0, with differences across categories. That supports paying close attention to the early experience, but it does not show that all of those trials begin in one session or within one to two minutes. Carter’s short opening-window advice is a product-design heuristic, not a conclusion established by the report.
Carter identifies an expectation gap as one explanation for early cancellation: the live product fails to deliver what the ad or onboarding promised. His recommendation is to examine that handoff, rather than assuming a more persuasive paywall alone will solve retention.
Delivering immediate value in the opening session
Carter describes a strong first experience as requiring little input while delivering a useful, memorable output. His historical example is the initial ChatGPT experience: a short prompt led quickly to a visible response. The design lesson is to make the value easy to experience, not to copy a specific interface.
He also describes Tolan’s onboarding as a conversation that leads to a personalized reading and companion. He uses that experience to illustrate emotional engagement and ongoing funnel experimentation. The clip does not provide conversion results or verify the product’s current flow.
Anchoring onboarding around a defined activation metric
Carter recommends defining activation as a product-specific behavior associated with stronger later retention. It should represent meaningful value rather than simply finishing the onboarding screens. That association can guide a hypothesis; encouraging the behavior does not automatically prove it will cause retention.
He recalls Facebook’s historical seven-friends-in-ten-days example to show that an activation window need not end on the first day. Your own threshold should come from your product and cohorts. Once it is useful, align onboarding and lifecycle messaging around helping users reach that value.
Adapted from NewForm’s original videos on creative strategy and paid social.
Explore NewForm Framework →