The power of performance-driven organic growth on social media for UA

In the fast-paced world of mobile acquisition, marketers are constantly looking for new ways to boost engagement, revenue, and visibility.

Among today’s must-have strategies, organic growth on social media stands out as a key lever. This approach focuses on optimizing social pages like TikTok or Instagram to drive in-app revenue. It’s relevant for apps that want to build trust with potential users as well as those looking to grow a community and reach new audiences.

The focus is on performance-driven organic growth, a method that combines the efficiency of paid campaigns with the authenticity of organic content. The objective is clear: turn awareness into measurable, tangible results, on par with what’s achieved through paid user acquisition.

3 organic levers to activate for more visibility

In this context, organic growth is primarily about optimizing the app’s social media accounts, not the company’s overall presence. The goal is to structure these pages to improve their visibility, attract new users, and generate concrete, long-term performance.

1. Profile SEO strategy

Username, bio, internal links, keywords, hashtags, every detail should be optimized to improve account and content visibility. Social SEO helps boost discoverability in platform algorithms, making it easier for users to find the app.

2. Structured content strategy

Content planning should follow key themes aligned with trends and growth goals. A clear roadmap, a consistent calendar, and a long-term vision are essential to building an engaged community. A single post won’t cut it anymore.

3. Diverse creative production

Motion design, UGC, ambassadors, filters… continuously refreshing creative assets is crucial. At Addict Mobile, we rely on our in-house creative technologies and internal teams to deliver content tailored to each platform regularly. Trends shift fast, and staying visible means keeping pace. That’s what drives reach, virality, and ultimately, success.

Organic strategies often require less upfront investment than paid campaigns, but they demand time, effort, and resources to truly deliver. Their impact goes beyond visibility, they build credibility, trust, and brand awareness, while boosting engagement and reach.

How to turn organic into a lever for in-app performance?

Awareness matters, but it’s not enough. To drive tangible results, organic growth on social media must be tracked and optimized with the same rigor as paid campaigns.

In today’s highly competitive app landscape, measuring the right KPIs is key to delivering performance. An organic strategy only becomes effective when it’s based on clear, measurable goals, just like any paid strategy. When performance-driven, it can help boost acquisition and engagement over time while maximizing ROI.

Results need to be assessed from two angles: social KPIs and business KPIs. This combined approach ensures organic efforts are managed with the same level of precision as paid campaigns.

Key social KPIs to monitor:

• Reach
• Views
• Engagement rate
• Follower growth
• Hashtag performance
• Profile clicks

To better understand the direct impact on the community.

App store & MMP KPIs to track

• App store ranking
• Organic and paid installs
• DAU, ARPU, retention
• ROAS and incremental value

To gain broader visibility and focus the analysis on actual performance.

To evaluate the real impact of an organic strategy, it’s useful to compare performance across multiple dimensions, for example, between periods with and without organic activity. It’s also relevant to compare organic and paid results, both short- and long-term.

The power of combining organic growth and paid acquisition

Organic growth strategies can support different goals depending on the type of app:

• Apps that need to build trust with users (e.g., health, finance, dating)
• Apps looking to build a strong community (e.g., social platforms, games)
• Apps that struggle to scale with paid acquisition alone (e.g., B2B, gambling)

They can also complement paid campaigns, especially when an app reaches its investment ceiling or audience saturation. This synergy opens up new growth opportunities while improving overall performance.

Paid campaigns are often the fastest route to results, but organic strategies offer more sustainable growth. Combined, they help go beyond the limits of paid alone, unlocking new acquisition channels and creating a more well-rounded, stable approach over time.

Benefits of a hybrid strategy:

• Reduced ad fatigue

Organic creatives can be repurposed in paid campaigns, allowing for more frequent refreshes and reducing ad fatigue.

• Extended reach

Activating both organic and paid simultaneously increases overall visibility and helps reach new segments that are harder to access through one channel alone.

• Richer user insights

User feedback on organic content provides valuable insights that can inform more relevant and personalized paid campaigns.

• Lower CPI

Apps with strong organic visibility benefit from better recognition, leading to higher CTR and CVR, and ultimately, lower cost per install.

• Cross-promotion opportunities

Top-performing organic content can be amplified through paid campaigns, expanding reach while capitalizing on proven effectiveness.

Why choose a single partner for both UA and organic growth?

Entrusting both organic growth and paid acquisition to a single partner allows for a more optimized, cohesive marketing strategy. This unified approach ensures better coordination across actions, resources, and data.

Strategic budget allocation to maximize ROI

Having a global view of performance makes it easier to adjust budgets between organic and paid efforts based on results. It ensures resources are directed where they’ll have the most impact.

Aligned objectives

When both levers are managed together, every action contributes to a shared strategy. This avoids siloed efforts, streamlines collaboration, and keeps goals consistent across the entire funnel.

Data-driven expertise for proactive decision-making

A unified view of KPIs enables faster decision-making, pausing underperforming campaigns, iterating on creatives, reallocating budgets. The result: a more agile and effective strategy.

At Addict Mobile, this process relies on centralized data analysis and ongoing adjustments across all activated levers to drive maximum performance.

Flexibility to adapt to market changes

The digital landscape evolves constantly. A single team can respond faster to shifts in algorithms, user behavior, or platform trends, avoiding disconnects between organic and paid actions.

Unified marketing for a consistent brand identity

Content production is a shared need for both sides. Consolidating efforts makes it easier to optimize resources, diversify formats (videos, visuals, UGC…), and maintain consistent output.

Access to comprehensive creative resources

To make this synergy work, solid creative capabilities are essential. Producing a wide variety of assets, videos, images, UGC, variations, at scale is key to fueling both campaigns and social content effectively.

Conclusion

Combining organic and paid strategies leads to stronger acquisition performance. It’s a way to gain in efficiency, consistency, and long-term impact.

Want to explore this approach for your app? Reach out to Addict Mobile for a full, tailored audit.

Author: Carla Vassalo, Head of Growth and UA Manager @Addict Mobile