Which ad channel should you start with and do you need organic traffic to launch paid ads?

This is the most common question I get. And the one I constantly see on X.

What's that magical channel that will save your business?

Short answer: there isn't one.

Five products, five different approaches

Let me share a few examples I came across just this week.

Meta Ads is Nikita Logvinenko's best channel (after influencers) right now. I'm sure for his product Meta Ads works great combined with organic traffic and creatives he pre-tested organically.

The Bible App developer, Mau Baron, performs well on TikTok Ads.

Not the most obvious source.

Can't say how well it works overall – need experts who work with TikTok more often, but it definitely can work

Victor doesn't run Meta Ads at all, he mostly works with ASO, Apple Ads, and Google Ads.

And Google Ads is an excellent source for him, delivering the volume he needs while staying profitable.

50k monthly revenue btw

Another example - jonathan liu who reached $7,000 in monthly revenue, mostly from organic traffic.

Then there's me, currently focused on Apple Ads. My spending there is $50-60k per month. It's a profitable channel, the main one for us right now.

The best channel? Not necessarily.

Can you grow on all the others? Yes. But each channel has its own specifics.

Five products, five completely different approaches to growth. And all of them work.

Big investments in testing, creatives, and optimization.

Finding the right setup: which events to optimize for, which creative concepts work. It's a lot of work.

That said, Meta is an amazing source: optimizes beautifully, AEM campaigns perform great right now. Meta ads is the main sourse for scaling your marketing.

But not for everyone: for mobile games, for example, Meta is one of the worst channels. For the past two years, the best marketing channels for games on iOS has been Applovin.

they're trying to fix it, but so far without much success

Google shows your app across the display network, YouTube, and search. If it's Android – also in Google Play. Kind of a Meta Ads + Apple Ads combo.

With proper event setup, Google Ads can be a top source.

We launched OpenChat with Google Ads. Those cohorts are still our most profitable cohorts ever. Because you're buying hot traffic from search.

If you manage to capture traffic specifically from search, you get incredibly relevant users. Hard to find more relevant than that.

Starting with Google Ads is much easier.

Creatives matter there too – anyone who says creatives don't matter in Google Ads probably hasn't worked with large volumes.

But at smaller volumes, at the start, you can get by without huge creative investments.

Google is more inert, creatives live longer there - largely because of search and text placements.

Super expensive source in most cases. But one you can start with fairly cheaply.

Example: my new app - AI video generation.

I launched my first ad campaign on Apple Ads specifically because I bought this app with Apple Ads in mind.

Early results aren't great – I'd say they're bad. Can't hit the cost per conversion I need. But in total I've spent about $250 spread over two weeks. Carefully testing different countries, different keywords, collecting data.

$250 in Meta Ads over two weeks would get me basically nothing - the algorithm wouldn't have enough signals to optimize.

Apple Ads doesn't have an algorithm that optimizes campaigns for events – you just bid on keywords and pay for clicks. You can buy traffic slowly and cheaply for quite a while.

For me right now, this is the best channel because I'm not ready to spend $10k on Meta Ads and invest in creatives.

– not where you should start.

Actually, I'd put it differently: don't launch them at all.

Until you're spending several million dollars a month on Apple Ads, TikTok Ads, Meta Ads, Google Ads, and influencers, you don't need other channels.

If you already have organic flow and creatives - starting with Meta Ads or TikTok Ads might not be a mistake.

In most cases, I'd start with Google Ads or Apple Ads.

Apple Ads you can stretch out, test carefully - data you collect over several months will be just as relevant as if you'd collected it in a week.

Meta Ads is the opposite: data spread over several months will be irrelevant. Better to concentrate the budget and spend it in a week - that data will be more valuable.

Google Ads - easier to start, less creative investment needed upfront. For an indie developer, possibly one of the best options.

Meta Ads - the next stop after Google Ads. Why not?

Either way, at the start, I'd focus on one channel. Pick any one and work with it, try to make it work for your app.

No.

By the time you build organic - months could pass. Your app might lose relevance.

Paid ads exist to test hypotheses fast. To quickly collect data on metrics that help you forecast whether investing in the product is even worth it.

Launch product → launch paid ads → collect metrics → fix product → relaunch paid ads → Profit

There's no universal channel. There's a universal approach: pick one channel and figure it out.

Don't try to be everywhere at once. Take one, spend your first budget, collect data, and understand your metrics. Then scale or move to the next channel.