Should I Use Paid Ads or Organic Growth First?

A car manufacturer launches a beautiful new app that lets drivers book test drives, manage their service appointments, and control their vehicles remotely. They spend six months building it perfectly. The interface is gorgeous, everything works smoothly, but there's a problem—hardly anyone downloads it. Meanwhile, their competitor rushes out a simpler app, pumps money into Facebook ads, and gets 50,000 downloads in the first month. Who made the right call? Well, it depends. And that's exactly why this question keeps app founders up at night.

Look, I've built apps for over eight years now and this is probably the most common question I get asked. Should we invest in paid ads straight away or focus on organic growth first? The honest answer is that theres no one-size-fits-all solution here—it really depends on your specific situation, your budget, and what you're trying to achieve. Some apps absolutely need paid user acquisition from day one to prove their concept; others can build a solid foundation organically before spending a penny on ads.

The best app growth strategy isn't about choosing between paid and organic—its about knowing which one makes sense for your app right now, and when to introduce the other.

What I've learned through building apps across healthcare, fintech, e-commerce and more is that the paid vs organic debate is actually the wrong way to think about it. You're not picking one forever. You're deciding which approach gives you the best chance of success at your current stage. A bootstrapped startup with no marketing budget faces completely different challenges than a venture-backed company that needs to show rapid user growth to investors. Both can succeed, but they need different strategies to get there.

Understanding the Real Costs of Each Approach

Right, lets talk about what this is actually going to cost you—because I've seen too many app founders make decisions based on completely wrong assumptions about pricing. And I'm not just talking about the money you spend upfront; I mean the real costs that hit you three or six months down the line when you realise you've been burning through your budget with nothing to show for it.

Paid ads seem straightforward at first. You pay for users, they download your app, job done? Not quite. The average cost per install (CPI) sits somewhere between £2-10 depending on your category and who you're targeting—healthcare and finance apps are usually at the higher end whilst games and entertainment sit lower. But here's what people forget: that's just the install cost. If only 20% of those users open your app more than once, your real cost per active user is actually five times higher. Its a bit mad really, but most apps see 70-80% of their users disappear within the first week.

Organic growth looks free on the surface, which is why so many founders gravitate towards it. But free doesn't mean costless. You'll need time, content, community management, and often external help with ASO (app store optimisation). If you're paying someone £3,000 a month to run your organic strategy for six months before you see meaningful traction, that's £18,000—enough to run a decent paid campaign that could have validated your concept in weeks instead of months.

What You're Really Paying For

Here's how the costs actually break down in practice:

• Paid ads give you speed and control but require ongoing budget; stop spending and your growth stops immediately
• Organic methods need time investment, content creation, and patience; results compound over months but start slowly
• Paid channels need constant optimisation—creative testing, audience refinement, and landing page improvements all cost time or money
• Organic strategies require consistency; you can't post for two weeks, disappear for a month, and expect results
• Both approaches need proper tracking and analytics setup, which many founders overlook until its too late

The thing nobody tells you? Your retention rate completely changes the economics of both approaches. An app that keeps 40% of users after 30 days can afford to pay much more for acquisition than one that keeps 10%—whether that acquisition comes from paid ads or the time investment in organic growth. Understanding these growth metrics is crucial before you commit to either path, otherwise you're basically guessing with your budget.

When Organic Growth Makes Sense for Your App

Right, lets talk about when organic growth is actually the smarter move for your app—because honestly, jumping straight into paid ads isn't always the best choice. I've seen plenty of apps burn through their entire budget on ads before they even knew if people would stick around. Not ideal.

Organic growth makes the most sense when you're still figuring things out. If your app hasn't proven its worth yet, if you don't know which features keep people coming back or what makes them tell their friends about you, then spending money on ads is like pouring water into a leaky bucket. You need to plug those holes first. Actually, some of the most successful apps I've built started with zero ad spend—they grew because the product itself was genuinely good enough that people wanted to share it. This approach is particularly effective when you're looking to transform your MVP into a market-leading app through sustainable growth.

Here's the thing—organic growth works brilliantly when you've got time on your side but not much cash. Sure, its slower than paid ads, but it forces you to create something people actually want to use. You'll get real feedback from real users who found you naturally, and that feedback is worth its weight in gold. When people discover your app through word of mouth or app store searches, they tend to stick around longer than users who came through an ad campaign.

When to Focus on Organic First

There are specific situations where organic growth should be your starting point, and I mean genuinely prioritise it over paid channels:

• Your app is brand new and you haven't validated product-market fit yet
• You're bootstrapping and your marketing budget is limited or non-existent
• Your target audience is niche and highly engaged in specific communities
• You've got strong content creation capabilities or subject matter expertise
• Your app has viral potential through sharing features or network effects
• You're building in a crowded category where paid ads are expensive

Before spending a penny on ads, make sure at least 40% of your users are still opening your app after seven days. If your retention is lower than that, you need to fix your product before you start driving paid traffic to it.

The Reality of Going Organic

Look, I won't sugar-coat this—organic growth takes longer and requires more patience than most founders expect. You might spend months building an audience, optimising your app store listing, creating content, and engaging with communities before you see meaningful traction. But here's what you gain: you learn exactly who your users are and what they need; you build a foundation of engaged users who actually care about your product; and you develop your brand without dependency on ad platforms that can change their rules overnight. When you eventually do start with paid acquisition (and you probably should at some point), you'll know exactly what messages work, which features matter, and how much a user is worth to your business. That knowledge makes your ad spend go so much further.

When Paid Ads Are the Right Starting Point

Right, let's talk about when it actually makes sense to open your wallet and pay for users from day one. Because here's the thing—sometimes organic growth just isn't fast enough, and waiting around for word-of-mouth to kick in can literally kill your business before it even gets started.

I've worked with plenty of apps where paid ads were absolutely the right choice from launch. And honestly? There's a pattern to when this works best. If you've got a solid conversion funnel already tested (maybe through a web version or competitor analysis), if you're in a crowded market where organic discovery is nearly impossible, or if you have investor pressure to hit specific growth targets by certain dates—paid acquisition might be your best friend.

The biggest reason to go paid first is when you need data quickly. Organic growth can take months to generate enough users to tell you what's working and whats not; paid ads can deliver thousands of users in weeks, giving you the feedback you need to iterate on your product faster. This is especially true for apps with complex onboarding flows or features that need testing across different user segments. Understanding your startup growth strategies becomes crucial at this stage.

Signs You Should Start with Paid Ads

Here are the situations where I generally recommend clients prioritise paid acquisition over organic efforts initially:

• You have a clear monetisation model and know your target cost per acquisition (if you can afford to spend £5 to acquire a user who brings £15 in lifetime value, you're golden)
• Your app operates in a competitive category where App Store search alone wont cut it—think fitness tracking or meal planning apps
• You need to validate product-market fit quickly and cant wait 6-12 months for organic traction
• You're launching a marketplace or social app that needs critical mass to be useful (the classic chicken-and-egg problem)
• You have budget allocated specifically for user acquisition and investors expecting growth metrics
• Your organic channels are blocked—maybe you don't have an audience yet, no PR contacts, limited social presence

But here's what really matters: even if you start with paid ads, you should be building your organic channels simultaneously. I mean, relying entirely on paid ads forever is expensive and risky...what happens when ad costs spike or platform policies change?

Building Your Organic Foundation

Right, so you've decided organic growth is going to be part of your strategy—brilliant starting point. But here's where most people get it wrong; they think organic means free. It doesn't. Organic growth takes time, effort, and a proper plan, and if you're not willing to put in the work upfront, you'll end up frustrated wondering why nothing's happening.

The foundation of any organic app growth strategy starts with your App Store Optimisation. I mean, this is the stuff that actually matters—your app title, subtitle, description, screenshots, and those first few seconds of your preview video. Users make split-second decisions about whether to download your app, so everything needs to be clear and compelling. I've seen apps with genuinely good functionality fail because their store listing looked like it was thrown together in five minutes. Your keywords need to be researched properly (not just guessed), your screenshots need to show real value, and your description needs to answer the question "why should I care?" in the first two lines.

The apps that grow organically are the ones that make it ridiculously easy for users to understand their value within seconds of discovering them.

Beyond your store presence, you need to think about content. Blog posts, social media, email lists—these aren't just marketing fluff, they're how you build an audience before you even launch. Start talking about the problem your app solves months before it goes live. Build a community around the solution, not just the product itself. And when you do launch? Make sharing your app as easy as possible; referral programmes, social sharing features, anything that lets happy users bring their friends along for the ride without feeling like they're doing your marketing for you. Consider implementing viral challenges that spread organically to amplify your user participation.

Getting Started with Paid User Acquisition

Right, so you've decided paid ads make sense for your app—now what? Here's the thing, jumping into paid acquisition without a proper plan is like throwing money into a fire and hoping something good happens. I've seen clients burn through £10,000 in a week with nothing to show for it because they didn't set things up properly first.

The biggest mistake people make? Starting campaigns before their app is actually ready for paid traffic. And by ready, I mean more than just "it works and doesn't crash"—you need proper tracking installed, your onboarding flow tested and optimised, and a clear understanding of what actions you want users to take. If you cant measure whats happening, you cant improve it.

What You Need Before Spending a Penny

You need to install a Mobile Measurement Partner (MMP) like AppsFlyer or Adjust first—these tools track where your users come from and what they do in your app. Without this, you're basically guessing which ads work and which dont. Its a bit mad really how many apps launch campaigns without proper attribution in place.

Start small. I mean genuinely small—maybe £20-50 per day across one or two platforms maximum. Facebook and Google are usually your best bets to begin with because they have the largest audiences and decent targeting options. Run these initial campaigns for at least a week before making any big decisions; you need enough data to see patterns, not just random noise.

Your First Campaign Checklist

Here's what you should have sorted before launching:

• Attribution tracking properly installed and tested
• Clear conversion events defined (app opens, sign-ups, purchases)
• Multiple ad creatives ready to test—at least 3-5 variations
• A daily budget you can afford to lose whilst learning
• Your target audience clearly defined with specific demographics
• Landing pages or app store listings optimised for conversions

Test different audiences, different ad formats, different messaging—but only change one thing at a time so you know what actually made the difference. The data will tell you what works, but only if youre patient enough to let it accumulate properly.

Combining Paid and Organic for Maximum Impact

Here's the thing—you don't actually have to choose between paid ads and organic growth. I mean, why would you? The apps that truly scale use both approaches together, and they use them in a way that makes each one stronger. Its not about splitting your budget down the middle or running them as separate campaigns; it's about creating a system where your paid efforts feed your organic growth and vice versa.

When you run paid campaigns, you're generating data about which users convert best, which messaging works, and which features people actually care about. That information is gold for your organic strategy—use it to optimise your app store listing, refine your content marketing, and improve your product itself. On the flip side, your organic channels (especially social media and content) give you a place to retarget users who clicked your paid ads but didn't convert immediately. Most people need multiple touchpoints before they commit to downloading an app.

I've seen this work brilliantly with apps that use paid Instagram ads to drive initial awareness, then retarget those viewers with organic content that builds trust and demonstrates real value. Or apps that build an organic community first, then use paid ads to scale what's already working. The key is timing—start with whichever approach fits your current resources, but always have a plan for how you'll layer in the other. This combined strategy becomes essential when you're working on app scaling initiatives.

How to Structure Your Combined Approach

The best way I've found to combine both tactics is through a phased strategy. You basically want to use each method where it performs best, not just run everything at once and hope for results.

• Use paid ads for cold audience acquisition and testing different messaging angles
• Build organic content around your best-performing paid ad themes and user insights
• Create retargeting campaigns that bridge paid and organic touchpoints
• Invest organic effort into SEO and app store optimisation using keywords discovered through paid campaigns
• Use your organic community for user-generated content that can fuel your paid creative

Track users by acquisition channel in your analytics so you can see which combination of paid and organic touchpoints leads to your highest lifetime value customers—this data should guide where you invest next.

The real power comes from the flywheel effect. Your paid ads bring in users who (if you've done everything right) become engaged community members. These engaged users create content, leave reviews, and refer friends—all organic growth. That organic growth improves your app store ranking and reduces your overall cost per install on paid channels because you've got better ratings and social proof. Creating app challenges that encourage user participation can significantly amplify this flywheel effect. It's a bit mad really how well this compounds over time, but I've watched apps reduce their paid acquisition costs by 40% or more just by nurturing the organic side properly.

Common Mistakes That Waste Time and Money

Right, lets talk about the mistakes I see people make over and over again—because honestly, some of these could save you thousands of pounds if you just avoid them from the start. The biggest one? Spending money on paid ads before your app is actually ready for users. I mean, what's the point of paying to get people through the door if the app crashes, has a confusing onboarding flow, or doesn't deliver on what you promised? You're literally burning cash and getting negative reviews in return; its not a good look.

Another massive mistake is trying to do both paid and organic at the same time but doing neither of them properly. You spread your budget too thin, you spread your team too thin, and you end up with mediocre results across the board. Pick one approach and do it well before layering in the other—trust me on this one. This is especially important when working on startup app development where resources are often limited.

The Most Expensive Mistakes App Founders Make

Here are the specific things that waste the most money and time in my experience:

• Running paid ads without proper tracking and attribution set up first—you won't even know which ads are working
• Ignoring your organic foundation completely because you think paid ads are a shortcut (they're not)
• Spending on user acquisition before you've tested your retention metrics—if people delete your app after two days, more users isn't the solution
• Copying your competitor's strategy without understanding their business model or budget
• Not setting a clear timeline and budget cap for testing paid channels
• Forgetting that App Store Optimisation affects your paid ad costs too—better conversion rates mean lower cost per install
• Running organic growth campaigns without any way to measure whats actually working

The Reality Check You Need

Look, I get it—when you've built an app you're excited about, you want to see it succeed fast. But here's the thing; rushing into paid ads without preparation or ignoring organic growth because it seems slow will both cost you in the long run. The apps that succeed are the ones that match their growth strategy to their actual situation—not the one they wish they were in. Understanding your current stage and having realistic expectations about product-market fit is crucial for making the right decision.

Conclusion

Look, there's no magic formula here—and honestly, anyone who tells you there is hasn't actually built and launched apps in the real world. The choice between paid ads and organic growth isn't about picking one and ignoring the other; its about understanding where your app is right now and what resources you actually have available.

If you've got a solid product-market fit and a budget that can handle some experimentation, paid ads can give you the momentum you need to grow quickly. You'll learn fast. You'll see results. But—and this is important—you cant just throw money at ads and hope for the best. You need to understand your unit economics, know what a user is worth to you, and have a plan for keeping those users engaged once they download your app.

On the flip side, organic growth takes time and patience, but it builds something more sustainable. When users find your app through word of mouth, App Store search, or content marketing, they tend to stick around longer. They're already somewhat invested before they even download. The problem? Organic growth is slow, especially at the start, and you need to be prepared for that reality.

Most successful apps I've worked on use both approaches—starting with a strong organic foundation and then layering in paid acquisition once they know what works. They test, measure, adjust, and keep learning. That's really what this comes down to: understanding your specific situation, being honest about your constraints, and building a growth strategy that actually makes sense for your app and your business. There are no shortcuts, but there are smarter ways to spend your time and money.