Before you copy a competitor's growth playbook, check your retention
In 1968, Dick Fosbury won Olympic gold going over the bar backwards. The backwards part was not the breakthrough.
For decades, high jumpers landed in sand or wood chips. You went over facing the bar because you had to come down on your feet. Then American schools started swapping those pits for thick foam. Fosbury's high school got one before his junior year. Foam meant you could land on your back. So he did.
The flop became the standard. The foam is what made it possible.
Try the flop into a sand pit and you get a great technique and a neck brace.
Founders copy the jump
It happens all the time. A competitor scales on creators, so you hire creators. They double their budget, so you double yours. They launch on a new platform, so you follow.
What you do not see is their landing pit: the retention that pays for all of it a few months later. Their creators work because the users they bring stay long enough to pay back. Your creators may bring the same installs into a product that loses them by week two.
What the foam looks like in numbers
At a consumer messaging app, we fixed onboarding and the first minutes of the product before adding spend. Day 7 retention went from 16% to 23%, and day 30 ROAS rose 34% in the same stretch. That is the foam. Only after that was the acquisition worth amplifying.
What to check before you copy anyone
- Your day 30 retention by cohort. If users do not stay, the jump will not pay, however well it works for someone else.
- Your payback window. A competitor with a 60-day payback can afford tactics that bankrupt a business with a 9-month one.
- Your margin. The same ROAS can be profit for one company and a loss for another. Breakeven ROAS is 1 divided by your margin.
- What their tactic depends on. Creators need a product that delivers what the creator promised. Heavy paid social needs a first session that converts. Name the dependency.
- Then test small. Copy the tactic at a budget you can afford to lose, and read the cohort at day 30, not day 3.
Bottom line
Build the pit. Then copy the jump. Then raise the bar.
Sources: Fosbury flop, Dick Fosbury.
FAQ
Should I copy my competitor's marketing strategy?
Copy with care. A competitor's tactic works on top of their retention, margin and payback window, which you usually cannot see. Check that your own numbers can support the tactic before you spend on it.
Why does a growth tactic work for one app and not another?
Because the tactic is only half the system. The other half is what happens after the install: activation, retention and monetization. A strong acquisition tactic on top of weak retention loses money faster.
What retention should I have before scaling acquisition?
There is no universal number. The useful test is the shape of your curve: it should flatten by around day 30. If it is still falling, fix retention before you scale.
How did fixing retention change ROAS in this example?
At a consumer messaging app, day 7 retention rose from 16% to 23% after onboarding work, and day 30 ROAS rose 34% in the same period, with the same acquisition approach.