App Creator Acquisition Playbook
$149$199
You built the app.
You know you need more people talking about it.
So you decide to try creators.
Then comes the part nobody warned you about.
Who do I message?
What do I say?
How much do I pay?
Do they actually have reach?
What if they have 600,000 followers but get 8,000 views?
What counts as a good video?
What if they send me something that looks like a terrible ad?
And why does negotiating with a stranger on Instagram somehow feel harder than negotiating with a database?
If you would rather refactor something than send a cold DM, this is for you.
THE BIGGEST CREATOR MISTAKE
Follower count feels like the obvious metric.
It is also one of the easiest ways to waste money.
We measured three accounts in the same niche on the same day.
One had 605,000 followers and was doing around 8,800 views per post.
Our 38,000 follower page was reaching far more people.
So this playbook teaches you how to buy reach, not follower counts.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
• When you are actually ready to hire creators
• Where to find them
• How to rank them before you spend a dollar
• The qualification scorecard
• Brand safety and conflict checks
• The three day warm up before outreach
• The exact outreach message
• The follow up cadence
• How to negotiate without overpaying
• When to buy a post and when not to
• Flat fees, CPM deals, view guarantees and bonus structures
• The criteria that decide whether a video actually counts
• How to measure performance before you sign the next deal
THE TWO CREATOR MODELS
Creators posting on their own accounts are one thing.
Creators running an account you own are another.
Different incentives.
Different contracts.
Different risks.
Different pay structures.
This playbook covers both and shows you which one makes sense first.
THE CONTRACT
You also get the actual creator agreement we use.
Not a generic template someone pulled from a blog.
It includes the roles, view guarantee math, bonus schedule, ownership terms and qualifying video standard.
Use it as a starting point, adapt it to your situation, and have a lawyer review it.
WHO THIS IS FOR
Your app works.
You have some traction.
You have a marketing budget.
And you want other people creating demand for the product instead of trying to do every post yourself.
WHAT THIS IS NOT
A list of creators.
Your niche is not our niche, and a list gets stale anyway.
You are getting the system for finding the right people yourself.
If you have no creator budget yet, start with the App Marketing Playbook and build your own audience first.
The goal is simple:
Stop paying for content that looks like an ad.
Start building a creator system that can actually scale.
Joey
Really really good course. There's practically a eureka moment in every one of the course sections! The thing I really enjoy most about this course is I'm using the same tools, and the platforms (App Store and Play Store). So everything that Darius teaches, I can pause and try to implement what he recommends on my own apps.
Nicholas
As a mobile app developer, I can create amazing apps, but I had no idea how to market the app. Darius really knows what he's doing. He walks you step by step so that you know what you are doing. Highly recommend.
Bernardo
I really loved the content he gave, honestly. I learned so many things that I can't wait to experiment with them soon... it also stimulated me to go in-depth into the SMM as it's way more interesting than I thought.
Theodora
Amazing information. If he has more guides I will buy them all.