Scaling Meta Ads from zero to $100K a month — Ethan Ethier, Built With Science

On the podcast: scaling Meta ads from zero to $100,000 a month, why they waited a year after launch before buying ads, and how a pricing page experiment shifted users toward annual subscriptions.

Top Takeaways:

📉 A big audience buys you a launch spike, not a growth engine

Even 7 million subscribers produce a bump at launch and a steady trickle after; durable growth still came from paid ads, SEO, and a product that converts cold traffic.

🧱 Fix trial-to-paid before you spend a dollar on ads

A full year of product work before the first ad lifted the conversion floor for every channel, because paid traffic always converts colder than organic.

🧲 Cold traffic converts better on a quiz than in the App Store

A long, personalized web quiz educates users, overcomes objections, and raises perceived value — and it beat direct-to-store traffic in a head-to-head test, which is why 90% of traffic goes there.

💰 Show annual first and shrink the perceived risk, not the price

Presenting annual upfront with a day-by-day trial timeline and a promised day-12 reminder shifted plan choice from 60/40 to 75–80% annual, with no price change.

👯 A two-person plan is retention insurance disguised as a discount

15% off for adding a workout partner gets 15% of trial starts to take it, raising order value and keeping both users subscribed longer.