Headway App - Optimizing performance

The Objective

Headway is a global EdTech startup with Ukrainian roots that develops microlearning solutions for busy adults. Products by Headway help 80M+ users worldwide to make self-growth a sustainable habit with whatever format suits their needs best.

Headway is a TikTok client, leveraging our platform as a key channel for their marketing efforts across all their apps. With lots of in-house production capabilities and resources in place, they have produced an impressive amount of creative content, and haven't been afraid to experiment and try different things with all this content.

Their next objective was to optimize their highest-performing creative, and identify the right formula for success. As a heavily performance-driven company, they were particularly keen on decreasing their Cost per Subscription.

To achieve this next step, they first focused on the flagship product Headway app. It is the most popular book summary app in the world that provides fun and easy growth. Headway app gives key ideas and insights from the world’s bestsellers.

The Solution

TikTok's Creative Performance Managers' team set up an experiment to better understand which creative elements have the biggest impact on performance. This way, the Headway team could identify the right formula for success, and consistently bring in optimal results.

TikTok's CPM team leveraged the internal TikTok Creative Challenge solution to quickly produce a high volume of creative assets and iterations for Headway.

Once the creative was ready, they rotated through various TikTok target audiences as part of the experiment, and the results started rolling in.

The Results

The experiment ran for 8 days. From the experiment, one creative stood out in particular. It was their best-performing creative concept, but with an added human element, which was overlaid through the TikTok green screen effect.

This creative content struck the right balance between brand and human, making the most of both the brand's creative best practices, and TikTok's creative best practices.

Through this experiment, a key learning surfaced for the Headway team - to achieve optimal results, they should add a human element on top of their usual animations. As a result, from the experiment onwards, they made a point to consistently use human elements and creators in their content.

Their performance data also reflected the success of this type of content. Their Cost per Aqsuition (subscription) decreased by 10%, compared to the pre-experiment period.

Now, Headway have more answers around what content works best for them, and a winning approach for boosting performance and lowering Cost per Acquisition. (The left one is before, and the right one is after.)