Our partnership with Output began in 2017. At the time, the company was relatively small, offering a range of high-quality software and hardware solutions to music producers, mostly in the US, and all at single purchase options.
We came on board to help them grow software sales more profitably and expand internationally through SEO and digital advertising.
Prior to our engagement, Output struggled to get attractive and scalable ROAS from digital marketing.
From the get-go, we achieved 5x-7x ROAS on software and hardware e-commerce products by unlocking Google Paid Search, YouTube and Facebook Ads.
Output’s focus changed dramatically in 2018 when they launched their now flagship product — Arcade.
Years in the making, Arcade was the first-of-its kind $10/month subscription product, created to democratize music making for hobbyists and pros alike. Arcade blended innovative and original synthesized sounds with an entirely cloud-based way of making music on a computer.
Throughout Arcade’s growth journey, our priorities and goals changed to respond to the business needs. There were two main periods.
With the launch, we needed to build a significant user base quickly to show proof of concept. Our primary objective was to acquire as many new users as possible within an acceptable CPA. This was a period of data collection and initial product feedback.
Later, once we helped Output cross the 100K customer mark and raise Series A financing, our focus shifted from high growth towards achieving greater efficiency. After analyzing the first couple of months of initial data, we aimed to reach certain types of users that had longer lifetime value and were more profitable to the business.
Our primary goal was to drive 30-day Arcade trial starts cost-efficiently, while at the same time continuing to drive high ROAS revenue from the software and hardware campaigns, which in part subsidized the ongoing investment in Arcade’s growth.
From the start, we worked on optimizing and expanding both Facebook Ads and Google Ads simultaneously, as touchpoints within both platforms contributed to free trial starts.
We constantly tested emerging performance marketing channels, including Reddit, Twitter, Microsoft Ads and later Tiktok.
On Facebook we relied on high-quality creatives and carefully selected audiences to bring awareness and drive interest for the product. We had a detailed testing calendar and aimed to regularly rotate and customize the ads to bring maximum results.
On Google, we focused on capturing niche, non-branded terms relevant to Arcade, as well as bid on more peripheral terms and competitor brands that represented adjacent search intent to what Arcade offered.
We complemented Search with Youtube, Display and later Performance Max campaigns, which all proved to be very strong contributors to the overall marketing mix.
Once we had gone through the initial scale up and had more than 100 campaigns within Google Ads, we focused on simplifying the account structure by consolidating the campaigns and relying on broad match keyword targeting.
This allowed us to give more discretion to Google’s algorithms to find new prospects, while facilitating account management and ensuring maximum visibility over the whole account.
Today Output is an industry leader in the music production industry. They offer numerous well-known software and hardware solutions and multiple competitors are trying to produce spin-offs of Arcade.
Arcade has been used by famous producers to create music for Beyonce, Travis Scott, Jay Z and numerous popular TV shows including Game of Thrones and Westworld.
Within 3 years we managed to scale the ad accounts to monthly 7-figure ad spend and acquire mid 6-figure paying subscribers for Arcade, while maintaing a healthy LTV to CAC ratio.
Thanks to the rapid growth of Arcade’s first two years, in 2020 Output raised a Series A investment of $45 million from the VC fund Summit Partners. In 2022, Output has more than 120+ employees and are working on the next generation of revolutionary products.
Here’s Gregg Lehrman, Output’s Founder and CEO, talking about our working relationship:
