RapChat

Changing the Game for Rapchat

Rapchat appreciates how RevenueCat and OneSignal have helped the startup continue to focus on building great features, while taking care of the payments and push notification infrastructure that Miller considers “table stakes.”

Now, Rapchat is learning more from its users every day, and connecting with their motivations and journeys on a more personal level. This integration has been crucial to helping Rapchat grow its premium offering and improve its bottom line. Speaking about RevenueCat and OneSignal, Miller said, “It’s a game-changer. It’s an extension of our product”. 

How Rapchat increased subscribers with a personalized messaging campaign using RevenueCat and OneSignal

Growing premium plans without slowing down product development

Rapchat is a platform that empowers over 10 million people to make music and collaborate with other artists. Rapchat introduced a new subscription model to allow artists to subscribe to Rapchat Gold and unlock a wide variety of premium features like better vocal effects and automastering filters.

CEO Seth Miller understood that to convert and keep users on the paid plan, they would need a strong upsell and engagement strategy. This would have to include data on users’ payments, the ability to segment by subscription status, and methods of re-engaging users with the right notification at the right time.

After some investigation, it became clear that building such a system inhouse would take months of engineering work. For an early-stage startup, this time was better spent on building the core product experience that was attracting musicians to Rapchat and keeping customers happy. So, Miller thought: “Why not grow the platform with specialized and effective SaaS tools that already exist?”

RevenueCat and OneSignal helped Rapchat Gold connect with its audience

Rapchat decided to use RevenueCat and OneSignal to launch a personalized messaging campaign based on users’ lifecycle subscription events. As a developer, Miller appreciated the simplicity of the integration: both products worked together with no code needed and provided dashboards that anyone on the team could use regardless of technical ability. 

“When you combine OneSignal and RevenueCat, you have two very valuable data sets coming together,” Miller said. “With OneSignal, you have engagement and messaging data, and with RevenueCat you have subscription-related data. There are numerous examples of how you can leverage this integration to ultimately help improve your users’ experience.”

Reducing Churn with Messaging Segmentation

By layering subscription data from RevenueCat and engagement data from OneSignal, Rapchat was able to segment its users to deliver customized, targeted messaging campaigns. The following example shows how Rapchat identified “New Potential Subscribers” using a set of criteria that represents free-trial users who have downloaded the app between 2 and 3 days prior. This is a critical time window when users typically churn, and Rapchat was able to target this segment with re-engagement messages.

Increasing Trial Conversion Rates

For active users of its free tier offering, Rapchat is now able to present a free trial of Rapchat Gold at the moment when that user is most likely to be interested. For instance, if the user is engaging with certain features or campaigns — like the in-app challenges that Rapchat offers — they can receive a targeted notification or in-app message that’s tailored to their interests. 

Offering Discounts and Achieving 85% In-App CTR

Rapchat has seen a lot of success by sending limited offers like holiday discounts to all non-subscribers, something that can be set up in just a few clicks using RevenueCat and OneSignal. The following in-app promotion performed particularly well with 85% CTR.

Reducing Churn by Retargeting

Rapchat has found it helpful to dig into the numbers around user churn via their RevenueCat dashboards. When a user doesn’t convert after their free trial, or if they cancel their Gold subscription, Miller examines the subscription lifecycle and surrounding data to see what went wrong.

“This data can be invaluable in informing the product roadmap, and be valuable context for other decision-making — like price, for example,” he said