Substack is giving out free subscriptions to boost app installs

Publishing platform Substack is now pushing users to install its mobile app by offering gifted subscriptions. While Substack itself is available across platforms, including the web, those who want to take advantage of the free subscription offer can only do so after downloading the mobile app to their device.

The free subscription offer is being emailed to Substack users with a subject like “Here’s $6” or “Here’s $7” (or however much the free month costs). But if they click the link to claim the gift from a desktop, they’re directed to a pop-up that says “Accept this gift in the Substack app.” Users can then do so by scanning a QR code or by entering in their email address, then opening the link sent from their email app on their phone.

Feedback on this latest campaign is mixed, with some users complaining that Substack doesn’t need an app or that it should offer these free subscriptions to everyone. Others — including marketers, of course — have praised the app-specific campaign as a clever effort.

Whatever the user sentiment, the move so far appears to be working. App downloads for the Substack app on iOS have shot up from 7,752 global daily installs on October 31 to 17,382 as of November 3, according to data from Appfigures. Over the past month, the app saw somewhere between 6,600 and 8,900 daily downloads, though it largely hovered in the low 8,000s. Its app ranking grew from seventh to fourth place in the News category on iOS in the U.S. App Store; that’s notable movement given it’s arriving amid election season when more consumers are downloading news apps in droves.

The company says its decision to target app installs came about after new data indicated that the Substack mobile app has become the No. 1 source of all subscriptions on its platform. In other words, Substack’s mobile users are more engaged and more likely to pay to follow their favorite publishers, the company explained in a recent blog post.

These metrics are somewhat surprising given that many publishers opt for Substack because of the power of its recommendation engine to drive subscriptions. Publishers on Substack can promote one another’s newsletters to their respective audiences — a system that, to date, has generated more than 34 million subscriptions. A top Substack publisher in the business category, Lenny Rachitsky, even called recommendations “one of the most impactful growth features in history.”

Though recommendations continue to grow, the mobile app has now surpassed them as the top source of subscriber and revenue growth, the company told TechCrunch, referencing its earlier announcement. For instance, recommendations drove 2 million subscriptions last month across the platform, but the mobile app drove 3 million. In addition, discovery in the Substack app is now generating around the same number of subscriptions as all social media sources combined, the company noted.

What’s more, mobile app users are not only more likely to subscribe, they’re also more likely to share, like, comment on, or “restack” (repost) publishers’ work than before they had the app installed.

Substack says its app is still in active development, but these new findings have pushed the company to look for other ways to bring more people to the mobile app.