When David Adius, a former quant trader from France, noticed a mobile app making $200,000 per month just three months after its launch, he didn't just admire their success—he decided to reverse-engineer it. By identifying a proven user experience and pivoting the niche toward Gen Z women struggling with sugar addiction, he built Stoppr. Within just five months, the app achieved 60,000 downloads and reached $12,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR). This rapid ascent wasn't driven by traditional search ads or high-budget TV spots; it was fueled by a surgical influencer marketing strategy that combined data-driven creator selection with the power of TikTok Spark Ads.
Why Influencer Marketing is the Primary Growth Engine for Gen Z Apps
For modern app developers, the old playbook of broad demographic targeting on social media is failing. Gen Z users, who make up the core demographic for apps like Stoppr (typically women aged 13 to 25), don't respond to corporate messaging. They respond to peer-to-peer recommendations. David validated his idea by spending hours on TikTok and Instagram, noticing a massive trend of influencers discussing health and "quitting sugar."
According to research from Google Trends, the search volume for keywords like "stop sugar" has been steadily climbing for five years. However, simply knowing a niche is popular isn't enough. To succeed in scaling app downloads, you must meet the audience where they are already consuming content. By partnering with creators who already had the ear of young women, Stoppr was able to skip the "trust-building" phase and go straight to conversion. This influencer-led distribution is particularly effective because it allows for localized marketing—a strategy David used to dominate the French market before expanding elsewhere.
How to Find Influencers for Mobile Apps Using Data
The biggest mistake most brands make is choosing influencers based on follower count alone. High follower counts often lead to vanity metrics rather than actual app installs. David’s playbook involves using specific analytics tools to find influencers for mobile apps who have a track record of success. He utilized platforms like Top Yappers to scrape TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube for creator profiles that had previously worked with similar apps.
Platforms like Stormy AI, an all-in-one AI-powered platform for creator discovery, specialize in this exact type of discovery. By using a natural-language AI search engine, developers can identify creators whose audience is primed for a specific type of utility or lifestyle app. When you look for creators, don't just look for "health influencers." Look for those who have a high engagement rate on UGC (user-generated content) style videos. These are the videos that feel like a friend giving advice, which is the cornerstone of high-converting mobile app ads.
The Automation Workflow: Scaling Outreach Without the Burnout
Once you have a list of potential partners, the next hurdle is outreach. Manually emailing hundreds of creators is a recipe for stagnation. To maintain 35% profit margins while scaling, David implemented an influencer outreach automation workflow. This involved scraping contact data and feeding it into AI agents to handle the initial communication.
By using Stormy AI, a developer can automate the personalized outreach process using built-in AI email agents. The AI can reference specific details about the creator's recent content, making the email feel authentic rather than like a mass-produced template. This allows a small team—or even a solo founder—to manage a pipeline of hundreds of influencers simultaneously while the AI handles follow-ups on a schedule while you sleep. This high-volume approach is essential for finding that one viral video that will eventually be used to fuel your paid acquisition strategy.
TikTok Spark Ads Tutorial: Turning Viral Content into a Growth Machine
One of the most powerful components of David's strategy is the use of TikTok Spark Ads. Unlike traditional ads, Spark Ads allow you to boost an influencer's existing organic post using their own handle. This preserves the authenticity of the post while giving you the targeting power of the TikTok Ads Manager.
Step 1: Identify Viral Organic Content
Monitor your influencer partners' posts. When you see a video that is naturally getting higher engagement than their average, that is your prime candidate for a Spark Ad. You aren't guessing what works; you are putting money behind proven content.
Step 2: Get the Spark Ad Code
The creator must enable "Ad Authorization" on their post and provide you with a unique code. This gives your business account permission to promote that specific video.
Step 3: Set Your Objectives
In the TikTok Ads Manager, select "App Installs" as your objective. Because the content is already performing well organically, your Cost Per Install (CPI) is likely to be significantly lower than with a standard creative. David noted that even a modest spend of around $100 per month on Spark Ads was enough to maintain momentum for viral videos.
Step 4: Optimize and Scale
Once you see a positive ROI, you can increase your budget. This is how you transition from organic luck to systematic growth. If you are looking to find high-quality Stormy AI creators for UGC-style Spark Ads, using a dedicated discovery tool can help you identify creators whose aesthetic matches the native look of TikTok.
Tracking and Attribution: Measuring Campaign Success
You cannot scale what you cannot measure. With 60,000 downloads, David needed to know exactly which influencers and which ads were driving paying customers. This requires a robust tech stack that goes beyond basic app store metrics. He utilized RevenueCat to manage in-app subscriptions and track the lifecycle of a user from trial to paid member.
For deeper behavioral analytics, Mixpanel was integrated into the app. Additionally, using Stormy AI for post tracking allows you to monitor views, likes, and engagement for every creator video in one dashboard. By tracking where users drop off in the funnel and matching it with creator performance, you can optimize your messaging. For instance, if users from a certain influencer are dropping off at the payment screen, you might need to adjust the value proposition in the initial ad creative. This data-driven approach ensures that your influencer marketing strategy is constantly evolving based on real user behavior.
The 2025 Playbook for Scaling App Downloads
If you are starting from scratch today, David Adius suggests a very specific scaling app downloads playbook that leverages AI and proven market structures. Here is the step-by-step breakdown:
- Find a Proven Model: Use tools like Sensor Tower to find apps with high MRR. Look for successful onboarding flows and UI patterns that can be adapted to a new niche.
- Validate the Niche: Confirm there is a conversation happening on social media. If influencers are already talking about the problem your app solves, the market is ready.
- Build Fast with AI: Use tools like Cursor or Figma plugins to prototype and develop your MVP in weeks, not months.
- Aggressive Influencer Outreach: Use Stormy AI, which is an AI-powered platform for creator discovery especially for UGC campaigns, to identify creators who have worked with competitors and automate the outreach with autonomous AI agents.
- Fuel the Fire with Spark Ads: Take your best-performing organic influencer content and scale it using TikTok's paid tools to maximize reach and ROI.
Final Takeaways for App Founders
The success of Stoppr proves that you don't need to reinvent the wheel to build a $10,000+ per month business. By combining a proven app structure with a modern, influencer-led distribution strategy, any founder can capture a significant share of a niche market. Focus on finding "proven" creators, automating the tedious parts of the outreach process with Stormy AI, and using TikTok Spark Ads to scale what works. When you back these strategies with solid data from tools like Mixpanel and RevenueCat, you move from "hoping for a hit" to executing a predictable growth engine. Start by identifying your niche today, and remember: the fastest way to growth is often following the path that influencers have already paved for you.