🎉 23 insights from Apple’s 2023 App of the Year, AllTrails

60 million+ users and millions of paying subscribers

AllTrails in 2021: 25 million users and 1 million paying subscribers

2023: 60 million+ users and ??? million paying subscribers (I’m betting 3-4 million at this point) and likely $100-150MM in revenue

It all starts with the App Store:

1. Preview screens say: “Discover 400,000+ trails” - use big numbers to instantly convey value

2. App is less than 200MB - Apple shows a warning when downloading on cell connection if larger (like people hiking…)

3. Has their subscription offer listed in the app store for increased discoverability

Powerful User Generated Content growth loop

• AllTrails created a powerful user-generated content loop that makes their product better, generates tons of indexable content, and over time creates a huge competitive advantage

Shout out to David Barnard and Jacob Eiting for an amazing Sub Club podcast episode with the AllTrails CEO. (Listen after you finish reading this 😅)

Names matter. AllTrails+ used to be called AllTrails Pro.

• “Pro” signals if you aren’t an outdoors fanatic, this isn’t for you. Are you excluding potential users through what you call your products?

Don’t overcomplicate:

• Isn’t “plus” overused? Yes! And it’s a good thing! You don’t have to waste time explaining because it’s instantly understood

Get to the value ASAP

• Onboarding is super short. A few steps and you’re into the app

• What's your core use case? Change your experience to reflect that. People want to hike, not scroll.

Don’t get in the way of your product

• The product is intuitive, so they don’t need intrusive instructions

But if users are having trouble, then it’s okay to intervene.

• If you tap around a bunch, they’ll show a tooltip to help guide you:

Your users give you so many behavioral and contextual clues. Pay attention to them and use them.

Get users to the right next step in the product journey (not everything all at once)

• Push notification: “Turn your dreams into plans by saving trails to a list” - What comes first, going hiking, or planning where you’re going hiking? Now you get it 🙂

Think about the sequence of steps to get users to uncover the core value. You can’t get there all at once, so what are the “setup” steps? For AllTrails, creating a list of saved trails is one of them.

AllTrails combines proven concepts in their paywall

• Mini trial timeline (Blinkest paywall) reassures users their trial won’t accidentally convert

• Free vs paid comparison chart shows the immense value users receive

• They use a different form of progressive disclosure by having a long paywall. If someone needs more information, they can keep scrolling and receive it.

• Usage stat shows paid users reach their goals

• After onboarding in the app, AllTrails removes the trial and tries to get you to convert directly. If you’ve already seen and explored the app, what’s the point in a trial?

• AllTrails uses the same base paywall but changes the hero graphic and title based on where you tapped.

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Grab even more paywall insights in this post:

What do Calm, AllTrails, and Duolingo have in common?

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Don’t think you always need to do a pre-permissioning screen for push opt-in.

• AllTrails uses the standard prompt

• Oldie, but goodie: John Egan thinks all the push advice you’ve received is wrong: https://jwegan.com/growth-hacking/push-permission-prompts/

Email tips:

• Create great emails by combining beautiful creative with dynamic, personalized elements

  • Adding too much dynamic content can create a messy experience. Pick and choose specific elements to make personalized and dynamic.

• AllTrails has two different email styles for features emails and other things vs their AllTrails+ upsell emails

  • Help your users. Design styles can instantly clue them into the purpose.

• Sale emails should generate positive emotions and not have to be read

  • People purchase based on emotion

  • This most recent sale had a huge 50% and smiling and happy people

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Click here for the whimsical board of all 50+ emails, all the paywalls, and onboarding flow.

Including pictures of emails in the newsletter often makes it too messy and long.

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Actions speak louder than words.

They don’t only talk about community. They’re constantly using user-generated content and crediting their users in marketing materials. This builds trust, but also allows people to think “That could be me!”

Don’t let users land on blank new screens

When a user taps on their “Lists” tab there are examples of what lists you could have “Favorites” and “Maps”

Always be testing pricing

• Started at $50/year then tested $30/yr vs $15/yr

• This result was flat, so they went with $30/yr since it gave more room for discounting

You need a good product before anything else

When the current CEO joined, he saw the product quality needed to be improved so he focused on that over everything else. This is universally true. Always pick the most important things to work on. And don’t do anything else until that’s fixed.

If you were counting along, you actually got more than 23 insights. I just couldn’t help myself 🤷