How did we reduce user acquisition costs in “MamanPaz” by 90%?

Sometimes asking the right question can change the course of a business and bring about fundamental changes in the way things are done. The narrative I’m about to explain started with an email on February 23, 2019, and led to significant changes in the user acquisition strategy of “MamanPaz” in 2019. To preserve the confidentiality of company information, I have removed specific numbers, figures, and company data, but I will describe the path we took and the proposed solution to address this issue.

I should mention that as I write this text, it has been several years since I started my own business. However, I am making an effort to document the experiences I have gained throughout my years of activity. Reading about others’ experiences has always been enjoyable for me, and I have been able to learn new things from these experiences. That’s why I strive to share my own experiences with others.

The story began on February 23, 2019, at 4:43 PM when I received an email from Tabassom Latifi addressed to myself, Mohammad Badkoubeh, and Raha GolAmini. In this email, Tabassom asked us if there was a precise method to determine how quality chefs register on the website.

” Hi guys,

I have looked into the registration forms of 94 chefs, and here are the findings:

35% mentioned they became familiar with MamanPaz through acquaintances’ recommendations.
33% found us through internet searches.
25% discovered us on Instagram.
2% saw newspaper advertisements.
2% found us through Telegram.
1% mentioned TV programs.
1% came across our flyers.

Three points to note:

Do we have a method to approximate the accuracy of this data? For instance, can we determine the source of each registration?
This data was collected during a period when we had both an Instagram campaign and a referral program.
If you have any suggestions to improve the accuracy of asking this question to mothers, please let me know.

I believe there are several areas where we need to focus more:

SEO (keywords related to “work from home” and “home-based jobs,” etc.).
Restart the referral program, perhaps after the holiday season.
Publish Instagram posts introducing chefs (mentioning the best chefs and reaching out to those mentioned, inviting them to collaborate).
Continue collaborating with Instagram influencers, targeting fewer individuals who are more expensive and influential.
Work towards establishing a partnership with “NiniBan.”
On Women’s Wednesday (Mother’s Day), it would be great to publish a really good message (non-sexist) on our social media platforms. We are one of the businesses highly relevant to women.

Thank you.”

Perhaps measuring this issue is easier for many other businesses. You can simply set up a goal in Google Analytics and easily track user registrations. However, in the case of MamanPaz, the situation was a bit more complicated.

To understand the complexity of the question, it is necessary to familiarize yourself with the process of chef registration and acquisition in MamanPaz.

The process of chef registration and verification in MamanPaz is as follows:

User (chef) registration on the website.
Phone call from MamanPaz to the user (chef) to inquire if the user is located in the desired area of MamanPaz and if they agree to the terms and conditions.
If the user meets the required criteria, a time is set for a user test.
The user (chef) sends a test meal to MamanPaz.
Was the test meal accepted or rejected?
In case of acceptance, another test is conducted (referred to as the first order).

It’s interesting to note that out of the total number of registrations, only 13% sent test meals, and approximately 50% of those meals were approved.

The main challenge and question were as follows: How do good chefs (who are in the desired location, offer high-quality food, meet our collaboration requirements, and have their first order approved) register on the website?

The initial thought that comes to mind is to ask them directly how they became familiar with MamanPaz (by adding a question to the registration form or asking them directly). Alternatively, you can set up goals in Google Analytics. We were doing this, but we encountered a problem.

Many of our users did not see a significant distinction between searching within Google, Divar (a local classifieds website), and Instagram. They would simply mention “internet search” in general. Additionally, due to the time gap between registration and our first contact with them, they may not remember precisely how they became familiar with the website, and their initial thoughts might not accurately reflect the actual source. We included this question in the registration form for a while, but the answers we received were not precise. (Our target users were women between 35 and 55 years old, who may not have a strong familiarity with the web and the internet.)

The difficulty of the problem lay in the fact that after registration, all processes occurred offline and in completely separate stages, making it challenging to obtain accurate measurements. How could we relate the Google Analytics statistics to the offline data that had no connection to each other? Can Google Analytics be used for this purpose at all?

If you have worked with Google Analytics, you would understand that this was not possible. It is not possible to determine, for example, how exactly Ms. Zahra Sajadi entered the website (Google Analytics does not provide statistics for individual persons). We faced a fundamental challenge and did not have a solution for it. On one hand, we had online data that only consisted of specific numbers, and on the other hand, we had the real names of the accepted individuals. We needed a tool that could connect these data points together.

The idea that came to my mind here was to search for the exact registration time of accepted chefs in the user registration database and match this data with Heap Analytics.

Heap Analytics is a tool that provides detailed information about each user, unlike Google Analytics. You can examine even the smallest user activities with Heap. The data provided by Heap is not available in Google Analytics. The lucky part was that Heap Analytics had been installed on the website for a long time, although it was not being extensively used. However, user registration (chefs) was one of the goals set up in Heap Analytics.

I started matching the data, and after a few minutes, I was almost ready to shout with excitement. I found it! I found it! Using the data from Heap Analytics, it was easy to determine how the desired user entered the website.

The only problem here was that the website data (user’s name and exact registration time), Heap Analytics data, and the list of approved individuals (verified chefs) had to be manually matched, which took some time. However, it was worth it, and after two to three days, we were able to understand how our target users were registering on the website.

Achievements:

We completely eliminated all the methods that had low efficiency and reduced marketing costs for chef acquisition by about 90%. The time spent on acquiring this group of users was reduced to less than 30 minutes per day, and the quality of registrations also improved.

Result:

From platforms like Yektanet, Media Ad, and other advertising platforms,(It should be noted that all famous advertising platforms, including AdWords, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and all international social networks, are filtered and restricted in Iran, and it is not possible to place advertisements on these platforms.) we didn’t achieve any real results and it was just a waste of money. Advertising on social media platforms had better returns compared to advertising platforms, but it wasn’t significant. SEO was also good, but it wasn’t our final solution. Outdoor advertising (banner placement in the metro and distributing leaflets) didn’t yield good results for us either. Advertising in the classifieds section of newspapers didn’t have a satisfactory outcome. Referral and email marketing methods were also put aside.

There was only one method that had an extraordinary result for us: placing an ad titled “Work from Home” or “Earn Income from Home with Cooking” on the Divar website. Placing this ad had a cost of around $3 per day, but the return on this method was exceptional and it greatly reduced the costs of acquiring chefs. From then on, we eliminated all other chef acquisition methods and regularly posted multiple ads with different titles on the Divar website.

I believe that for every business, there are one or two main user acquisition methods that, if found, can significantly increase the efficiency of the business. If you are a small business that has just started, take some time to seek out the fundamental question of what can truly bring about a change in your business and how to find that method.