Discover app marketing growth hacks from the top app publishers. Learn the secrets of app store optimization, app store features, and online marketing to drive more downloads for your mobile app.
The Influencer Marketing Math That Made Cal AI Profitable
How much should you actually pay an influencer?
And more importantly, how do you make sure influencer marketing stays profitable when a video goes viral?
Jake from Cal AI breaks down the numbers behind their influencer marketing strategy, from negotiating cross-platform deals and setting base rates to structuring view-based bonuses and knowing when to stop paying for additional views.
We also dive into why you shouldn't blindly copy a $X CPM benchmark. Instead, Jake explains how to use RPM (revenue per thousand views) to determine what you can actually afford to pay.
And when a video takes off? That’s where things get really interesting.
Jake explains why Cal AI caps view bonuses around the 1M-view mark, why viral views become less valuable as content reaches a broader audience, and how the team tracks downloads and revenue when millions of influencer videos are circulating across social platforms.
You’ll discover:
✅ How Cal AI negotiates influencer rates and cross-platform posting
✅ How to structure a base rate & performance bonus
✅ The difference between paid ads, influencer marketing, and UGC
✅ Why you should focus on RPM instead of chasing a “good” CPM
✅ How to calculate whether your influencer campaigns can actually be profitable
✅ How Cal AI tracks downloads and performance from viral influencer content
✅ How to use early campaign data to build a repeatable influencer playbook
The big lesson:
Don't ask, “What CPM should I pay influencers?” Ask, “What can my business afford to pay based on the revenue those views generate?”
Jake's newsletter:
https://operatorsnotebook.beehiiv.com/ (https://operatorsnotebook.beehiiv.com/)
🚀 Need help growing your app?
App Masters:
https://www.appmasters.com (https://www.appmasters.com)
You can also watch this video here:
https://youtu.be/LN7_9TAoyKY (https://youtu.be/LN7_9TAoyKY)
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24 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT
How a Full-Time Teacher Built a Nearly $1M App Business
Host Steve Young interviews Eric Duffett, a teacher, about building a nearly $1M app business with growth strategies and monetization lessons.
20 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT
Before You Spend $1 on Meta Ads, Watch This
App founder Steve P. Young interviews himself on the seven essential checks before spending on Meta Ads to ensure app funnel conversion and ad spend efficiency.
Inside a recent episode
How a Full-Time Teacher Built a Nearly $1M App Business
Published 24 Oct 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] So I think we're good. Again, I would hope that I can do my lesson plans and time it out and just be really thoughtful given That's my main job. So I think, yeah, again, I think most of your audience probably already understands this math. But when I first started listening, I didn't I didn't know these terms. I didn't know this this ratio that's kind of like the golden ratio of is is paid ads going to work for you. And paid ads works and becomes this magic money machine when you can spend a dollar and make more than a dollar. And so here I am, I see like, oh, my cost to acquire a customer is about $1.50. […]
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