How We Achieved 1 Million App Installs at ₹12 CPI for a Food Delivery App in India
- Amit Chopra
- Jul 3
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 10
he Client: Scaling a Hyperlocal Food Delivery Startup in Tier 2 Cities
QuickBite is a Tier 1 + Tier 2 city food delivery startup founded in 2022, competing in the fast-crowded quick-commerce space against Zomato, Swiggy, and Blinkit. The app aggregates restaurants in 18 cities across India — including Jaipur, Lucknow, Indore, Bhopal, and Chandigarh — focusing on cities where the giants have weaker last-mile delivery networks. QuickBite had a superior product: average delivery time of 28 minutes vs the industry's 42 minutes. But without scale, the unit economics don't work — food delivery needs density of both restaurants and customers in each catchment to be profitable.
QuickBite's investors set a clear milestone: reach 1 million app installs within 6 months to unlock Series A funding. When HO Digital was engaged, the app had 112,000 installs — all organic — and the initial paid campaigns were running at ₹68 CPI, making the million-install target financially impossible at existing unit economics. HO Digital rebuilt the app marketing strategy from the ground up, achieving 1 million installs at ₹12 CPI in exactly 6 months.
The Quick-Commerce Challenge: Unit Economics & High Food App CPI
CPI of ₹68 — at this cost, reaching 1 million incremental installs would require ₹6.05 crore in ad spend, 5× the available budget
Tier 2 city users behaved very differently from metro users — higher price sensitivity, stronger WhatsApp usage, lower smartphone literacy, different peak usage times
Day-30 retention was only 9% — users downloading but not reordering meant each install had very low LTV
App Store rating of 3.4 — below the 4.0 threshold at which organic discovery algorithms begin promoting apps
No segmentation by city — a single national campaign was running with metro-focused creatives in Tier 2 cities where they didn't resonate
No measurement of post-install events — the team was optimising for installs only, with no visibility into first-order rates or retention.
Food Delivery App Marketing Strategy: Phase-by-Phase
Phase 1 — Hyperlocal City Segmentation, Catchment-Level Targeting & Google UAC Optimization
HO Digital immediately separated campaigns by city and city tier. Each of the 18 cities got its own Google UAC campaign with a city-specific creative showing local restaurant brands that QuickBite delivered from. A Tier 2 creative framework was developed: visuals showed price-conscious messaging ('₹0 Delivery on First 10 Orders'), local cuisine photography (e.g., chaat in Lucknow, dal baati in Jaipur), and delivery timing guarantees. Campaign optimisation was shifted from 'install' event to 'first order completed' — better predicting LTV.
Phase 2 — Eliminating Food App Order Friction & Boosting ASO Ratings
In parallel with ad campaigns, HO Digital worked with QuickBite's product team to identify the top 3 UX friction points causing post-install drop-offs: confusing restaurant discovery UI, no push notification for 'restaurants near you open now', and broken Apple Pay integration on iOS. These were fixed in 3 sprints. A systematic App Store review campaign asked satisfied users (who had completed 2+ orders) to rate the app — improving the rating from 3.4 to 4.3 in 11 weeks. Day-30 retention improved from 9% to 31% as the product quality improved.
Phase 3 — Scaling via Meta Ads, ShareChat, and Viral Referral Mechanics
With optimised product and city-specific creative assets, HO Digital scaled to a multi-channel paid strategy: Google UAC at 55% of budget, Meta App Install Ads at 30%, and in-app advertising on ShareChat and Josh for Tier 2 penetration at 15%. The ShareChat/Josh channel delivered ₹8 CPI — 53% cheaper than Google UAC — for Tier 2 city installs. A referral mechanic ('Give ₹100 off to a friend, get ₹50 credit') was integrated into the paid campaigns, generating viral organic installs alongside paid ones.
📊 Data Blueprint: 1 Million Food App Installs & 54% First-Order Conversion
Cost Per Install: ₹68 → ₹12 (82% reduction — making the 1M target financially viable)
Total App Installs: 112,000 (organic) → 1,000,000+ (6-month target achieved)
Day-30 Retention Rate: 9% → 31% (after product UX fixes)
App Store Rating: 3.4★ → 4.3★ (11-week review campaign)
First-Order Rate (Install → Order): 22% → 54% (optimising for order event, not just install)
Tier 2 CPI via ShareChat/Josh: ₹8 (vs ₹12 blended average)
Referral Campaign: 84,000 additional organic installs generated by referral mechanic
Quick-Commerce Playbook: Scalable Growth for Food Delivery Platforms
Optimise for post-install events, not installs — a ₹12 install that orders has 10× the LTV of a ₹8 install that never opens the app again
Tier 2 city app marketing requires separate campaigns with different creatives, messaging, and even channels (ShareChat/Josh vs Google)
App Store rating is a paid marketing multiplier — a 4.3★ app converts 2× better on install ads than a 3.4★ app at the same CPI
Multi-channel app install strategies (UAC + Meta + regional platforms) achieve lower blended CPI than any single channel
What the Client Said
HO Digital helped us unlock our Series A by hitting 1 million installs on time. More importantly, they fixed the retention problem that would have made that milestone meaningless — 31% Day-30 retention means those installs are actually valuable. The city-specific campaign strategy was something no other agency had suggested to us. — CEO, QuickBite.
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