This article is based on the assumption that most app teams diversify their ad spend because it feels safer. If Meta tanks your CPI overnight, or Google suddenly changes the optimal dimensions for creatives, it’s surely way safer to not be dependent on a single channel. Right?

Well, read on for a breakdown of ad channel diversification’s pros and cons, and what I’ve learnt scaling apps across Meta, TikTok, Google and more — like when channel diversification works (and when it doesn’t), how to make the most of your paid ad budget, and how to anticipate ad channel problems. Along the way, I’ll share real-life examples from my work with small, medium, and large apps.

What is ad channel diversification?

Ad channel diversification is the practice of splitting your paid user acquisition budget across multiple advertising platforms instead of concentrating it on one or two channels.

In other words, it is the practice of not putting all your eggs in one basket. You’re protected from Apple’s latest privacy rule, or Meta’s fickle algorithm, because you have traffic coming from other places. Sounds logical, right?

In reality, and my experience, following this advice can become a double-edged sword that kills your app’s growth and its chances of success. 

Many subscription apps hurt ad performance by spreading budgets too thin. Ad channel diversification can be a huge win, but it can also dilute learning, slow optimization, and ad operational overhead. So when should you add new channels? This article aims to answer just that!

The hidden risks of ad channel diversification

Diversification sounds strategic, but the operational drag is real. When you split a budget across multiple channels, you’re also splitting:

  • Learning-phase velocity: each channel gets too little data to exit creative testing consistently
  • Creative bandwidth: your team now needs multiple formats, spec variations, and testing roadmaps
  • Optimization focus: time moves from ‘making what works work better’ to ‘keeping multiple sub-performing channels afloat’

Years ago, I experienced the pain of diversifying ad channels firsthand.

I worked with a subscription app, spending $80k/month exclusively on Meta with a blended return-on-ad-spend (ROAS) of 2.8x. The founder decided to diversify ad channels  and split the budget: $40k for Meta, $25k for Google, and $15k for TikTok. 

Three months later, the ROAS dropped to 1.9x across all channels. Why? None of the channels had enough budget to exit the creative testing phase consistently.

Creative volume couldn’t keep up with three different formats, and the growth team spent more time in meetings discussing ‘channel strategy’ than actually optimizing ads and user acquisition. 
The uncomfortable truth is that diversification feels like risk management, but it’s often just dilution — of resources, insights, and priorities. Without time to analyze creative success and put learnings into action, all we’d done was spread the ad budget too thin and have nothing to show for it.

Signals you’re not ready to diversify ad channels

This list is designed to help you decide whether diversifying your budget is worth it. Think of these as red flags to sense-check your decision, or show someone why more ad channels could be a risk. 

1. You don’t have enough bandwidth

Ever heard the phrase “don’t bite off more than you can chew”?

Understand and be conscious that the cost of losing focus is always higher than expected because it’s hard to measure. Teams frequently underestimate how much time disappears into creative resets, weekly channel reviews, and troubleshooting. And the consequences of not being able to say ‘no’ to more channels will only hit harder in the future.

2. You have narrow or niche audience constraints

I once advised an at-home services app that operated in just three cities (specific zip codes). Things started to work when we focused on keyword placements across Apple Ads and Google Ads (search-to-app), and stopped betting on broad targeting and algorithmic channels like Meta Ads and TikTokwith social content. In this case, the territory limitation and high CPM simply wasn’t worth the money.

If you operate in just a few specific areas or target a niche persona, keyword channels may be your best bets. Sometimes your app’s audience is limited; not accounting for that constraint, just because you want to diversify, is a risky move. 

3. Your budget can’t sustain multiple channels

Concentrating your budgets is an opportunity, not a restraint. Ignoring that opportunity is a red flag. Spreading your budget too thin means:

  • More extended periods in the learning phase
  • Less signals to ad networks to optimize performance
  • Limited capacity to test ad creatives
  • Reduced scalability when things start to gain traction

4. You don’t have capacity for ad maintenance

Managing ads and keywords is one of the most tedious and time-consuming tasks for marketers. The minute you add more channels into the mix, you double (or triple, quadruple etc.) the work. So diversification takes much longer than expected, and most of the time, the anticipated performance uplift doesn’t reflect that increase in work, or justify it. 

Fewer quality ad channels that you can actually maintain will almost always outperform lots of poorly-maintained channels. 

5. You don’t want to tackle ROAS variance across channels

Different channels generate different results (obviously), and juggling all these results, understanding, and predicting them — all simultaneously — is a lot. 

Having a clear understanding of your ROAS can be hard to predict for just one channel. For example, users coming from social media may be assigned a different ROAS target than users coming from high-intent keyword searches. That’s all well and good, if you can keep an eye on those differences in behavior, track them over time, and predict what’s coming next. 

6. Your reporting and attribution stack isn’t ready

More data sources means more attribution confusion, more measurement problems, and more time spent debugging dashboards than driving results. 

Which channels are telling the truth? Which channels are attracting the highest-quality users? Which channels should you prioritize?

If you’re spending less than $100k/month on ads, these are questions you want to avoid. But if you have multiple channels, you’re going to need to answer them. Consider whether the money and potential results compensate for that work.

When does it make sense to diversify your ad channels?

The way I like to approach ad budget diversification is by asking a simple question.

Will new ad channels make me make more money — and can I prove it? 

You’re ready to diversify when the answer to each of these follow-on questions is ‘yes’:

  • Do I have the human capital (time and expertise) needed to make it work?
  • Do I have enough extra money to allocate to this risky test, without affecting my current user acquisition efforts?
  • Do I know how I will measure the potential uplift in performance attributed to this new ad channel?

Think about it in these criteria:

  1. You have the people: someone owns experimentation, creative testing, and optimization for the new channel
  2. You have the budget: enough to reach stable delivery without harming your existing winners
  3. You have the measurement: a clear attribution plan for identifying incremental lift (not just last-click noise)

If these aren’t true, diversification usually becomes an expensive distraction rather than a growth lever.

6 Tips for diversifying ad channels

Before we get into some firsthand examples of how to choose and diversify ad channels, here are my top tips for increasing your ad channels. Keep in mind that these come from my own personal experience, so use them as proxies for your decision-making, rather than global rules. 

  1. If your budget is under $100k/month, focus on nailing one social platform — I suggest starting with Meta Ads or TikTok Ads
  2. Keyword-based channels like Apple Ads or Google Ads can be operated in parallel with social media channels, but not at scale (especially Apple Ads)
  3. For gaming apps, Applovin is one of the biggest ad channels to start with, but the big con is you need to pay for an MMP to run it
  4. Never use the excuse of channel saturation if you are spending less than $100/month; to be blunt, this is not the reason why your performance sucks
  5. If you’re an indie developer or lack the resources to produce high-quality video content at scale, start with Google Ads’ search-to-app campaigns (you can use tools like Appstack to make it happen quickly and easily)
  6. Diversifying into ad channels that are not Meta, TikTok, Google, Snapchat, X, or Apple may expose you to potential ad fraud at scale — keep your money safe and avoid non-self-attributed networks (non-SAN)

Real-life examples of diversified ad channels

Let’s look at how this works in the real world. The following examples show the actual outcomes of diversifying (or not diversifying) ad spend across different apps and budgets: 

1. Bible app

I’ve recently been advising a Christian app that was spending more $500k+/month on Meta Ads. They clearly had the economic resources to hire someone else or test new ad channels, but the main reason they were able to scale to that level was that they nailed Meta Ads first. 

The primary way they did this was by optimizing ad network signaling, and leveraging strong testing capacity using the SVS framework.

They also have a strong mindset of focusing on one thing, but doing it better than anyone else. This is an example of the benefits of not diversifying, which saw a startup of 15 people scale to millions in ARR.

2. Fintech app

When working at a fintech company, we had a monthly budget of around $100k/month which then doubled to $200k/month after we saw success expanding into a new ad channel. 

The reason this worked for us came from maximizing our existing channel’s success: we deployed the best-performing video ads from Meta Ads into TikTok Ads, and it resulted in significant numbers (positive ROAS). 

Luckily, I had the resources to get enough time and allocation to test the new TikTok channel, so it wasn’t a huge risk. But this is one tactic for exploring a new channel without putting everything on the line. I call it a soft diversification test, limiting time and scope to a duplication strategy of your best-performing content, simply added to a new channel. Of course typically the best-performing content will be unique to each channel, but it’s a good proof of concept. 

3. Photo and video app

Finally, I’ve recently consulted one of the biggest photo and video apps in the world (sorry, I can’t share the name!), who spend more than $3m/month. They’re highly diversified in channel, meaning even the biggest ad channels like Meta Ads and Google Ads only use 30% of their ad spend.

The reason it’s working for them is simple. Scale. They have the budget to have specialized people in each channel, with almost unlimited funds to test and scale as needed. This is obviously not always the case, and it’s a prime example of how much resource you need to expand without risk. 

However, the flip side of this case is that the wider user acquisition function was pretty inefficient: ROAS was higher than reported, people weren’t working that hard, and they had serious measurement issues to determine what was actually moving the needle. Despite huge budgets, there were still issues under the surface. 

So, should you invest in new ad channels?

The correct answer to your question: “Should I diversify my marketing budget allocation?” will always be simple: it depends. 

I know, it’s annoying. But it’s true. And if someone tells you the opposite, doubt them.

To move from ‘it depends’ to a straightforward yes/no, keep these takeaways in mind:

  1. Depth beats width below $100k/month: if you’re spending less than $100k/month, master one channel before adding another. Deep optimization on Meta or TikTok will outperform shallow testing across multiple platforms.
  2. Use the three-question test: before diversifying, ask: Do I have the people? Do I have the budget? Do I know how to measure it? Three ‘yes’ answers mean go. Anything else means wait.
  3. Creative production is the hidden bottleneck: three channels mean three different video specs, three sets of copy guidelines, and three times the creative refresh cycles. Most teams can’t keep up.
  4. Attribution gets messy fast: each new channel adds another layer of measurement complexity. If you can’t clearly answer “Which channel drove this subscriber?”, then you’re not ready to add another one.
  5. Context-switching kills performance: a growth marketer splitting time across four dashboards will always lose to one marketer entirely focused on a single platform. Optimization requires deep immersion, not surface-level monitoring.
  6. Kill fast when channels don’t work: after 90 days, if ROAS is below your primary channel or the team is burning 20+ hours/week for less than x% of revenue, pull the plug and reallocate.
  7. Perceived saturation isn’t absolute saturation: if you haven’t tested 100+ creatives/month (at least), exhausted all audience segments, and spent at least six months optimizing, you haven’t hit saturation; you’ve hit a skill ceiling.

So, that’s my whirlwind guide to diversifying your ad channels. I hope it helped guide your decision, and if in doubt, ask yourself those three questions. It’s helped me stay on track more times than I can count.