Independent marketing advisory for technology and digital businesses in Vietnam
SaaS · Apps · Platforms · Fintech · Digital products
One of the few categories where marketing can read the numbers as well as product does. The problem is not missing data — it is optimising for a metric that does not lead to revenue here.
Short answer
Technology and digital businesses usually have complete data from their own product, so the problem is rarely measurement and more often measuring the wrong thing. Two failures are specific to entering Vietnam: optimising for installs or sign-ups rather than paying users, and carrying a metric set from the home market into one that behaves differently. MWY specifies how revenue data flows back to the ad platforms, signs off the setup your team builds, and rebuilds cost per paying customer.
How the money is made
We group these categories because the money travels the same path, not because they sell the same thing.
1
Buy sign-ups
Meta, TikTok, Google and the app stores. The result is a sign-up or an install, not yet a customer.
2
Turn users into payers
Onboarding, trial and the first payment. Most of the advertising money is won or lost inside the product.
3
Keep them paying
Retention, renewal and upgrades decide whether the cost of acquisition is ever paid back.
Five questions this category hears most
What is your cost per paying user, not per sign-up?
Sign-ups are unusually cheap in Vietnam and the conversion to paid is lower than in most markets. Optimising on cost per sign-up drives budget straight into the worst source.
Which market is your metric set from?
CAC thresholds, retention curves and lifetime value from the home market rarely transfer. Keeping them means your Vietnam team is graded with someone else’s ruler.
Do the ad platforms know who pays you?
Not unless revenue is fed back through offline or server-side conversions. Right now they optimise for sign-ups, and sign-ups are cheap.
What share of users arrive through channels you do not pay for?
This category usually has strong owned and organic channels that nobody separates out, so paid budget takes credit for users who would have arrived anyway.
Where in onboarding are you losing them?
For a digital product, most of the advertising money is lost inside the product rather than in the advertising. Fixing one onboarding step is usually cheaper than raising the budget.
Metrics worth tracking
And the measurement mistake that usually comes with each.
Cost per paying user
By source, not per install or sign-up.
Common mistake: optimising on cost per sign-up, which pushes budget toward the cheapest and weakest source.
Sign-up to paid conversion
By source and by sign-up month.
Common mistake: one blended rate that hides the source whose users never pay.
Retention by cohort
Users grouped by the month they joined.
Common mistake: total active users, which a large new cohort can flatter.
Payback period
Months until a paying user’s margin covers what it cost to acquire, on the margin the company supplies.
Common mistake: using revenue instead of margin.
Share from unpaid channels
Organic, referral and direct, separated from paid.
Common mistake: paid campaigns credited with users who would have arrived anyway.
What MWY does in this category
- Specify and sign off the feed of revenue data back to the ad platforms
- Build cost-per-paying-customer reporting by source
- Review the metric set and separate what transfers from what has to be reset for Vietnam
- Separate the contribution of owned channels from paid
- Identify where onboarding loses users and size what fixing it is worth
Not selling in Vietnam yet?
Everything above assumes a business already spending here. Before entry the questions come earlier: whether the category is worth a budget, and in what order to go in.
- Vietnam Market Research
Six weeks on one product line: how large its market is here, who buys, at what price, who already sells it — and whether it is worth a budget at all.
from$9,000
- Go-to-Market Strategy
Research first, then the plan: what your category looks like here and who already wins it, then positioning, the order of channels, the partner shortlist and a 90-day launch plan.
from$15,000
Start by learning the real number
Month one of Advisory & Oversight is a full audit of your digital operation in Vietnam.