How content consumption data and a frictionless onboarding rebuild drove 5x ROAS — and helped make UFC Fight Pass one of the most popular combat sports streaming services in over 70 countries.
UFC Fight Pass launched as a startup with a compelling product — the world's largest combat sports streaming library — but a digital marketing program that couldn't keep pace with its ambitions. Subscription acquisition costs were high, lifetime value was low, and the platform was leaving significant global market share on the table.
FTF was brought in with a clear mandate: reduce subscription acquisition costs, drive ROI-positive subscriptions globally, and build the infrastructure to scale. The challenge wasn't the product — it was that nobody had yet figured out how to market a combat sports streaming service at global scale with measurable efficiency.
Before spending another dollar on media, we started where the problem actually was: the conversion funnel itself. An onboarding flow that created friction before a single ad was optimized meant every media dollar was working against a leaky bucket. We fixed the bucket first.
We audited UFC Fight Pass's subscription onboarding flow and redesigned it to eliminate every unnecessary step between intent and conversion. The result was a 3x increase in conversion rate — meaning the same traffic was now generating three times more subscribers. This happened before we changed a single ad. The lesson: no media optimization outperforms a fixed funnel.
We pioneered the use of UFC Fight Pass's own content consumption data — what fights users watched, how long, which fighters drew repeat viewing — to build audience segments and personalization models no competitor could replicate. This unlocked record-low acquisition costs by targeting people whose content behavior already predicted subscription intent, long before they ever saw an ad.
We built a paid media structure designed to operate across 70+ countries simultaneously — with campaigns adapted by market, fight schedule, and regional fighter popularity. When Conor McGregor fights drove demand in Ireland and the UK, we were already there. When Brazilian fighters brought in Latin American traffic, the campaigns were already localized. Global scale with local precision.
Acquiring subscribers is only half the equation. We developed a churn prediction model using behavioral signals to identify subscribers likely to cancel — and deployed targeted retention offers before they reached the cancellation point. Relevant offers to the right users at the right moment. The result: meaningfully lower churn rates and higher average LTV per subscriber acquired.
"The insight that changed everything: the best predictor of who would subscribe to UFC Fight Pass was what they were already watching. We built the whole strategy around that."
— From The Future · UFC Fight Pass Global Subscription Engagement
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