Marketing

What we can learn from Duolingo

The concept behind why Duolingo is such an addictive app, starting with a story about learning Mandarin.

Reuben Ch'ng

16 Mar 2026 • 3 min read

I'm a Chinese guy that doesn't speak Mandarin

If there's one thing to always remember in marketing, it's your CAC & LTV.

CAC: Customer Acquisition Cost
CLTV: Customer Lifetime Value

Let me explain with a story I've learnt from learning Mandarin on Duolingo.

As someone who's bought Duolingo Premium, I'll tell you something about the app.

Duolingo is a master at retention and re-engagement. And they really got me good.

At one time, I was doing daily 10-min lessons. My longest streak without missing a lesson was 3+ months, hitting:

Leaderboards
Daily challenges
Doing extra XP missions
Making the owl happy

I started Duolingo because I searched online and found some people saying really good things about Duolingo. How "learning" for just 10 minutes every day compounds into real learning.

In fact, the app sold the same idea. I was sold. I bought the premium version as soon as I downloaded the app.

But after a while of doing daily exercises, I started "playing". I was doing it as a way to play and chase scores, rather than actually learning Mandarin.

I can speak borderline decent Mandarin now.

But Chinese is a complicated language, and after a while, I realized it'll take more than Duolingo to advance.

That's a story for another day.

The point is.... I was subscribed to Duolingo for a whole 2 years!

Not because of their ads or content.

But because of their product psychology.

Miss a day of lessons, and the damn owl will guilt-trip you.

What's Duolingo's CAC and CLTV for acquiring me?

CAC is a little harder to measure, as I've organically downloaded the app. Speaking of LTV, I've spent RM335.80 over the 2 years with Duolingo.

Ehh, not much. But consider that Duolingo has 133 million daily active users and a portion of that are premium subscribers, you can quickly imagine their revenue size.

What's the engine powering this?

It's gamification.

Somehow, I built a habit with the app.

There were times when even I was so busy, I'd log in around 11:56AM, a few minutes before 12AM just to quickly do a lesson - and keep my streak!

Now, what if you could apply gamification in your business?

Get customers to become "sticky" with your brand?

Today at 10AM, I’m hosting a live session with Jeppe Karlsson, the Head of Engagement at Ticlio, a gamification platform used by brands to turn marketing into something customers actually want to participate in.

We’ll explore how gamification can help you:

Re-engage existing customers
Make promotions more exciting
Drive repeat visits and purchases
Increase your customer lifetime value (LTV)

If you’ve ever wondered how spin-the-wheel or reward campaigns work behind the scenes for brands like Proton, Maxis and Lurpak, this will be a fun one.