The setting
is a digital education company for consumers. Its gives short, game-like lessons on phones and the web, and most learners use it for free, supported by ads.
Review gives returning learners a reason to resume, but not yet a reason to install.
The acquisition motion must protect a truthful promise about past learning while finding a segment that returns for daily practice.
Who you’d be doing this for
“I downloaded three apps this year, and each one acted like I’d never learned a word before.”
Esperanza Moreira · Returning language learner · a character in this brief
A mobile-first learner who studied a language previously and wants a manageable way to rebuild a daily habit.
What is at stake
Paid creative attracts low-cost installs, yet many new learners leave before a daily practice habit forms. You must choose a promise and channel mix that earns retained learners, not just cheaper downloads.
Why it isn’t already fixed
Every obvious fix costs something else. That’s the part you’d have to decide.
- cheap installs vs retained practice
- broad creative learning vs segment-specific proof
- review promise vs first-session reality
- test speed vs credible measurement
Why Duolingo
Completed-lesson review sits inside the daily learning flow, making its acquisition promise inseparable from whether new learners return to practice.
Written with these in mind
Not your kind of problem? 23 more at Duolingo, or browse every organization.
Where the organization context comes fromThe postings this brief was written from, and the reporting read before it.
The organization context comes from public information. The situation and characters are written for the brief.
Job postings it was written from
Public descriptions of the work at Duolingo. They are listed as sources, not as openings. The lines under a posting are its own words, where it meets this brief.
- Performance Marketing Lead (opens in a new tab)
- Run user acquisition across platforms such as Google UAC, Meta, TikTok, AppLovin, and programmatic partners, plus channels in China.
- Own Duolingo’s paid user growth goals, setting the strategy for acquiring new users who stay and learn.
- Head of Influencers & Community (opens in a new tab)
- Design and launch a tiered loyalty and rewards program that turns our most engaged learners into an owned growth channel
- Ensure new feature launches, vertical expansions, and cultural moments are systematically amplified through creator and community channels
- Senior Performance Marketing Manager · no longer posted
- Strategically run and optimize mobile install campaigns across major platforms, such as Google UAC, Meta.
- We’re looking for a Senior Performance Marketing Manager to drive Duolingo’s global user acquisition campaigns across multiple channels.
- Senior Director of Performance Marketing (opens in a new tab)
- We’re looking for a Senior Director of Performance Marketing to lead the team that drives Duolingo’s paid user acquisition across 100+ markets and our language, chess, and math products.
- Own the global paid acquisition budget and portfolio across Google, Apple Search Ads, Meta, TikTok, AppLovin, DSPs, and China platforms, deciding where to scale, hold, or pull back as efficiency changes
- Senior Marketing Analytics Manager (opens in a new tab)
Reporting read before this brief was written
The pieces closest to the situation in this brief.
In early October 2026 Duolingo rolled out an update letting users go back and review completed lessons across its language, math, music and chess courses.
Duolingo Update Helps Students Review Lessons, but App Limits Remain | The Learning Standard (opens in a new tab) · thelearningstandard.org · Oct 1, 2026
This is the setup. The work is inside.
Running it puts you in the room: the full situation and its constraints, stakeholders who push back in their own words, and the decisions that are yours to make. What you produce becomes a Day One Plan — work you can show someone instead of describing.
Where similar work appears
Other live briefs connected to this one, and what connects them.
Similar problems at other organizations
Like this one, each of these turns on committing to a deal before it checks out.
Travel-bound learners are comparing practical speaking practice with cheaper AI conversation apps.
You have to weigh immediate departure urgency against a subscriber path that lasts beyond the trip.
TikTok first-week subscription conversion is 4.1%, versus 5.5% required to hold the channel’s economics.
You have to weigh a faster message change against preserving an honest first-session expectation.
Career-driven English learners are treating AI speaking apps as interchangeable and asking what proves progress.
You have to weigh a sharper career promise against what the lesson experience can honestly support.
The same setting, from another role
Each is set around Duolingo’s Duolingo Language Learning App, written for a different role. They’re separate briefs, not the same scenario.
iOS learners are being returned to a completed exercise while their streak still advances.
You must decide how far the AI carries the trace from the release's Swift changes to a named cause, and at which point an iOS engineer takes it over.
Learners preparing for specific conversations are seeking practice outside their usual short lesson routine.
You must weigh personal relevance against a flow that remains simple enough to become a repeat habit.
Support contacts rose 34% in the limited rollout, and affected learners may lose their daily practice window.
You must weigh a fixed access boundary against an explanation and recovery path people can trust.