Driving 42% Higher User Retention for a Leading Sleep and Wellness App

Sleepiest

Sleepiest is one of the world's leading sleep and wellness apps, helping millions of people fall asleep faster and improve their sleep through personalized audio experiences.

Its growing content library includes bedtime stories, guided meditations, sleep sounds, breathing exercises, and relaxing music, designed to support different sleep goals and preferences.

As its catalog expanded and onboarding became increasingly sophisticated, Sleepiest needed a recommendation platform that could deliver relevant content from a user's very first session while adapting to rapidly evolving product experiences.

+42%

User Retention
AI Sleep Guide

Situation

Sleepiest offers a large and diverse library of sleep content, making content discovery a critical part of the user experience.

The company had previously relied on third-party recommendation solutions that struggled to personalize content for first-time users.

Key challenges included:

New users received weaker recommendations due to cold-start limitations
Rapid onboarding iterations conflicted with rigid recommendation schemas
The team needed onboarding responses to immediately influence recommendations
Developer maintenance needed to remain minimal with a fully managed solution

Objectives

Deliver personalized recommendations from the very first session
Leverage onboarding responses to overcome cold-start challenges
Enable rapid schema updates without engineering overhead
Personalize discovery across multiple user journeys
Build AI-powered content discovery using Semantic Search
Reduce operational complexity with a managed recommendation platform

Solution

Cold-Start Personalization

Unlike traditional recommendation systems that rely primarily on historical behavior, Recombee immediately incorporates onboarding signals into its recommendation models. This enables Sleepiest to deliver relevant content recommendations before users have established a listening history.

Flexible Recommendation Platform

As Sleepiest continuously evolves its onboarding flow, Recombee's flexible API allows new user attributes and schema changes to be introduced without disrupting recommendation performance or requiring extensive redevelopment.

AI-Powered Content Discovery

Sleepiest combines Recombee's recommendation engine with Semantic Search to power its AI Sleep Guide. Users can describe how they feel or what kind of sleep support they need, and the AI assistant retrieves highly relevant sleep content using natural language.

A True Partnership

Beyond the technology, Sleepiest valued Recombee's proactive, hands-on support, from implementation assistance to helping mitigate unexpected traffic spikes during DDoS attacks.

Benefits & Results

AI Sleep Guide

+42% User Retention

Library Homepage

Personalized recommendations from the very first session
Onboarding data immediately influences recommendations
Improved discovery for new users

* The 42% increase in user retention was measured among users interacting with the AI Sleep Guide and Semantic Search recommendations.

Recombee’s Solution in Action

Personalized Home Screen

Recombee combines onboarding responses, behavioral signals, and real-time interactionsto personalize the Sleepiest home screen for every user.

Rather than presenting identical content to everyone, recommendations continuously adapt based on users' sleep goals, preferences, and listening behavior.

Key Benefits

Personalized recommendations from day one
Better home screen engagement
Continuous learning through real-time interactions
Flexible personalization as onboarding evolves

Swipe-to-Explore Recommendations

Sleepiest uses Recombee's Item-to-Item recommendations to power a TikTok-style swipe-down experience for discovering new content.

As users browse bedtime stories, meditations, or sleep sounds, Recombee continuously recommends similar content most likely to match their interests.

Key Benefits

Seamless content exploration
Personalized discovery journeys
Increased engagement with the content library
Reduced content dead ends

AI Sleep Guide

Sleepiest integrated Recombee Semantic Search into its AI-powered Sleep Guide.

Users simply describe how they're feeling or what kind of sleep support they need, and the AI assistant retrieves highly relevant sleep content using natural language.

Key Benefits

Natural language content discovery
Personalized AI recommendations
Faster access to relevant sleep content
Foundation for future AI experiences

Personalized In-App Advertisements

Sleepiest also uses Recombee to personalize in-app advertisements shown to free users before content playback.

Rather than serving the same promotional content to everyone, Recombee selects the internal advertisements most likely to resonate with each user based on listening history, preferences, and user attributes.

Key Benefits

Personalized promotional experiences
More relevant ads for every user
Increased trial conversion opportunities
Optimized using behavioral and user profile data

"We'd previously used Amazon Personalize, which worked well once users had built up listening history, but our biggest challenge was delivering relevant recommendations to completely new users.

Recombee closed that cold-start gap by allowing us to personalize recommendations from the very first session using onboarding data, while giving us the flexibility to continuously evolve our onboarding without the recommendation engine becoming a bottleneck.

Semantic Search has also enabled us to launch our Al Sleep Guide, and users who interact with it show 42% higher retention. Beyond the product itself, Recombee's developer-friendly documentation and incredibly proactive support have made them a fantastic partner."

Adam Green

Co-founder & CTO

About Sleepiest

Sleepiest is one of the world's leading sleep and wellness apps, helping millions of people fall asleep faster and improve their sleep through personalized audio experiences.

Its content library includes bedtime stories, guided meditations, sleep sounds, breathing exercises, and relaxing music, designed to support different sleep goals and preferences.

Visit Sleepiest