GTM Sauce

Super Unlimited · B2C · free VPN app

Buy search ads in Apple and Google stores only where the return holds up

Spend capped by ROAS; some cannibalization of organic installs accepted

Unknownapple-search-adspaid-search

What they did

Only paid channel is Apple and Google search ads. Bids on specific keywords (beyond 'VPN') and specific markets, partly for brand defense; ROAS watched closely with a ceiling on spend. Uses extra push in countries where it isn't #1 yet (e.g. Android outside the US).

What happened

Guest notes ads sometimes cannibalize organic installs; no results shared.

In their words

How the World's #1 VPN App Reached 1 Billion Downloads – Tanuj Chatterjee, Super Unlimited

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David BarnardAnd back to growth side of things, what have you done in paid marketing or has it almost been completely organic?

Tanuj ChatterjeeWell, Apple and Google, it's for search ads. Yeah.

David BarnardHave you found that brand defense especially important or what wins have you found on search ads when you're already the number one result?

Tanuj ChatterjeeNumber one result on VPN. There are other keywords in there, too. Sometimes you also do it for brand defense, like you mentioned. There are other keywords. We focus on specific keywords, specific markets where we spend dollars on, and we look into the ROAS very carefully, and you can't go beyond a certain amount. We also see sometimes some of these ads will cannibalize our organic channels anyway, so there's always that risk, but it's okay. So we are trying to manage it carefully.

David BarnardIt's fascinating at your scale that you do spend on that. And then philosophically, you're still trying to get a return on ad spend. You're still penciling it out versus just trying to be everywhere, because you already are everywhere with that number one placement.

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Tags: apple-search-ads, google, brand-defense, roas, cannibalization, keyword-selection