A subscription app · B2C · host's own app
Run Apple Ads in every country except the US to find where buyers are
Found the Netherlands: same keyword popularity as the US, difficulty 17 vs ~60
What they did
What happened
- Stage
- live app
In their words
Live App Teardowns: App Growth Optimization
HYeah. Back. Yeah, there is an option, see, the middle one, blue, "Redeem code".
Steve P. Young… there's search volume, figure out if they're okay with just English, figure out if you can get to number one for that country and you're starting to get downloads, then go ahead and localize the crap out of everything with the help of AI. Distribution happened with the help of AI it you this is the same question you can say for, "Should I build a bunch of different apps with AI, with the help of AI?" Yeah, but like distribution matters above all, so that's how I would do it. Like we're number, you know, since Mo's video and since we started talking, I'm I figured out that for this particular app category, there's a lot of search volume in the Netherlands for my app. I was getting sales. I ran a max conversion campaign outside of the US. So I said, "All countries except the US," for my app, and I did a max conversion. I gave it a couple of different keywords that were like super like top of the funnel, and then just ran. I saw impressions in India, nobody bought, but I saw impressions in the Netherlands. I saw impressions in Canada, UK, like the obvious ones, but the Netherlands. And then Mo, thank you, Mo, he through his MCP server stuff, he said, "Hey Steve, here's all the different countries where there's volume for your particular niche for these keywords." And Netherlands happened to be number one, and I looked at the earlier today in our app founders, the that same keyword has the same search score, it's like 55, in the US as it does in the Netherlands, but in the Netherlands, the difficulty is like a 17, according to Astro, but it's like 60-something in the US. So, should you localize it? Yes. Which country? You know, really look at the data, let the let the data tell you. All …
HYes, let me go first, Steve. Okay. So, Steve, how do you know someone has the newest iPhone duo?
HWe got Jake from Cal AI.
Steve P. Young… All right, last question, I'll say goodbye. Thank you, Hakim. The "I wanna run Apple Ads for my app in worldwide, so what is best strategy for segmentation? Need I run a campaign for each country?" Okay, Mo. So, Muhammad, what I would say is the best strategy is to find a country that converts pretty well, that there's low difficulty. So for me, it's Netherlands, and I happened to find this because I started a worldwide cunt- campaign using a max conversion campaign. So everybody everywhere else but the US. Then I looked at the impression share. Right, I only gave, "Hey, I want $2 per install." I looked at the impression share, and I saw the countries that I saw the most impressions on. Then what I would do is then stop that campaign, found Netherlands, then I would create a Netherlands-specific campaign, so that I can give it more budget, because I know I can grow in that particular market a bit more than I can maybe in India where I'm not, am I getting down I'm getting downloads, but no conversions. So I'm trying to find the country where I can get you know, a low cost install, but still people are willing to pay. And this is what Mo talked about in his podcast, this has worked time and time again, and so that's how I would do it if I were going through with you. All right, that is it. I gotta get out of here. I wanna give a shout out to my son. I know he's downstairs, but he's off to college. So it's bittersweet for me and the wife. We're excited for him to go on this new adventure and get off to college, but this weekend …
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from this episode
- Put the brand word you target first in the App Store keyword fieldReached #2-3 for 'Apple Wallet'; one app, anecdotal
- Give Apple Ads max-conversion 5-10 top keywords, a high tap bid and a target install costAgency says it works across clients ($80K for one); 'Basic Plus' setup sometimes beats it
- Drop the $1.99 monthly plan because 90% buy the $10 yearly oneSales went down; the monthly price was the anchor that made $10/year look cheap
- Show only a yearly plan on the paywallMonthly plan was back within 2-3 weeks; observed from outside
- Add a hard paywall to an app that used to be freeWorked well for revenue, but brought many 1-star reviews from people who reinstalled
- Give ad-driven users a hard paywall and App Store searchers a closable oneFounder said it worked really well; no numbers
- Price utility apps at $5 a week, $20 a year, or $30 once
- Give free lifetime access through the Indie App Santa promotionUsers emailed feature requests and said the icon made them download; no numbers
- Test different app icons on a new utility app
- Ask gender in onboarding and show one matching testimonial on the paywallIn use; an A/B test vs ratings was mentioned but the result wasn't stated
- Grow with Meta ads alone before adding any other channel$4M+ ARR for one client and ~$1M MRR for another, Meta only
- Give existing users 3 months' notice before charging for a free app90-99% of existing users happy to pay; new users complained
- Find UGC creators on Collabstr and work with micro-influencersDeveloper calls it a great success; one creator had a big impact; no numbers
- Switch from a paid app to free with purchases, then to subscriptionsMade more money at each step, per the friend; no numbers
- Show different prices depending on what people answer in onboardingHeard it works really well; app unnamed, no numbers
Tags: apple-search-ads, app-store, max-conversion, country-discovery, impression-share, astro