A health and fitness app · B2C · host's newly bought app
Grow on App Store search and Apple Ads alone, one main keyword plus long-tail
Built an app that sold for about $350K without paid social
Workedasoapple-search-ads
What they did
Previous owners (who followed App Masters' ASO advice) got all traffic from ASO and Apple Ads: one primary keyword plus a few long-tail variants, with Apple Ads defending its own keywords. This avoided competing on paid UA against well-funded health and fitness apps with high CPIs.
What happened
Grew into a business that sold for ~$350K.
Related topics
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More from this episode
- BlueThrone: Sell off dozens of simple apps and focus on 3-5 deep onesGuest says far more effective; simple scanner apps had too few growth levers
- BlueThrone: Pay half at closing and guarantee the other half 12 months laterLets them offer a higher price because their risk is lower; no numbers
- Redesign the subscription offer and A/B test it hard after buying an appFree-to-paid conversion rose 'massively'; no exact figures
- Redo the store listing and launch in new countries after buying an appMonthly users grew from 200K to 5M, alongside other changes
- Add streaks, daily login rewards and game elements to the core appDay-7 retention rose from 18% to 34%, and is higher today
- Buy your first app through a broker instead of cold-emailing developersDirect outreach got no replies; the broker deal closed with a motivated seller
- Buy an app at about 3x yearly earnings with a loan its income coversJust closed: ~$350K, ~$5K/month payments vs ~$10K/month earnings
- Show the paywall before asking people to sign upSales up 52%; swapping the order was the only change
- Make separate Google Play listings, each aimed at one keywordReached about $6-7K MRR on Android alone
- Buy the company that owns the app, not just the app, to keep rankingsAvoids app transfers that can hurt keyword rankings; seller pays less tax