CamScanner

People scan documents easily.
CamScanner grows globally.

With CamScanner, anyone can scan, edit, store, and sync documents across devices or in the cloud. The Chinese developer of this productivity app expanded high-value acquisition into new markets with Apple Search Ads while gaining valuable business insights.

The Results

15% increase in customers in three months.

20% lower cost-per-install compared to similar platforms.

15% higher return on investment (ROI) compared to similar platforms.

10% higher retention compared to similar platforms.

The Challenge

To expand market share across developing markets, the team at CamScanner wanted to increase app discovery with diverse audiences ranging from students to lawyers. They needed to capture demand on the App Store from potential subscribers with a broad array of document needs. Ensuring high-quality iOS acquisition would also be vital to meeting return on investment (ROI) and trial-to-subscription goals globally.

Apple Search Ads has been the key channel to inform our strategy around the globe while bringing in high-quality, efficient acquisition in
new markets.

Xu Zhang,

Advertising Media Director at CamScanner

The Solution

Localize keyword strategy to understand new markets.

With Apple Search Ads, the CamScanner team separated campaigns by country or region to allocate budget and monitor performance more efficiently. The team at CamScanner also leveraged discovery campaigns across markets to mine for local nuances in search terms. To track retention easily, ad groups in campaigns across mid- and lower-tier countries were focused only on exact match keywords.

For the company’s highest-priority markets like the U.S. and Japan, the team structured ad groups around existing, high-value category search terms, ensuring healthy keyword coverage. “By targeting core terms in exact match type, we were able to see the true ROI for relevant keywords like ‘scanner apps' and adjust bids accordingly,” says CamScanner Advertising Media Director Xu Zhang. “To optimize and increase bids with confidence, we looked at down-funnel performance and were able to further scale ROI.”

Improve efficiency by including all users.

To reach the broadest base of both new and returning customers with Apple Search Ads, the team at CamScanner included all users in key markets. This helped them serve their ads to relevant searches by a wider audience of prospects. In the U.S., this strategy helped increase ROI by 5 percent compared with an ad group including only new users.

“Apple Search Ads has been a key factor for our global expansion,” says Zhang. “By monitoring campaigns at the keyword level with custom reports, we were able to understand how people are searching in each market and which terms actually attract new users as well as reengaged former subscribers.”

Leverage insights to drive business strategy.

Apple Search Ads also provides the CamScanner team with insights that inform App Store product page optimization, business strategy, and marketing efforts across platforms. For example, the team learned that in France, people on the App Store were more likely to search for “scanner app free” instead of just “scanner app.” This led the team to modify their marketing strategy from a discount offer to a free trial, increasing ROI by 22 percent.

In Korea, the team saw “fax” was a relevant search term and shifted their keyword strategy to focus on this term, increasing ROI by 400 percent. They also optimized product content based on this finding, and retain users 11 percent longer. “Across markets, Apple Search Ads helped us stay on top of the market trends as well as quickly adjust our business strategy and even optimize our product,” says Zhang.

Company Snapshot