Subscribers work out anywhere.
Freeletics drives downloads.

With Apple Search Ads, the Freeletics team set up separate campaigns for each country and region to scale acquisition. Discovery campaigns surfaced new, relevant search terms reflecting a variety of fitness interests. Brand and category keyword campaigns helped defend the brand against challenges from competitors while maximizing impressions.

“By placing our top-performing keywords into separate ad groups, we dedicated most of our budget to them while maintaining a good balance of volume from other keywords,” says Freeletics User Acquisition Manager Irina Zhukova. “With Apple Search Ads, we were able to drive profitable performance in key countries where we had struggled to find any growth at all using other ad platforms.”

To optimize performance, the Freeletics team removed audience refinements they had initially set for their Apple Search Ads campaign and included all users. This helped them reach the widest-possible audience. “Even though our subscribers are mostly male, the intent is equally high in both male and female audiences searching on the App Store. By opening up our reach to more audiences, we were able to scale growth while reducing cost per acquisition,” says Zhukova. 

By including returning users, the team was able to reengage fitness fans who had previously downloaded their app. With redownload campaigns, they were able to highlight new app features and capabilities to this audience. Reengagement campaigns were particularly effective during the category’s peak season, when many lapsed users are interested in recommitting to an exercise routine.

Keyword-level reporting from Apple Search Ads also helped the Freeletics team optimize for performance across markets. Insights into impression share and search volume as well as mobile measurement partner (MMP) data on purchases informed how they adjusted bidding to improve efficiency and drive conversions. Best-performing search terms were moved into exact match campaigns, and the team removed search terms with the lowest return on ad spend (ROAS) while actively monitoring broad match keywords in their top markets. 

When App Store searches for at-home workouts spiked in early 2020, the team at Freeletics capitalized on this unexpected demand by increasing bids to drive impressions with new potential customers. Moving forward, they plan to use seasonal keyword insights from Apple Search Ads to guide their creative testing and bidding strategy during peak seasons like the end-of-year holidays. To continue driving incremental organic growth, the team also plans to create better alignment between App Store product page optimization and the keyword insights they gain through Apple Search Ads.