Gamers enjoy a challenge.
LINE PokoPoko grows acquisition.

With Apple Search Ads campaigns separated by keyword theme, the LINE PokoPoko team expanded keyword coverage and improved reach. A discovery campaign helped find new relevant search terms outside their existing keyword lists. To capture the attention of engaged players searching for their brand terms as well as similar types of games, the team set up brand, category, and competitive campaigns. 

“The brand keyword campaigns on Apple Search Ads complemented our organic growth and increased overall downloads,” says Toshinobu Kumagai from the LINE Corporation Game Marketing Team. ”We optimized our keyword strategy based on performance and prioritized investment on the most relevant newly discovered keywords driving the best return on investment and retention rates.” 

By focusing on keywords with high relevance and strong conversions, the team at LINE PokoPoko maximized impressions and improved efficiency. With the Charts dashboard, they also gained a better understanding of campaign performance at the keyword level across gender and age audience segments. The team then gradually expanded keywords with Search Match, adding new high-performing search terms daily to drive additional scale. 

“With this approach, we tripled our installs while improving conversion rates by 3 percent and lowering cost-per-install by 42 percent,” says  Kumagai. “We also saw return on investment and retention rates that were much higher than the average on other platforms.” In fact, Apple Search Ads drove 20 percent higher day 7 retention rates than other ad platforms. Return on ad spend was also 16 percent higher than the average on other ad platforms.