Travelers book and manage trips.
SNCF Connect boosts awareness.

To more easily measure and optimize performance, the team at SNCF Connect & Tech started by restructuring their campaigns by keyword theme (brand, category, competitive, and discovery), scaling reach to as many potential customers as possible. Focused on protecting their leadership position, they invested most heavily in brand campaigns. This approach drove a 10x increase in brand impression share within a year.

“We built a strong foundation focused on search results campaigns to ensure brand ownership, increase share of voice on the App Store, and stay ahead of the competition,” says SNCF Connect & Tech Head of SEA Pierre-Emmanuel Vannini. “It was crucial to first set up our search results campaigns for success, proving the value of Apple Search Ads to our leadership team. This initial success with search results then allowed our team to further invest in multiple placements across the App Store.”

During critical sales periods leading up to year-end holiday and summer travel, the SNCF Connect & Tech team captured increased category interest by complementing search results campaigns with multiple additional placements. Ads on the Today tab offered a prominent placement on the front page of the App Store, reaching millions of potential travelers at the beginning of their app discovery journey. With Search tab ads, the team influenced intent before people narrowed in on a specific search. They were able to increase market share and capture strong intent from people actively researching apps with ads at the bottom of relevant product pages.

"Ads on the Today tab and Search tab increased app exposure across the App Store, maximizing visibility at the top of the marketing funnel and delivering millions of impressions for our sales offers. In fact, 58 percent of impressions over the last year were delivered from Today tab ads,” says Vannini. “When running multiple ad placements, we also noticed a positive impact on organic growth, with incremental downloads from people that we think were ultimately influenced by the different ads they saw.”

To create more relevant and engaging App Store experiences for specific audiences, the SNCF Connect & Tech team made ad variations based on custom product pages set up in App Store Connect. By highlighting promotional sales as well as specific functionality and user benefits, they were able to align creative and messages with the needs of different audiences and their searches on the App Store. For example, one custom product page featured step-by-step instructions on how to use the app to reload a Navigo card (used for travel within Paris’ region). With this custom product page, the team spotlighted urban mobility features that differentiated SNCF Connect & Tech from competitors.

When potential customers tapped one of these ads, they landed on a custom product page that matched the ad creative — creating a seamless experience. “With custom product pages, we were able to share helpful information that was relevant to what people were looking for on the App Store, driving higher tap-through rates and conversions,” says Vannini. The team completed Apple Search Ads Certification to ensure that they knew the best ways to continue optimizing campaign performance. They plan to keep making custom product pages more personalized and relevant to support their multi-placement strategy, especially during expansion efforts into new markets leading up to upcoming key sporting events in France.