Smart Printer App & Scan scales globally with multilayered search and creative strategy

To boost discovery and stay competitive, the team at Kain Suite separated Apple Ads search results campaigns by keyword theme. By leveraging Search Match for discovery campaigns, they continually identified valuable new search terms to drive keyword expansion. “Search Match helped reveal high-intent search terms with 40 percent lower cost-per-acquisition and that long-tail keywords delivered 35 percent higher conversion rates,” says Kain Suite UA Manager Nguyen Nguyen.

Meanwhile, competitive keyword campaigns helped their ad show for searches more narrowly focused on their type of app. Brand campaigns helped reach customers actively searching for their app or company name, capturing strong brand intent and protecting their category leadership. They also ran functional keyword campaigns to capture specific user intent (print, scan, fax). “Apple Ads functional keyword campaigns provided key business insights. For example, ‘print from iPad’ demand was 3x higher than expected, which directly informed our product road map,” says Nguyen.

Beyond shaping product development, this data-driven keyword approach also guided their global expansion. The team localized their keyword strategy for each country or region they entered, gaining additional insights into market nuances and the best strategy for optimizing keyword bidding by market. This tailored approach paid off significantly — for instance, Spanish and Portuguese campaigns in Latin America drove a 45 percent higher conversion rate.

Beyond performance metrics, the data also revealed critical cultural preferences. For example, these insights shaped their approach in North America. “With Apple Ads, we were able to understand that French Canadian users preferred bilingual creative over French-only messaging, which helped inform our keyword strategy,” says Kain Suite UA Manager Chau Tran.

To reach additional audiences at a different point in the customer funnel, the Kain Suite team complemented their search results campaigns with Search tab campaigns. These ads extended brand reach to audiences before they searched, influencing consideration. “Search tab campaigns helped us maximize search visibility as well as defend our brand,” says Nguyen.

In fact, Search tab campaigns, together with the team’s search results campaigns, helped scale acquisition and drive 120 percent growth in installs compared with running search results campaigns alone. Apple Ads also played an important role in driving organic install growth, helping more users discover the app through increased visibility.

To better capture the attention of audiences with different needs, the team at Kain Suite customized creative with ad variations based on custom product pages set up in App Store Connect. They created multiple custom product pages aligned with search intent focused on business, education, or creative needs and high-performing keywords (document printing, PDF management, worksheets, study materials, photo printing). “With each ad variation, we aligned screenshots and messaging with the user’s specific intent and improved install-to-trial conversion rates,” says Nguyen. “With Apple Ads, we were also able to gain clear insight into feature-level performance.”

During key demand peaks, the team created seasonal custom product pages and increased bids on seasonal keywords to capture user attention. For major events — spanning Valentine’s Day, Women’s Day, Back to School, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s — they updated their visuals with seasonally relevant images like pumpkins or snowflakes. This was paired with clear messaging highlighting how the app could easily print holiday labels or fax invitations.

They applied the same strategy to highly specific, intent-driven moments. For example, during tax season, searches for “tax document print” surged 300 percent in March and April. In response, the team quickly deployed custom product pages featuring tax-related imagery and a clear call to action: Print your forms with a tap.

Ultimately, this strategy allowed the team to be highly agile. “The ease of using custom product pages helped us speed up testing cycles and scale winning creatives across markets,” says Tran. This rapid testing translated into significant performance gains throughout the year, including a major surge in downloads during the back-to-school season driven by education-focused creatives.

To reengage customers who had downloaded their app in the past, the team at Kain Suite included returning users in their Apple Ads campaigns. For returning users, the team spotlighted newly available features like labels and seasonal printables to reintroduce their app and show enhanced capabilities. They also closely monitored performance and adjusted bids for returning users to drive impressions and improve return on ad spend with this audience. 

“With Apple Ads, we learned 18 percent of conversions were redownloads with 35 percent higher conversion rates and 50 percent higher lifetime value,” says Kain Suite Growth Manager Ha Huynh. “This has led us to rethink the value of our redownloads in our overall marketing strategy. We now actively track redownloads rather than exclude them.”

Insights from their paid campaigns also informed the team’s broader App Store product page optimization, driving incremental organic download growth. The benefits extended well beyond direct acquisitions. “Apple Ads accelerated install velocity, which we found also improved App Store ranking for core keywords, ratings and review growth, branded search volume, and overall organic visibility,” says Huynh. “The combined effect of paid investment plus organic optimization created a growth flywheel for our brand.”