Stake builds brand awareness with
investors on
Apple News
and Stocks.
-
18% increase in App Store conversion rate compared with YTD average
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4.3% decrease in customer acquisition costs compared with YTD average
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1.2x more app downloads compared with YTD average
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40% increase in organic traffic in App Store year over year
As an investing platform with a specific user profile — personal investors in Australia and New Zealand — Stake needed to build brand awareness in order to stay top of mind with prospective customers at consideration and engagement stages. Stake’s marketing team was looking for a campaign strategy that combined brand building with performance marketing — one that could offer sustainable growth while attracting interested customers.
“The premium audience that uses Apple News and Stocks aligns to the products and services that Stake offers, making this channel a key category entry point. The quality of the impressions that we were getting from the Apple Ads campaign was exceptionally strong, benchmarked across other channels.”
James Healey,
Head of Marketing at Stake
Reach a premium audience where users search for stock information.
To help strengthen their performance marketing across all channels, Stake’s marketing team determined they first needed to boost brand awareness. They chose to invest in ads on Apple News to reach an engaged audience interested in business and finance articles.
An example of a Stake ad appearing in the Business feed on Apple News.
“Choosing Apple News as an advertising channel aligns with Stake’s focus on quality, intent, and premium positioning. The audience is highly aligned — readers are actively consuming business, markets, and economic content, meaning they’re already financially engaged. That creates a natural environment to introduce an investing platform,” says James Healey, Head of Marketing at Stake.
As part of their Apple News media plan, the Stake team chose to run a portion of their ad placements on Stocks, the Apple app where users can follow the daily performance of their selected stocks and financial markets, as well as track indexes, mutual funds, ETFs, and currencies. Apple News articles open directly in the Stocks app in countries where Apple News is available, providing the same seamless reading experience with access to the latest business news from top publications.
Examples of Stake’s ads that ran on the Stocks app both in topic feeds (on the left) and in business articles.
“We want to reach a highly qualified, premium audience — specifically, users actively following markets, portfolios, and financial news. People who use Stocks tend to be real-time market participants, making the channel a great fit for Stake’s self-directed investor,” says Sam Ryan, Product Marketing Manager at Stake.
Build brand awareness in a brand-
safe environment.
While focusing the brand campaign on the top of the marketing funnel, the marketing team knew it was important to build brand awareness in a way that would positively impact their brand.
“Apple Ads offers a brand-safe, trusted ecosystem. Appearing alongside reputable publishers on Apple News enhances credibility and reinforces Stake’s positioning as a trusted investing platform.”
James Healey,
Head of Marketing at Stake
They quickly found that their Apple Ads campaigns supported both awareness and performance. “Reaching potential customers while they’re actively engaging with financial news and market information reinforces brand recall and positions Stake as a secure, accessible investing platform,” says Healey.
For Stake, advertising across Apple News and Stocks supports growth while delivering their message to prospective customers. “At the awareness and consideration stages, it helps introduce Stake to more potential customers and strengthen our presence within the Apple ecosystem,” says Ryan. Overall, the team saw an 11 percent increase in monthly sign-ups (month over month) and a more than 40 percent increase in organic traffic year over year by the third month of their campaign.
Examples of Stake ad formats that ran in business articles on Apple News, including MREC, 300x600, and short video ads.
The three-month campaign delivered 4.5 million impressions in Australia. Engagement across both Apple News and Stocks was strong, with the largest ad format available, 300x600, driving the strongest tap-through rate (TTR) results across both apps. Stake also featured a six-second video, an animation of their ads, which achieved a high 68 percent completion rate.
Connect awareness with performance in the
App Store.
While running ads on Apple News and Stocks, Stake continued brand campaigns on the App Store. By investing in brand keywords in search results, they were able to capture users looking for their app, realizing the benefit of the brand awareness they were building across Apple Ads.
They found that their ad placements across Apple News and Stocks helps build familiarity and intent among prospective customers. “We aim to drive funded account growth by capturing users showing high intent at moments of peak financial engagement. By warming audiences earlier in their decision-making process, we can improve the efficiency of app acquisition campaigns, support lower customer acquisition costs, and contribute to stronger funded account conversion rates,” says Ryan.
An ad variation for Stake’s brand campaign in search results on the App Store.
“During the three-month campaign on Apple News and Stocks, we achieved record app installs and deposits,” says Healey. The Stake app realized an 18 percent increase in its conversion rate in the App Store and 1.2 times more downloads compared with their year-to-date average, while customer acquisition costs (CAC) decreased by more than 4 percent.
“We know when we invest in above-the-line awareness marketing activity at the top of the funnel, it improves conversion results at the bottom of the funnel,” says Healey. “This is the perfect way to do that in the Apple ecosystem.”
Company Snapshot
Stake is a mobile-first platform offering seamless access to both U.S. and Australian markets. Built on a simple promise that investing should be easy, affordable, and accessible, Stake helps Australians and New Zealanders take control of their financial future with confidence.
- Stake
- Founded in 2017
- Based in Sydney, Australia
- App: Stake - Stocks | ETFs | SMSF
- App Store category: Finance
