How A Shopping App Unlocked Massive Organic Growth by Testing a New Keyword Conquesting Strategy

Outcomes

Shopping App Overview

This shopping app rewards users with points for everyday activities like walking into stores, scanning product barcodes, making purchases, and watching videos. These points can be redeemed for free gift cards to major retailers or cash via PayPal/Visa.

The app marketer partnered with Perform^[cb]’s Outcome Engine to test a new performance channel – keyword conquesting. Operating in one of the most competitive verticals of the App Store, Shopping, their goal was to increase app ranking within this category, improve organic discoverability, and drive more high-quality user growth.

Objective

The shopping app sought to:

• – Test whether keyword conquesting could meaningfully improve App Store visibility
• – Increase category ranking within the Shopping vertical to Top 30
• – Drive net-new incremental installs
• – Improve downstream engagement metrics such as DAU and engagement rate

Perform^[cb]’s Outcome Engine designed a rapid, high-impact keyword burst campaign to measure performance lift and validate the strategy’s scalability.

Approach: Keyword Conquesting Campaign

The Outcome Engine team deployed a targeted keyword acquisition and ranking strategy, built to rapidly push the shopping marketer upward across high-value and high-intent keywords. The campaign ran for 10 days, positioning them against core competitors in the Shopping category.

The approach focused on:

• – Securing top-ranked positions on priority keywords
• – Reinforcing rankings through controlled acquisition volumes
• – Driving both keyword and category momentum to unlock sustained organic scale

Results

1. Massive Keyword & Organic Visibility Gains

• 210 total ranking improvements across 17 priority keywords
• Multiple keywords pushed to the #1 position, including:
  • – Gift Cards
  • – Rewards
  • – Free Gift Cards
  • – Earn Rewards
  • – Cash Back Rewards
  • – Receipt Apps

These combined gains positioned the shopping app to receive 15,000+ incremental organic installs per month, even before accounting for continued upward mobility expected post-burst.

2. Category Rank Surge: #497 → #27

The marketer’s Shopping Category Rank skyrocketed from #497 (Day 1) to #27 (Day 10), surpassing the campaign objective of reaching the Top 30.

This dramatic lift:

• – Significantly increased marketplace visibility
• – Improved organic discoverability
• – Created durable ranking momentum that supports long-term retention

3. Daily Active Users (DAU) Growth

DAU increased from 222,000 → 358,000, a 61% lift during the 10-day burst window. This increase demonstrates both higher exposure and improved user quality.

4. Daily Downloads More Than Doubled

Daily installs increased from 5,000 → 12,000+, marking 140% growth driven by higher ranking positions and elevated keyword visibility.

5. Engagement Rate More Than Doubled

Engagement improved from ~4.5% → 9.95%, signaling that the new users acquired were not only high-intent but also interacting with the app at significantly higher velocity.

Impact Summary + Continued Performance

The shopping app’s keyword conquesting test delivered strong performance, validating this channel as an effective driver of App Store visibility, organic growth, and high-quality user acquisition within the competitive Shopping category.

“Such an exciting and transparent campaign overall. We absolutely smashed our projection of Top 50 and even beat our stretch goal of Top 30… hitting #27 in the Shopping category was great to share with the team.”

– Senior Associate, Influencer & Affiliate Marketing

Key Outcomes:

• – Rapid improvements in App Store competitiveness and category positioning
• – Meaningful incremental organic install lift driven by keyword gains
• – Higher-quality users with improved engagement and retention signals
• – Sustained momentum extending beyond the initial campaign window

With these gains in place, the rewards marketer now benefits from strong organic tailwinds. However, keyword and category rankings require ongoing reinforcement, especially in crowded verticals like Shopping.

Path Forward:

• – Maintain priority keyword and category rankings
• – Protect organic visibility unlocked during the burst
• – Extend performance impact throughout the holiday season and beyond