How three crypto wallets climbed App Store search
Keyword campaigns for three crypto wallets in the US, Canada, and Germany. The keywords, the daily volume each country needed, and where the positions ended up.
Google does allow crypto exchange and wallet ads in the US, Canada, and Germany, but an app gets there through Google certification and a local financial license first, and unhosted wallets are off the list altogether.
App Store search asks for none of that and ranks whoever earns the relevance signals, which leaves keyword campaigns open to the vertical with no licensing review in front of them.
We ran keyword campaigns for three crypto wallets in the United States, Canada, and Germany, all to the same three-step plan. The strongest keywords gained more than 100 positions. What follows is the plan, then each country with its own numbers, then the parts this case does not cover.
What the three campaigns showed
- No universal volume: the United States took over 1,600 installs a day at peak, Germany reached the top 5 on a fraction of that.
- Related terms moved too: in Canada keywords with no campaigns of their own improved over the same period.
- A weaker listing needs more traffic: the German app reached the top 5 on volumes far below the other two markets.
- Positions are held on maintenance volume, not for free: campaigns end in holding mode, not at zero.
Why crypto is hard in store search
The top of search belongs to established wallets and exchanges with years of ranking history behind them. Competition also differs sharply by country, so the same kind of keyword needs an order of magnitude more traffic in one than in another. All three apps were long-published listings, which means there was no launch momentum to ride and nothing to amplify: whatever the campaigns moved, they moved from a standing start.
The mechanism itself is the same everywhere. Real users search your keyword in the App Store, install your app, and open it. That strengthens the relevance signals the store ranks you by, on the keyword you picked. Nothing changes inside the app and nothing is done to the listing.
The three-step plan
Test. Open on deliberately low volume and watch how search reacts to each keyword. Some terms move on very little, others do not move at all, and you cannot tell which is which from a keyword tool.
Scale. Raise volume step by step on the keywords that responded, never as a spike. Each increase in the United States produced a stronger ranking response than the one before it, which is the signal that the keyword is worth more money.
Hold. Once the target position arrives, cut volume to a maintenance level and keep the position there rather than at the peak rate.
Country by country
The three countries ran the same plan and needed wildly different amounts of traffic. Switch between them below: each one is also a direct link, so #market-us opens straight on the United States.
Breaking in on volumewallet, bitcoin, bitcoin wallet, btc
The hardest store search in the category: a large, high-spending audience pulls in local and global developers alike.
On some of the four keywords the app started outside the top 100. Getting visible there needed volume, and volume needed pacing.
The highest-priority keywords scaled to several hundred installs a day, and past 1,600 at peak. Each increase produced a stronger ranking response than the one before it.
- 4 keywords promoted
- 20 days of campaign
- More than 1,600 installs a day at peak
- More than 100 positions gained on several keywords
- Top 10 and top 3 for high-volume keywords
Three bought, more movedwallet, bitcoin, bitcoin wallet
iOS is close to two thirds of mobile operating system use in Canada, and the country has been one of the fastest growing app markets by downloads.
Same opening as the United States campaign at a fraction of the volume: up to 200 installs a day per keyword at its peak.
The cluster came along. Related terms in the same keyword cluster improved over the same weeks, with no campaigns of their own. Whether the paid keywords caused that is not something this campaign can show: there was no control, and the tracker records the movement, not the reason.
- 3 keywords promoted
- 14 days, with the traffic paused for a couple of days at a time
- Up to 200 installs a day per keyword
- More than 100 positions gained on some keywords
- Stable top 5 for most of the keywords
Metadata does part of the workbitcoin, bitcoin wallet
iOS is about 45% of mobile operating system use in Germany, so the audience is large and the competition for store visibility is real.
Two high-volume keywords, and the cheapest result of the three. Hundreds of installs a day were never needed here.
Well-optimized store metadata gave the campaign a stronger start and made the app respond more efficiently. A weaker listing would typically require more traffic to achieve the same ranking response.
- 2 keywords promoted
- 4 days of traffic, and the top 3 seven days after the start
- More than 80 positions gained
- Top 5 for both keywords
- Positions maintained on lower volume
Key takeaways
There is no universal volume. The same vertical needed thousands of installs a day in one country and two hundred in another, so a price per install tells you little on its own. Ask what a position costs in your country, on your keyword, and treat any single number quoted across all countries as a guess.
Neighbors moved too. In Canada terms in the same keyword cluster improved without campaigns of their own, and we did not test what caused it. The terms that never had a campaign climbed alongside the ones that did, which is worth planning around even without a proven mechanism.
Metadata is leverage. A weaker listing would typically require more traffic to achieve the same ranking response. The German listing reached the top 5 on volumes far below the other two markets.
What this case does not show
- These were self-serve customers. What we know ends where the campaign ends: no revenue, no retention, no downstream numbers of any kind.
- All three were long-published listings. A brand new app with no history reacts differently, and nothing here predicts that case.
- We report the keywords that responded. A full breakdown, including the ones that barely moved, was not part of the data we received.
- A position does not settle on one number. Where a result is written as a range, that is the band the keyword held over the final checks, and the gain is counted from the lowest position in it.
- Holding a position costs traffic. "Maintained" means maintained while still paying, and what happens after that is not measured here.
- App Store only, and the apps stay unnamed, so this page is not auditable from the outside. Your own campaign is: pick the keyword, run it, then type that keyword into App Store search and see who comes up.
Frequently asked questions
- How many positions did the campaigns gain?
- The tracked keyword in the United States went from 141 to a settled 10–13, in Canada from 113 to a steady 5, and in Germany from 43 to 1–2. Several other keywords in the same campaigns gained more than 100 positions.
- How much daily volume does a top position cost?
- There is no single answer, and that is the point of this case. The United States campaign passed 1,600 installs a day at peak, Canada held the top 5 on up to 200 a day per keyword, and Germany reached the top 2 on less than that.
- Do the positions hold after the campaign stops?
- They hold on maintenance volume, not for free. Each of the three campaigns ended in holding mode rather than at zero, and what happens after the traffic stops entirely was not measured here.