User acquisition experience for a VPN app through Apple Search Ads and Google Ads.

We worked with Dogukan Poyraz who is the developer of “Hapi VPN”

How do you get users for a VPN app?

Targeting users’ actual locations.

What have we gone through?

When attempting to promote a VPN app, we ran into targeting issues. The objective was to acquire users from Tier 1 regions, and the campaign was built with those targeting criteria in mind. We were very happy to see the results of the campaign, CPI was very low for targeted countries.

But, we discovered through Firebase that we had also acquired users from non-targeted countries in both OS — Android and iOS.

How can we correct it and why did it happen?

In summary, it seems that targeting users in specific countries for a VPN app can be difficult. Even when using advertising platforms like Apple Search Ads and Google Ads, it can be challenging to exclude users who are connected to VPNs. As a result, it may be necessary to find alternative strategies for acquiring the right users for a VPN app.

Those who search for VPN programs typically reside in countries with highly restricted internet access, and they are already connected to the internet through VPNs. As a result, it appears that they are users from other countries. (which server they chosen)

Probably we are able to analyze the users’ real country on Analytics when they open our app without or before a proxy connection. But actually Firebase shows the location data

Targeting the Issue
How can you target the correct audience for the ads, then?

Our hypothesis is that a lower percentage of users are looking for a VPN app from our targeted countries. Others are not actually from these countries, they are users who are connected to proxy servers located in these targeting countries from other countries. We have to find a way to filter and target the right audience, or exclude the others.

How does Apple Search Ads targeting work?

Apple provides options for targeting those countries, OS versions, and devices.

How can you specifically focus on the non- VPN users from a certain country in this situation?

Apple Search Ads and AppStore work rely on the user selected country option, so the location of the user is irrelevant.

Here is the answer from Apple Search Ads support.

Hello ********

Thank you for your Apple Search Ads inquiry.

Apple Search Ads Advanced supports location settings within certain countries and regions. Apple Search Ads relies on the user’s registered country or territory of residence (“home country”) as conveyed by users to Apple to implement this setting. If a user provides inaccurate residence information to Apple, that may result in ads being displayed to some users not currently located within the countries or regions you have selected. Please be aware of this possibility when using Apple Search Ads.

Best Regards, The Apple Search Ads Team

Of course, Apple Search Ads can have eligibility to know users’ real locations, but it don’t use this information to target users. It is the same for Google Ads as well, even if Firebase shows the right country.

For instance, Iranian users have to use a different Apple ID country to be able to reach the App Store and install apps or games.

Iranians left, and Russians arrived.

Meanwhile, our ranking has increased.

So, we didn’t find a solution to acquire the right users via Apple Search Ads and then we stopped the campaigns for now.

We encountered the same problem with Google Ads. Users connected to VPNs cannot be excluded.

Hence, in order to avoid users who connected to the internet via VPN, we tried to exclude particular cities from Google Ads.
For instance, Frankfurt is well-known for being home to large data centers.

In summary, it seems that targeting users in specific countries for a VPN app can be difficult, due to the widespread use of VPNs. Even when using advertising platforms like Apple Search Ads and Google Ads, it can be challenging to exclude users who are connected to VPNs. As a result, it may be necessary to find alternative strategies for acquiring the right users for a VPN app.

Next time, I’ll talk about my comparable experience with an ad provider for monetizing ads from countries that are restricted or unsupported. When tech companies ceased providing services for Russia after the Russia-Ukraine war began, advertising revenues fell to zero from there according to the reports. They discontinued supporting in-app purchases, Google Admob and similar ad monetization services. However, Russian users have begun to connect to the Internet via VPN. All apps still monetized by the Russian users, but they aren’t able to analyze and report them because they are lookalikes from another country; this was our hunch. I just tried to make sense of the data. Our hearts are with those who suffered from this war.