Varo Bank & Galactic Fed’s Success with Apple Search Ads

The Galactic Fed team is exceptionally proud of our partner Varo and their recent success with their Apple Search Ads campaign. Varo’s stellar results received Apple’s accolades, and the campaign is now a featured case study on Apple.com.

Varo offers a range of digital banking services with a deep-held belief that banks should provide financial inclusion and opportunity for all. Varo focuses on implementing the most recent technology to help Americans achieve their financial goals. They are also the first US consumer fintech company to receive a national bank charter.  Check out some of their impressive numbers to date:

• $124 million+ Overdraft fees saved

• $559 million+ Total savings inflow

• 4.7/5 Average app rating

• $115 million+ Total auto savings

Galactic Fed partnered with Varo to create an Apple Search Ads campaign to increase sign up conversions and gain customer insights, all while lowering costs. The Varo team identified their target customers to be tech-savvy individuals who were looking for digital financial solutions that help them get ahead with their money. In-depth knowledge of Apple Search Ads best practices, combined with clear, defined goals, allowed Varo to get the results they were looking for.

“Galactic Fed is the best paid media agency I’ve worked with. They are extremely proactive, great communicators, and at this point, they are basically part of our team. I would highly recommend them to both companies looking to augment their in-house paid team, as was our case, and companies looking to delegate all of paid media to an agency.” - Kasia Mikoluk; GM of Growth, Varo.

Varo achieved their success with Apple Search Ads through three key approaches:

Strategic account structure:

• Galactic Fed worked with the Varo team to structure their account with discovery, brand, competitive, and category keyword campaigns. They discovered new keywords to target through both broad match and search match. Through their competitive and category campaigns, they were able to increase visibility to their target demographics. By tracking performance at the campaign and keyword levels, they could remove lower performing keywords and adjust bids accordingly.

Maximize ad relevance:

• Through the use of Creative Sets, we matched Varo’s top-performing keywords with app previews/videos from the App Store product page. A variety of Varo’s app benefits were also tested for high performance, such as early payment or waived overdraft charges. 

Appeal to a broad audience:

• To increase sign up conversions, Varo wanted to cast a wide net to entice all prospective customers. As part of our partnership, we removed all audience refinement options from their campaigns, which placed their Apple Search Ads in front of many more potential customers. This lead to a 40% increase in Varo’s reach.

About the overall strategy, Tamar Kassoff, Director of User Acquisition at Varo Bank, said, “Apple Search Ads helped us learn more about what resonates with different customers. By targeting different segments with relevant messaging and creative, we were able to increase conversions while achieving one of the lowest costs per acquisition rates of any ad platform.”  

The results speak for themselves. At the end of our Varo’s Apple Search Campaigns, they had:

• 25% increase in sign-up conversions.

• 14% decrease in cost per acquisition.

• 40% increase in reach by removing audience refinements.

We are proud of our partner Varo Bank and their exciting Apple Search Ads’ success. They continue to use the latest technology to help everyday Americans take control of their money and feel more peace of mind.