Scaling Apple Ads Efficiency at inDrive through collaboration with Asapty

Summary

InDrive is a global mobility platform and the world’s second most downloaded ride-hailing app for the 4th consecutive year, according to data by Sensor Tower. It ranks as the fourth most downloaded travel app globally. The company operates in 48 countries and leverages Apple Ads as a component of its multi-regional user acquisition strategy.

Upon evaluating several partners, inDriver selected Asapty to support campaign management and team training for Apple Ads.

The collaboration focused on refining campaign structure and optimization for 2 most important categories for inDrive - branded and competitor keyword traffic. The goal was to further improve efficiency and sustain performance without increasing budgets or expanding into new regions.

As a result:

• Branded traffic became 52% cheaper while installs grew by 45%.
• Competitor brand traffic costs dropped by 22%, and installs increased by 52%.

In a number of high-performing markets, results exceeded overall averages - branded installs increased by 81% and competitor keyword installs by 565%, with CPI decreasing by up to 87%.

Background

Founded in 2013, inDrive began as a people-driven alternative to traditional taxi pricing. Its peer-to-peer fare negotiation model quickly attracted users looking for rides without excessive surge charges and fair earnings for drivers. Today, inDrive operates in over 1065 cities across 48 countries, ranking as the second most downloaded ride-hailing app worldwide.

The company is also rolling out a “super app” strategy for frontier markets, expanding beyond rides to include intercity transportation, delivery, grocery and financial services — creating a single ecosystem for everyday services.

Challenges

Running Apple Ads at a global scale in the ride-hailing category is inherently complex, especially when managing large traffic volumes across dozens of countries. The category itself adds another constraint. Ride-hailing apps see very few generic searches. Most demand is highly concentrated around branded and competitor keyword traffic which is both limited and costly.

Within this context, inDrive’s goal was to improve cost efficiency and maintain strong install volume across key regions by refining performance within these core keyword segments, without expanding budgets or entering new markets.

How Asapty helped unlock the Apple Ads potential

Account restructuring

We tested a SKAG-style account structure within the inDrive Apple Ads setup. The first step was to find and organize all relevant keywords for inDrive across all active markets. Each keyword was then placed in its own ad group, which provided visibility into performance and enabled optimization on individual keyword level.

The entire process was streamlined Asapty’s Keyword Suggester which allowed to manage keyword research processes and automatically create campaigns following SKAG structure, with consistent naming and organization by keyword type.

Optimization and automation

To optimize campaigns, we suggested using Asapty’s goal-based optimization solution. It is designed to reach a specific in-app goal at a target cost automatically adjusts bids in real time.

The goal was to find the niches and countries with a higher share of new paying users. For ride-hailing apps, it is quite a challenge. The category has a high share of users who are not totally new but have reinstalled the app.

By using Asapty’s algorithms to continuously analyze performance and reallocate budget toward the target conversion goal, inDrive could automate the scale of new paying user acquisition while keeping CPI within target levels.

Results

After testing Asapty’s approach to Apple Ads optimization and the automation stack, inDrive observed measurable efficiency gains in Apple Ads activity, without expanding budgets or entering new markets:

Overall results across the account

• Branded keyword campaigns achieved a lower average CPI while increasing install volume.
• Competitor keyword campaigns became more cost-efficient while also driving more installs.

Selected market highlights:

• In one top-performing market, branded installs grew by 81%, while CPI dropped by up to 87%.
• In the same market, competitor keyword installs increased by 565%, with a 76% reduction in cost per install.

Beyond short-term results, the collaboration also focused on long-term scalability. Asapty supported inDrive’s team with onboarding and knowledge sharing, helping them run Apple Ads campaigns more efficiently over time.

This case shows how adding the structural refinement and automation can deliver meaningful efficiency gains, even for advertisers already operating at a global scale.