How Shopkick Cut CPI 87% by Pivoting to TikTok

At the beginning of 2020, during the early days of the pandemic, in-store shopping hit an all-time low while CPIs reached an alarmingly high level. Shopkick, an app that depended on both in-store shopping and app installs, had to alter its strategic approach. Moburst was tasked with helping Shopkick during this challenging period & lower their CPI.

Moburst and Shopkick spent years testing numerous iterations of mobile ads on different channels. However, these endeavors never led them to TikTok until recently. Following the failed launch of the first TikTok user acquisition campaign, the team promptly changed course to create more authentic content, foregoing traditional ads that typically oversaturate the mobile space. This new strategy proved successful, elevating engagement and retention while also attracting a highly-coveted new generation of users.

The subsequent two months of the campaign yielded outstanding results, marking a powerful comeback for Shopkick. Their cost-per-install (CPI) dropped by 87%, the cost-per-registration by 89%, and the cost-per-acquisition (CPA) decreased by 86%, thus significantly boosting the campaign's performance. In addition to the return on investment (ROI), investing in TikTok for Shopkick had long-term benefits, such as attracting a fresh cohort of active app users with a much higher retention rate. Having such a high retention rate is a crucial ranking factor for the app store algorithms, hence proving how a robust app store optimization (ASO) strategy works wonders to improve results.