Burger King has been steadily building its mobile ordering, delivery, and pickup app since 2019. To drive more purchases among existing app users, the Go Mobile team launched a targeted campaign on VK Ads that ran for eight months. As a result, they hit their goal of achieving an advertising costs share (ACS) below 10%.
Promotion goals
The team set out to re-engage their existing app audience and boost order volume. They measured success using ACS, with a clear target: keep it under 10% across all campaigns in the flight.
Mechanics
The team built their campaign around VK Ads’ Mobile App ad object based on the Purchase target action. They created four distinct ad sets, each designed to reach different segments of their existing user base.
They opted for the lowest cost strategy, letting the platform automatically optimize bids for ad impressions. By setting budget optimization at the ad set level, they could track ACS performance not just across entire sets, but down to individual creatives.
Targeting
To reach users with the Burger King app already installed, the team integrated their advertising account with AppsFlyer’s mobile tracking platform. They created a custom tracking link and established minimum user inactivity periods — ensuring they would not waste spend on users who had engaged with the app over the past few days.
All four ad sets shared the same demographic foundation: men and women aged 12 to 75 across Russia. But each ad set targeted distinct behavioral segments based on in-app activity:
- ad set 1: users dormant for 50 days without any purchases,
- ad set 2: users who installed 30 days ago but made no purchases for 50 days,
- ad set 3: previous in-app purchasers who have gone silent for 30 days,
- ad set 4: users who added items to the cart but did not complete purchases in the last 30 days.
Approach to creatives
Each ad set received tailored ads featuring discounts and special offers on food and delivery. The team uploaded all available images across different resolutions to VK Ads.
Results
Throughout the campaign, Go Mobile monitored performance through both VK Ads’ dashboard and AppsFlyer analytics. When ad sets missed their KPI targets, the team cut budgets and adjusted settings. Ad set 4 emerged as the clear winner, with cart abandoners delivering ACS that beat their target by 30%.
Sofia Davydova, Traffic Manager at Go Mobile:
“VK Ads enabled us to test diverse audiences and pivot our strategy based on real-time data. The flexible targeting options, automatic optimization, and comprehensive analytics let us experiment with different user segments and successfully bring dormant users back to the app.
Key takeaways for advertisers:
- Test your segments right: experiment with different audience segments, but focus your efforts on truly inactive users. These are people who have not opened your app in weeks or months and are unlikely to return organically without a compelling reason.
- Don't waste budget on those who are already buying: exclude active users from targeting to avoid cannibalizing organic traffic.
- Test creatives fairly: when comparing multiple creative variants, ensure they receive equal budget allocations and impression opportunities. Tools like Plarin can automatically distribute spend and provide unbiased performance data.
- Stay flexible with targeting options: VK Ads makes it easy to fine-tune delivery across devices, operating systems, and ad placements, so you can continuously optimize for your specific business needs.”
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