Post | 24 Jun 2026
Having launched Mindful Timer last week, I decided that it's time to try and up the discoverability of my apps on the App Store. Mindful Check-In is something I'd like to get in front of more people, but as it's free - and proudly free, as wellbeing tool - investing my limited cash into promoting it wouldn't work out economically long-term.
I graduated from Ulster University in 2019 with a 1:1 in Business & Marketing - so a hard cut-off on these projects when it comes to promotion feels like I am doing myself an injustice. Time to put those skills to some use.
The reason behind Mindful Timer being a paid app isn't to make a living from it, no shot. It's to put money into promoting it. From this discovery of this app, people may discover Mindful Check-In and other apps I plan to release both free and paid.
The Platform
I had Meta ads in my head initially. Instagram as this is where I'd imagine most of the iPhone heavy users hang out on their phones and targetted ad there for people following a bunch of mindful and meditation topic accounts would be in the bag. Apparently Apple's big win of removing app tracking a few years back has drastically reduced how easy and precise this is for advertisers, at least with a small budget which won't allow enough training time for the algorithm to work its magic. Apple's own Ads Platform was the way to go given the small budget and took care of much of the 'getting it in front of the right people' challenge. Though a bigger, wider presence would be more beneficial across the web, I didn't have the budget to back this up.
The Strategy
I set myself a deliberately tiny marketing budget: £20–50, ideally enough to claw back the ad spend and maybe the £79 Apple developer fee. Spoiler from the planning stage — the maths on a £2.99 app is brutal. After Apple's cut I net about £2.54 per sale, so I need roughly 20 sales just to wash a £50 ad spend. That's after approval into the Apple Small Business Programme cutting the current 30% app store fee to 15% - I qualify given I don't make a million USD annually...
Apple provided 100 USD ad credit on my newly made account, which was much appreciated!
Channel
Apple Search Ads, not Meta. With ad tracking transparency, social platforms can't see App Store purchases, so they optimise blind. Search Ads targets people already typing "meditation timer" capturing their genuine intention.
Setup
UK only, Search Results placement, manual bidding at 80p per tap, ~£4 per day. A tight list of high-intent keywords, no broad social-network junk.
Goal:
Find out which keywords actually convert to a paid download while spending Apple's credit rather than my own cash.
The hypothesis is that a well-targeted £50-ish spend on a paid app lands somewhere around breakeven. A small profit if the product page converts well, a small loss if it doesn't. The bonus of the developer fee being made back is better thought of as a fixed cost spread across everything I'll ever publish, not something one campaign claws back.
I'll report back with the real numbers — taps, conversion rate, cost per install — once the credit runs dry. Subject to this campaigns success, I may run more or tweak the method. It might even work better for future app projects that might just have a better USP.