Success Story - Omio | Appier

From Spain to 21 Countries: Expanding User Acquisition and Driving Profitable First-Purchases with Appier

Omio, a leading global travel booking app, has transformed how millions of travelers book cross-border transportation, providing a seamless experience for comparing and purchasing train, bus, flight, and ferry tickets in one place.
The partnership between Omio and Appier began in Spain, and within a year, it successfully scaled to 21 countries. By June 2024, Omio sought to expand its user acquisition efforts and drive profitable first-purchase actions across a range of new markets. While the business had seen success in Spain, the challenge was now to scale these efforts globally, moving from a single market to 21 countries within a year, while ensuring profitability.
Omio’s primary business objectives were clear:

• Scale efficiently across all target markets
• Drive profitable first-purchase actions for new customers

Scaling First-Purchases Across 21 Markets Within One Year — Consistently Hitting CPA Targets

Omio partnered with Appier to fuel this ambitious global expansion. Over the next year, the collaboration expanded from Spain into 21 key markets, including the U.S., Germany, France, the UK, Japan, and Australia.
With a KPI target of €35 (≈ $40.75 USD) per first purchase, Appier’s AI-driven solutions enabled Omio to consistently meet CPA targets across all markets. This success was driven by Appier’s Agentic Incrementality and Media Mix Modeling (MMM), which ensured that Omio’s growth was not just volume-based, but truly incremental.
By the end of the year, Omio achieved:

• Scaled first-purchase performance across 21 countries
• Consistently hit CPA targets, maintaining strong ROAS
• Successfully applied Agentic Incrementality for real-time optimization of creative and inventory performance

Appier’s always-on optimization allowed Omio to avoid wasted spend, dynamically adjusting campaigns based on real-time performance data, ultimately maximizing ROI.

Agentic Incrementality: Real-time Creative x Inventory optimization with MMM insights, maximizing ROI

To achieve maximum ROI, Omio needed more than traditional testing methods. Agentic Incrementality, powered by MMM, continuously measured the causal effectiveness of creative and inventory combinations against total sign-ups across all markets.
Appier’s innovative approach involved:

1. Scaling high-incrementality cases, like rewarded and interstitial ads in app traffic, through playable ads and interactive videos, ensuring sustained ROI.
2. Monitoring inventory metrics and dynamically blocking unhealthy traffic, ensuring that Omio’s spend was maximized.

This real-time optimization approach eliminated the need for traditional pause-and-holdout tests, avoided wasted budgets, and consistently improved performance.

Global Expansion Best Practice: Three-Stage Creative Strategy to Balance Scale and ROI

Omio’s success also hinged on a three-stage creative strategy that effectively balanced scalability and ROI across diverse markets:

1. Data Accumulation:
   Display ads were used to drive initial volume, gather data for model learning, and build a foundation for future optimizations.
2. Localization & Optimization:
   a. Tested multi-language creatives across European markets to identify high-performing segments.
   b. Insights discovered: Localized creatives in Italian and French significantly outperformed English versions, while German and Spanish markets showed a smaller gap.
   c. Best-performing incentives were integrated into interactive video.
3. Scalable Engagement:
   a. Playable Ads highlighted winning elements that delivered Omio’s core value propositions — diverse transport options and cost-saving benefits.
   b. Interactive Video featured scratch-to-get-discount mechanics, encouraging deeper user interaction and engagement.

By focusing on localized creatives and AI-powered optimization, Omio ensured that each market received the right message at the right time, driving sustainable growth.

Unlocking Global Growth with Appier

“Working with Appier has enabled us to scale efficiently into new markets while maintaining strong profitability. In just one year, we expanded from Spain to 21 countries, consistently meeting our CPA targets. Appier’s AI-driven optimization and creative strategy helped us balance growth with ROI across diverse regions,” said Anastasiia Ivanova, App Performance Marketing Manager, Omio.

With Agentic Incrementality and real-time optimization, Omio has successfully scaled user acquisition across key markets while ensuring predictable and sustainable growth. Through continuous testing, iteration, and optimization, Omio is well-positioned for long-term success in the highly competitive travel space.