Strava uses Kevel to upsell their paid plan at the right time
Strava increases paid subscriptions by 700% with first-party data targeting
700%
Increase in click-through-rates
<100ms
Average response time
9x
Faster launch vs from scratch
What Strava Wanted
Strava is an online network that connects millions of athletes every day, with a growth rate of 2 million new users per month.
Strava works on a freemium model with paid plans, but as their user base scaled, subscription rates lagged, and they realized they needed a tool for optimizing when users were prompted to upgrade.
Unfortunately, no third-party tool offered the flexibility they needed, and they didn't have the time or resources to build out such an internal ads product.
So Strava turned to Kevel's ad serving APIs. Within weeks they had built a platform that used first-party data to decide when to promote their paid subscriptions.
Strava uses first-party data to optimize when they upsell their paid product
By using ad serving tech to display these promotions, Strava can incorporate complex targeting, like geography, time of day, frequency capping, and more. Plus, Strava taps their first-party data to personalize the ads even further.
By showing the right content at the right time, Strava increased their paid subscriptions by 700%.
Outcome:
- Click-through-rates for content promoting paid plans jumped 700%
- First-party data ensures users see promotions at the right time
Kevel’s APIs let us easily build a platform for promoting internal content in a user-friendly way. It's a really powerful tool.
Director of Marketing, Strava
Server-side integration means these promotions blend in
All of the Kevel-powered internal promotions are white-labeled and the decisions are requested server-side — giving Strava total control over how the content is displayed.
Outcome:
- Kevel-powered ads look just like standard Strava content
- Ad response times as low as 50ms, even at scale
- Strava built this bespoke, complex platform in just weeks
curl -H 'Content-Type:application/json' \
-X POST \
-d '{"placements":[{
"divName":"div1",
"networkId":23,
"siteId":667480,
"adTypes":[5]}],
"user":{"key":"abc"}}' \
\
https://e-23.adzerk.net/api/v2{ "user": { "key": "abc" },
"decisions": {
"div1": {
"adID": 1234567,
"creativeID": 7654321,
"flightID": 9876543,
"campaignID": 3456789,
"clickURL": "https://e-123.kevel.co...",
"imageURL": "https://e-123.kevel.co...",
"height": 250,
"width": 300,
...
}
}
}
Ad serving tech makes these promotions easy to manage and report on
Having access to UI and Management APIs makes it easy for Strava to set-up campaigns and manage what promotions are live. This automation ensures that Strava doesn't promote old offers - without having to manually pause them.
Extension to other promotions
Strava realized that optimized content could be useful for more than just upselling subscriptions, and they now use Kevel to encourage app ratings and promote challenges, featured clubs, and more.
Kevel's APIs gave us the freedom to build a platform that ensures users see only relevant content - while also driving more revenue for us.
Director of Marketing, Strava