FRND App: 50 creators driving app downloads across South India
A performance-led creator campaign for FRND, the Bharat-focused social app — 50 South Indian creators running partnership ads in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada to turn authentic reach into a measurable lift in app downloads.
What we were up against
FRND is a voice-first social app built for Bharat, with its audience concentrated in regional-language users across Tier 2 and Tier 3 India. Generic performance ads struggle to earn trust for a social-discovery product — people download an app like this when someone they relate to vouches for it. FRND needed creator-led performance that drove real installs, not just impressions, across South India's language markets.
How we attacked the problem
- 1
Selected 50 creators across Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada audiences — matched to FRND's regional, Tier 2 and Tier 3 user base rather than metro-only reach
- 2
Built native creator content that showed the app in real use — voice rooms, games, and genuine conversations — instead of a hard-sell ad read
- 3
Ran the best-performing creator content as partnership (whitelisted) ads from the creators' own handles to keep the trust signal while scaling reach
- 4
Optimised continuously toward installs — shifting spend to the creators and language markets delivering the lowest cost per download
How it played out
- 01
Organic phase: Creators introduced FRND to their audiences with authentic, in-app storytelling across four languages
- 02
Partnership-ad phase: Top-performing posts amplified as whitelisted ads from creator handles for efficient, trusted reach
- 03
Optimisation phase: Budget concentrated on the highest-converting creators and markets to push down cost per install
What actually happened
The campaign drove a 38% lift in app downloads across South India and 12M views, with partnership ads from creator handles outperforming standard performance creative on both install rate and cost per download. Matching regional creators to regional audiences proved the most efficient way to grow a Bharat-first social app.
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