Julian HenkeNow runningAlone ≠ lonely
Free iOS appRiders, camps and tracks
on one map

Case study · Marketing

Two Wheels Apart

I built an iOS app for motorcycle travellers and launched it with no budget. Product, development and marketing, all by me. This page tracks how it grows, live.

  • I set goals and measure them
  • I change one thing at a time
  • I publish the misses too
See the appWork with me

How I market the app

Live · 22 Aug to 12 Oct

2.5M+

Organic views generated

Last 90 days · no ad budget

  1. Combined

    1Audience

    6.8K

    followers, 2 accounts

  2. App Store link

    2Link taps

    155

    since 21 Sep

  3. App Store

    3Page views

    203

    all sources

  4. App Store

    4Installs

    55

    27% of page views

Page views also come from App Store search, browsing and other apps, so they are not a subset of link taps. Link taps: since 21 Sep. App Store data: 4 Sep to 11 Oct (Apple delivers it late).

personal account · since 22 Aug
  • Followers

    6,800

  • Avg. daily reach, last 7 days

    3,283

  • Profile visits

    5,512

  • Link taps

    131

    since 21 Sep

How this is measured
  • Taps on the app button of my links page, counted since 21 Sep.
  • The bio link goes straight to the App Store.
  • Website: counted on the server since 21 Sep, no cookies. Crawlers and outdated browsers are left out; the app is iOS only, so the iPhone and iPad share is the one that can install it. App Store taps count the buttons on the page; the Smart App Banner in Safari is not counted. Google Search Console is being connected.
  • App Store: imported from App Store Connect several times a day. Apple hides very small counts in its reports, so page views can be slightly lower than in App Store Connect itself; installs are exact. Via other apps: installs where Apple names another app as the source, for example a link in Instagram (@henkejulian or @twowheelsapart), LinkedIn or Messages. Apple does not say which app. A visit from a website is a separate source type (web referrer); Apple has not reported any for this app so far, so taps from twowheelsapart.com cannot be told apart here.

Goals · 20 Sep to 20 Oct · 8 days left

  • installs

    2790

  • product page views

    79300

  • App Store link taps

    0300

  • trigger per week

    1 / week

    a post, reel or community thread with a tracked link

Alone: a rider with a loaded DR650 in an alpine meadow
Alone is not lonely: camp set up below a mountain
The reveal: Two Wheels Apart has your back

Creative: two slides build the idea, the third reveals the app. First post on @twowheelsapart, shared as a collab with @henkejulian.

Experiment · Running

Alone ≠ lonely

Instagram carousel

Hypothesis

An emotional hook with a curiosity-gap reveal drives higher profile conversion (link taps / profile visits) than a standard product announcement.

Live tracking · 7 days before, post, 7 days after

  • Followerstotal · hourly15 → 40+25+167 %
  • Profile visits30-day total · hourly50 → 154+104+208 %
  • Link taps30-day total · hourly5 → 23+18+360 %
  • Product page viewsper day5.0 → 8.9+3.9+78 %
  • Saves & sharesreach 1,664 · saves 7 · shares 209

What I tried · hypothesis and result, in the open

12 Sep 2026

The first peak (an observation)

Hypothesis: Sharing the app in other apps (Instagram, WhatsApp) is what brings people to the listing.

Result: About 33 product page views that day, nearly half of the whole period. Between the spikes: 0 to 3 a day. So growth needs a rhythm, not single events.

Learning

20 Sep 2026

App Store listing in German

Hypothesis: Search brings about one visit a day. A German subtitle, keywords and description should rank for local searches (Germany is about 24 % of my audience).

Result: Live since 20 Sep. Too early to judge, App Store data lags by about two days.

Running

20 Sep 2026

Website rebuilt as a landing page

Hypothesis: Traffic from Instagram and Google needs a page that explains the app and leads to the App Store.

Result: Live with tagged links since 20 Sep. Before that the site was only a TestFlight page and brought no visits.

Running

22 Sep 2026

Carousel: Alone ≠ lonely

Hypothesis: An emotional hook with a curiosity-gap reveal drives higher profile conversion (link taps / profile visits) than a standard product announcement.

Result: Posted Fri 25 Sep 2026, 17:51, as a collab with @henkejulian. First post on the account. Baseline: 15 followers, 39 profile visits and 3 link taps in 30 days. Tracking for 7 days.

Running

24 Sep 2026

LinkedIn: page and first posts

Hypothesis: LinkedIn brings few downloads, because riders are not on LinkedIn to look for apps. But it should bring contacts to brands, employers and press, and the case study gives them a reason to trust the numbers.

Result: Live since 24 Sep, first posts on my profile and on the new Two Wheels Apart page. Every link is tagged: App Store link with campaign linkedin_page, website link with utm_source=linkedin, so visits and downloads from LinkedIn show up on their own. Too early to judge.

Running

Measured with the Instagram API, App Store Connect, Search Console and campaign links. With numbers this small, no result proves cause and effect: I show them as they are and read the method, not the size.

Work with meMedia kit