Health & Fitness is one of the hardest categories in the App Store.

It’s where big brands with bottomless budgets live.

It’s where copycats will clone your app in weeks.

It’s where even great products die because nobody sees them.

But here’s the thing: the rules are known, the playbook exists, and if you’re willing to push harder than 99% of people, you can win here.

ASO Alone Won’t Save You. ASA Is Your Foot in the Door.

In 2018, you could tweak a title, get a few reviews, and climb. Those days are over.

Today, 80% of the top 100 apps on App Store run Apple Search Ads (ASA). (Remaining 20% are Netflix, Spotify etc. who are either against Apple Tax or run ads everywhere else)

They’re not “testing” – they’re buying their place in the algorithm.

If you want to break in, ASA is your foot in the door. And once you’re in, every other growth move starts compounding faster.

TikTok is a Volume War, Not a Creativity Contest

Posting a couple of videos a week is a hobby. If you want to win, you need industrial-scale output.

One Growth Lab member runs 10 phones.

Each phone has 2 TikTok accounts.

Each account posts 2 videos per day.

That’s 1,200 videos a month. You can read his detailed growth tactics here.

If just 1% hit, the installs more than cover the cost of the operation.

The playbook is simple:

• Find videos already working in your niche

• Reverse-engineer the hook and pacing

• Rebuild it sharper, faster, cleaner

• The algorithm rewards relentless consistency, not perfection.

Meta Ads are for Creative Warfare

If you have a real budget, Meta Ads become your testing ground.

Don’t expect fast returns – you’ll lose money early.

But once you find a winning creative, you can pour budget on it and watch it scale.

This cooking app’s $20,000 a day Meta Ad Campaign strategy is a perfect example of testing and scaling Meta Ads. They treat ad creatives like a political campaign. Hundreds tested. Only killers survive.

Ratings Are Your Most Underrated Growth Lever

Downloads without ratings are wasted firepower. Ratings are a direct ASO ranking signal.

In Health & Fitness apps, the timing of the ask is everything:

• Hard paywall model: Ask right after onboarding, before friction kicks in.

• Freemium model: Ask right after a “win moment” – first completed workout, first streak, weight milestone.

Stack enough 5-star reviews and you’ll climb faster than any keyword tweak could take you.

Muscle Monster Case Study

Competing in broad categories (e.g., “meditation”) is extremely difficult. Targeting a more specific, “painkiller” niche (e.g., “anxiety relief”) is smarter.

While search volume is lower, the intent and willingness to pay are much higher. Users with a specific, pressing problem are more likely to download and purchase.

Muscle Monster didn’t try to win every keyword. They picked one: muscle.

They ran ASA targeting “muscle” and related terms for more than one year.

They collected ratings like clockwork.

Now, if you search any keyword containing “muscle,” they’re on top.

The App Store literally associates the word with their brand.

You can copy this play:

• Pick a high-intent keyword (abs, squats, chest, HIIT)

• Run ads on it relentlessly

• Stack downloads + ratings until the algorithm thinks you are that keyword.

The Loop That Wins the Game

Here’s the compounding flywheel you’re building:

Downloads → Ratings → Higher Ranking → Cheaper Downloads → More Ratings → Repeat.

Run this long enough and you don’t just rank — you own the niche.

This is the real playbook in 2025. It’s not one clever ASO hack or one viral video.

It’s picking your battlefield, flooding it with downloads, weaponizing ratings, and grinding until the App Store starts working for you.