Case Study: PumpUp achieves first profitability with SH1FT

How we turned PumpUp into a profitable company for the first time in 6 years

PumpUp, a Toronto-based fitness app with 62,000 users per month, was struggling to turn paid advertising into profit. Despite running online ads for years and experimenting with influencers, the company couldn’t attract enough subscriptions or downloads, and its return on investment remained negative. SH1FT (SHIFT) was brought in to improve performance through PPC, creative, and branding work.

SH1FT conducted market research, rebuilt audience targeting, and launched a retargeting strategy focused on people who had watched videos or downloaded the app but hadn’t subscribed. The team also created professional, dynamic video ads optimized for Instagram Stories and expanded campaigns across Europe, North America, and Oceania. Over four months, PumpUp achieved its first profitable month with SH1FT, generating $55,000 in revenue, 2,000,000 app downloads, 100,000,000 impressions, and a cost per download as low as $0.02.

PumpUp

Garrett Gottlieb

Founder & Chief Executive Officer