The Foldie achieves 17% higher ROAS


The Foldie is a direct-to-consumer travel bag brand focused on creating foldable, functional bags that combine sustainability with style. The brand was founded in 2021 by Belgian siblings Thomas and Svéa Van den Heuvel, who set out to make travel smoother and more enjoyable through thoughtful design. They developed a compact tote that can be folded to be used as a small pouch or expanded to be a full-size carry-on.
The brand has been featured in publications like Condé Nast Traveler and National Geographic, and co-founder Svéa was recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Retail & Ecommerce in 2024. Today, The Foldie offers a growing product lineup that includes a crossbody bag, backpack, sling bag, and toiletry bag. Since launch, The Foldie has sold over 1 million bags to customers around the world.



Demonstrating The Foldie bags’ unique features with AppLovin video ads

The Foldie has historically focused on social and search ads to drive purchases of its travel bags. Exploring new ways to reach their audience—typically women across a range of ages—the team partnered with AppLovin to test advertising in mobile games.
The Foldie’s hero product is a versatile travel bag that can be folded into a pouch for carrying small essentials on the go or expanded to hold up to 40 liters—enough to hold several days’ worth of clothes and toiletries. Because the bag’s functionality isn’t always immediately obvious at a glance, showing how it works is key to driving conversions. 

AppLovin gives us a fresh way to reach new customers and clearly communicate what sets our bags apart. Once people see how our signature bag works and the different ways they can use it, its value clicks. The video format gives us room to do that, and it’s had a big impact on driving new customer purchases.
- Svéa Van den Heuvel, Co-founder

AppLovin’s full-screen video ads, which can’t be skipped for at least five seconds, gave The Foldie the space to demonstrate the bag in action. Unlike social platforms where users scroll quickly, this format held attention long enough to make the product’s value clear.


Continuously testing creative variations and seasonal ads

The Foldie ran ongoing creative tests to improve campaign performance and maximize scale. An effective approach they took is testing different hooks on the same core video—often creating 10 or more variations of a single video.
Many of The Foldie’s ads are UGC videos featuring women across different ages. These videos highlight travel, positioning the bags as practical, stylish options for people on the go. The Foldie also produces holiday-specific ads for moments like Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Memorial Day—when people are actively shopping for gifts or looking to take advantage of promotions and BOGO-type offers.


The Foldie makes the most of end cards—which are shown after the skip-delayed full-screen video—by reinforcing the bags' functionality, highlighting BOGO offers, and conveying the diversity of customers.



Driving efficient purchases on The Foldie’s site

In the first two weeks after launching, The Foldie’s AppLovin ads had driven the sales of over 5,000 items. AppLovin quickly became the brand’s second-largest social digital ads platform and its most efficient social digital ads platform.
Using Triple Whale to measure performance, The Foldie compared AppLovin to its other major marketing channels. Compared to The Foldie’s largest social digital ads platform, from February 21 to May 22, 2025, AppLovin drove:
  • 17% higher ROAS
  • 26% higher New Customer ROAS
  • 14% lower New Customer CAC

We were pleasantly surprised by the huge volume of purchases from our AppLovin ads—and even more so by how efficiently AppLovin converts new customers. It’s become one of our largest channels by revenue, and outside Search, is our strongest channel for new customer ROAS. The exciting thing is that we haven’t yet seen the momentum slow down.
- Thomas Van den Heuvel, Co-founder

Since launch, AppLovin has driven the purchases of more than 67,000 items on The Foldie’s site. 93% of these purchases occurred within 24 hours of a user clicking an AppLovin ad—highlighting the platform’s ability to capture attention and quickly drive conversions.

Takeaways for advertisers
Test relatable UGC videos featuring multiple demographics — Ads featuring women of different ages using The Foldie bags while traveling helped the brand connect with its audience.
Use timely, holiday-specific ads to highlight limited-time promotions as well as to showcase products’ suitability as gifts.