As TikTok heads to court on Monday to argue against a U.S. ban, its parent company ByteDance's newer social app, Lemon8, is surging again to the top of the App Store in the U.S. Much of that is because of a big boost in advertising. The app has been described by TikTok influencers as a cross between Pinterest and Instagram, or more recently, as "Pinterest on steroids." Previously, the app had appeared in the App Store's top charts when a TikTok ban was being discussed by U.S. lawmakers.

Apparently, designed as a backup plan in case TikTok were withdrawn from the U.S. market-or even divested from its Chinese parent company-Lemon8 gives the TikTok creator a whole new platform he or she could port his or her followers to in case of an eventual ban.

Launched internationally in 2020, influencer marketing in the US started last year.

To reach its latest ranking as the No. 10 app in the U.S. App Store as of earlier on Monday morning, ByteDance has once again turned to App Store advertising. According to data from app intelligence provider Appfigures, Lemon8's Beijing-based parent company over the past few weeks has been running a "massive" Apple Search Ads campaign that saw the use of 5,300 keywords just in the past week alone. This campaign targeted branded keywords such as TikTok, CapCut, Instagram, Canva, among others that have the greatest share of advertiser impressions, the firm noted.

Meanwhile, the company has been running ads for Lemon8 that appear in the "For You" feed on TikTok, driving users' curiosity. Plus, TikTok creators are once again talking about the app on their own profiles. Most of those posts do not say whether the influencer is paid to promote the app, but they do often use similar language as last year's campaign, such as comparisons between Lemon8 and other social apps, like Instagram and Pinterest. One video from August shows a creator unboxing a PR package containing Lemon8 mascot plushies.

According to Appfigures, the app was going up for a couple of weeks, and this is primarily due to advertisements, but the latest growth spurt is relatively new.

Lemon8 had an estimated 78,000 downloads on Saturday, a number that is about 44% more than its average over the last few weeks, for instance. In total, the app has seen 16 million global downloads this year, with a little under half (6.4 million) of those coming from the U.S., demonstrating the U.S. remains a key market for the advertising push.

Downloads in other markets, including the Philippines and Singapore, are also declining, which may suggest that ByteDance is merely moving ad spend across different regions outside the United States.

Lemon8's growth comes as the fight over TikTok's future in the United States heads to court on Monday. The company will argue in court that the law violates Americans' right to free speech against a ban. The law, signed in April, was temporarily put on hold to come into effect after a lawsuit filed by ByteDance and TikTok in May. In addition, the company will also raise that the period given for selling the company in the event of a sale is too short as ByteDance does not intend to sell its recommendation technology under any sale to a US entity.

The Department of Justice will claim that owning TikTok is a Chinese company may open the way for Beijing to access personal information of the U.S. users aside from the use of the app in influencing public opinion.