By Alejandro Bosch & Catalina Scarpinelli – Performance Specialists at Winclap

Apple Search Ads: A Powerful Tool for iOS Acquisition

Apple Search Ads is one of the many channels that can be part of a robust Paid Media strategy, and it is probably the gateway to the world of iOS for most Advertisers. Finding users in this segment became more complex after the implementation of iOS 14.5, and the operational simplicity of this channel, together with its deterministic attribution model, make it very tempting to focus our efforts here.

It is important not to lose sight of where we are buying ads and what the main objective of the platform is. As they themselves claim at the beginning of their website: “Apple Search Ads helps people discover your app on the App Store, matching customers with your app at the right moments.”

However, what happens when the budget doesn’t align with performance?

Reducing Apple Search Ads Spend by 95% while maintaining volume. 

Recently, Winclap helped an account with a significant level of spending. Its CPA was on target, considering the client’s overall marketing strategy. The campaigns seemed optimized, yet, upon a closer review:

• Paused all keywords that were not spending.
• Paused all keywords that were not generating conversions.
• Adjusted bids to competitive values for relevant keywords.

The results were a decrease in spending by 95% in two weeks while maintaining a completely stable event volume. This optimization allowed us to reallocate the budget to channels where we could experience genuine growth, and we began to see a much more realistic CPA.

Diving Deeper: Understanding Apple Search Ads Campaign Structure

Just like in search engines, ASA ads are triggered responsively to a user’s intent. The approach varies considerably, hence understanding the unique attributes is vital:

1. Brand: Ensuring that every time a user searches our company, they find and download our app.

2. Competitors: A strategy to capture traffic heading to our competitors.

3. Generic: Terms from our category, our products, the value proposition, and so on. It is important to understand that the way users search in the Store is very different from how they do in a search engine. We have to avoid long or complicated phrases. Depending on the category, these campaigns will have more or less relevance: it is unlikely that someone will search for “get a credit card”, but they will surely search for “sudoku”.

4. Discovery: An alternative to find relevant keywords n which we are relevant is to launch Discovery campaigns. To set it up, we only have to activate the “Search Match” option, without adding keywords. This may not generate great results, but it can help us discover keywords that we had not considered.

Optimizing Apple Search Ads Campaigns for Maximum Impact

Beyond structuring, achieving impact requires more in-depth strategies:

• Utilizing [Exact Match] for all keywords.
• Prioritizing the rank and optimizing the ASO (App Store Optimization) to be relevant to what the user is looking for. 
• Properly setting the tCPT (Cost per Tap) for different campaign types. This is the starting point for our acquisition cost. 
• In the Brand campaign, we should focus on having a high “Impression Share” to prevent our competitors from stealing users from us.
• In the Generic campaign, we can see in which terms we are relevant (Rank 1 or 2), and raise the bid on those terms to gain Impression Share.
• Managing the volume of conversions due to the limited audience.

Apple Search Ads is an excellent channel for acquiring Apple users due to its simplicity and the ability to measure results accurately. Understanding saturation levels and effectively utilizing the budget are essential. 

For a deeper dive into Apple Search Ads, subscribe to this blog or feel free to reach out!

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