Apple Search Ads (ASA) is a premier channel for acquiring high-quality iOS users. With the App Store attracting nearly 650 million weekly visitors and over 1.95 million apps competing for visibility, this platform offers a unique opportunity to target potential users effectively. With conversion rates exceeding 60%, ASA has proven to be a powerful tool for app marketers seeking global reach.
Drawing from years of experience in managing ASA campaigns, we’ve compiled five best practices that can help you avoid common mistakes and set up campaigns that deliver measurable success. Let’s explore these best practices in detail to ensure your Apple Search Ads campaigns are primed for high performance.
ASA offers four main campaign types tailored to different user acquisition goals:
These focus on brand-related keywords, such as your app’s name, variations, or taglines. Exact-match keyword types work best here, targeting users with a clear intent to find your app.
Best for: Users in the Desire stage who are already considering your app.
Centered on non-branded keywords related to your app’s category, such as "music app" or "grocery delivery app," these campaigns are ideal for attracting users exploring specific app categories.
Best for: Users in the Interest stage who are evaluating options within your category.
These campaigns target users searching for competing apps by bidding on competitor-related keywords. This approach positions your app as a viable alternative.
Best for: Users in the Advocate stage who are familiar with similar offerings and could be converted into loyal users.
These campaigns explore untapped audiences by leveraging broad match keywords and Search Match. They are ideal for identifying new opportunities and expanding reach.
Best for: Pre-awareness and Awareness stage users interested in related services or app categories.
Once you’ve selected the appropriate campaign types, it’s essential to follow a series of best practices to set up your Apple Search Ads campaigns correctly. Below are the key steps you should take to ensure success:
Effective keyword selection is the foundation of any successful Apple Search Ads campaign. The right keywords will help you reach the most relevant users at the optimal moment.
How to Proceed:
● Start with ASO Data: Leverage your App Store Optimization (ASO) insights to identify the best-performing keywords that drive organic traffic to your app.
● Use Apple’s Keyword Suggestion Tool: Apple’s tool can help you discover keyword variations and related terms that could be valuable for your campaigns.
● Group Keywords: Organize your keywords into categories based on intent, such as long-tail, high-traffic, high-intent, and competitive terms. This segmentation helps ensure you're targeting users at various stages of the buyer’s journey.
● A/B Testing: Continuously test different keyword groups to identify what works best for your campaigns.
Common Mistake:
Failing to regularly update and manage a negative keyword list. Without this, you risk wasting impressions and clicks on irrelevant terms, leading to inefficient spending.
Best Practice:
Always maintain an up-to-date negative keyword list to avoid overlap, especially for discovery campaigns. This ensures that your ads don’t trigger for brand or category keywords when you’re targeting competitor or discovery terms.
Pro Tip:
When targeting global markets, don’t overlook the importance of multilingual keyword research. Tailor your keyword list to each region and language to increase relevancy and maximize conversions.
Budget allocation is key to ensuring that your Apple Search Ads campaigns deliver a strong return on investment. Balancing your budget across various campaign types is essential to capturing the right audience.
How to Proceed:
● Define Your Objectives: Determine your primary goal—whether it’s supporting organic growth, discovering new audiences, or outpacing competitors.
● Allocate Budgets Strategically: Allocate a larger portion of your budget to the campaigns that align with your current goals. For instance, if you’re focused on brand awareness, your budget may lean toward discovery campaigns.
● Test Different Approaches: Start with a smaller portion of your budget to test different strategies and understand where you get the best returns. As you gather data, adjust your budget accordingly.
Common Mistake:
Overlooking the importance of A/B testing and skipping budget allocation for experimentation. Failing to test different approaches can result in missed opportunities and wasted budget.
Best Practice:
Regularly monitor keyword performance and adjust your budget allocation based on which campaigns and regions are performing best. For global campaigns, allocate additional budget to high-performing regions and test campaigns in different markets.
Your bid strategy plays a crucial role in determining how much you’re willing to pay for clicks on your ads. A thoughtful bid strategy can help maximize conversions while keeping costs under control.
How to Proceed:
● Start with Manual Bidding: Begin by using manual bidding to maintain control over your campaign’s spend. Once you've gathered enough data, you can switch to automated bidding strategies to optimize for conversions.
● Hybrid Match Types: Use a mix of exact match and broad match keywords to balance traffic and targeting efficiency.
● Balance High-Traffic and Long-Tail Keywords: A combination of high-traffic and long-tail keywords will give you more control over cost-per-acquisition (CPA) while still targeting a broad audience.
Common Mistake:
Relying solely on popularity scores, which often lead to high costs and low returns due to bidding on overly competitive keywords.
Best Practice:
Integrate seasonal trends into your bid strategy, adjusting bids for high-traffic periods to maximize returns during peak times. Also, consider dayparting (targeting specific times of the day) to ensure ads appear when users are most likely to engage.
Compelling ad creatives and copy are essential for attracting users and convincing them to download your app. ASA allows you to create ad variations tailored to different campaign types, making it crucial to align your messaging with your audience’s intent.
How to Proceed:
● Leverage Custom Product Pages: Use App Store Connect to create up to 35 variations of your product page for different campaigns.
● Tailor Messaging for Each Campaign: Focus on user intent. For brand campaigns, emphasize your app’s core features; for discovery campaigns, highlight what problems your app solves; and for competitor campaigns, focus on your app’s unique advantages.
● A/B Test Creatives: Continuously test different ad creatives and copy to understand what resonates best with your target audience.
Common Mistake:
Not localizing ad creatives and copy for different regions, which can significantly reduce engagement rates.
Best Practice:
Develop localized creatives and messaging that speak to the cultural nuances of your target markets. Localized ads can dramatically improve your click-through rate (CTR) and conversions across different regions.
Constant monitoring and optimization are critical to ensuring that your Apple Search Ads campaigns continue to deliver results over time.
How to Proceed:
● Monitor Performance Metrics: Keep a close eye on impressions, clicks, conversions, and cost-per-install (CPI) to evaluate campaign effectiveness.
● Correlate Bids with Conversions: Make sure that your bids are aligned with the conversion data you’re gathering.
● Optimize Based on Data: Look for high lifetime value (LTV) keywords and adjust your bids accordingly.
Common Mistake:
Neglecting underperforming keywords or ad groups, leading to wasted budget.
Best Practice:
Integrate ASA campaigns with a mobile measurement partner (MMP) to get a more detailed view of campaign performance and optimize based on actual conversions and user behavior. This will allow you to automate optimizations once you see stabilized return on ad spend (ROAS).
Setting up successful Apple Search Ads campaigns goes beyond the basics. It requires strategic planning, regular optimization, and a deep understanding of your target audience. By avoiding common pitfalls and following the best practices outlined above, you can unlock the full potential of ASA as a high-performing user acquisition tool. The competitive landscape in the App Store is fierce, but with a well-executed ASA strategy, your app can rise above the noise.
Looking to elevate your ASA campaigns? Contact FoxAdvert for a comprehensive ASA audit to unlock your app’s full potential.
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