An Apple Search Ads checklist covers everything to set up before the first dollar is spent: account and billing, attribution through the AdServices framework or a mobile measurement partner, a campaign structure split by intent, keyword match types, custom product pages, and rules for bids and budgets. Getting these right on day one prevents weeks of messy data.
Apple Search Ads shows ads in the App Store, mainly at the top of search results, but also on the Today tab, the Search tab and on product pages. This checklist focuses on Apple Search Ads Advanced, where you control keywords and bids. The Basic tier is simpler and suits very small budgets, but it gives far less control.
Before you create a campaign: account and measurement
Measurement comes first, because a campaign without attribution is a guess. Apple provides the AdServices framework, which lets your app retrieve an attribution token and confirm whether an install came from a Search Ads campaign. Most teams send this data to a mobile measurement partner such as AppsFlyer, Adjust, Branch or Kochava, which then joins installs with in-app events like trials and purchases.
- Create the Apple Search Ads Advanced account and connect it to the App Store Connect app
- Add user roles: admin for the account owner, campaign manager for the operator, read-only for finance
- Set billing details and a monthly spend cap you are comfortable with
- Integrate AdServices in the app build, or confirm the MMP SDK handles it
- Define the in-app events that count as success: registration, trial start, first purchase
- Confirm the MMP receives Search Ads cost data through the API integration
Test attribution with a small campaign before scaling. If installs show in the Search Ads dashboard but not in the MMP, fix the integration first.
How should you structure campaigns?
A clean structure separates keywords by intent, because each group behaves differently and deserves its own budget. The widely used approach has four campaign types per country.
- Brand campaign: your app name and close variants, exact match. Usually cheap and high converting.
- Competitor campaign: names of competing apps, exact match. Often expensive with lower conversion; keep a separate budget.
- Category or generic campaign: descriptive terms such as “budget planner” or “habit tracker”, exact match.
- Discovery campaign: broad match keywords and Search Match turned on, used to find new terms.
Inside the discovery campaign, add every exact match keyword from the other campaigns as negative exact keywords. That way, discovery only spends on new terms, and any proven term moves into the right exact campaign.
Which keyword settings are easy to get wrong?
Search Match is on by default in new ad groups. It lets Apple match your ad to searches based on your app metadata. That is useful in a discovery ad group but harmful in exact match campaigns, where it adds untracked spend. Turn it off everywhere except discovery.
Broad match in Apple Search Ads includes close variants, synonyms and related searches. Exact match covers the term and close variants such as plurals and misspellings. Review the search terms report weekly to add good terms as exact keywords and bad ones as negatives.
Audience and device settings
- Device: iPhone and iPad are separate options; check whether your app works well on iPad before including it
- Customer type: you can target new users, returning users or users of your other apps
- Age and gender targeting: available in some regions, but it reduces reach and may lower data quality
- Location: country and, in some cases, region or city
For most new accounts, target new users only in acquisition campaigns. Returning users can be reached in a separate campaign if you want to win back lapsed users.
Do you need custom product pages?
Custom product pages are alternative versions of your App Store page, created in App Store Connect, with different screenshots, promotional text and app previews. You can assign a custom page to an Apple Search Ads ad group, so a shopper searching for “meal planner” sees screenshots about meal planning, while someone searching “calorie counter” sees calorie tracking.
They take some design work, but they usually help relevance. Start with one custom page per major keyword theme and compare tap-through rate and conversion rate against the default page.
How do you set bids and budgets on a new account?
Apple suggests a bid range for each keyword. It is a reasonable starting point, not a target. Begin near the lower end of the range for generic terms and near the middle for brand terms, then adjust weekly based on cost per acquisition for your success event.
As an example for a subscription app with a known value per trial, a team might set daily budgets of 50 USD for brand, 150 USD for generic, 75 USD for competitor and 50 USD for discovery in the first month. Those numbers are illustrative; your own budget should come from what you can afford to spend while collecting data.
- Use cost-per-tap (CPT) bids at keyword level, adjusted weekly
- Use a CPA goal at ad group level only after you have stable conversion data
- Set campaign daily budgets so that one campaign cannot consume the whole account
- Review impression share and rank reports to see where higher bids would win more volume
What should the first 30 days look like?
Week one is about checking that data flows correctly. Expect tap-through rates and conversion rates to settle after a few days. Week two is for search term mining: move winners to exact campaigns and add negatives. Week three is for bid changes based on CPA. Week four is for the first creative test with custom product pages.
Do not change many things at once. If you raise bids, add keywords and switch product pages in the same week, you will not know which change caused the result.
Ad variations and creative sets
Apple Search Ads lets you run ad variations that use custom product pages, and on some placements you can choose which screenshots appear. If you build a custom product page for each keyword theme, create a matching ad variation in the corresponding ad group. Keep the default product page running in one ad group as a control so you can see whether the custom version actually helps.
Check the screenshots’ first three frames carefully, because only the first ones show in search results. They should show the feature the searcher typed, in plain words, at a size that is readable on a small phone.
Placements beyond search results
Besides the top of search results, Apple Search Ads Advanced offers the Today tab, the Search tab (before a user types) and product pages (“You might also like”). These placements have no keywords and reach people earlier in their decision. Treat them as separate campaigns with their own budgets and lower CPA expectations at first, and judge them on downstream events rather than install volume alone.
- Search results: highest intent, keyword controlled
- Search tab: broad reach before a query, good for awareness of new apps
- Today tab: large audience, premium cost, suitable for launches
- Product pages: users browsing similar apps, useful for competitor-adjacent reach
A final pre-launch checklist
- Attribution tested end to end with a real install
- Four campaign types per country with separate budgets
- Search Match off outside discovery; negatives in discovery
- Customer type set to new users in acquisition campaigns
- Target CPA written down and shared with the team
Where to start this week
Confirm AdServices attribution works by running a small brand campaign for two or three days and checking that installs appear in both the Search Ads dashboard and your MMP. Then build the four-campaign structure for your main country, with Search Match off everywhere except discovery and negatives added in the discovery campaign.
Finally, write down your success event and the maximum cost per acquisition you can accept. Every bid decision for the next month should refer back to that number.
Keep reading: Apple Search Ads · Advertising