A small budget Apple Ads playbook for indie apps

Apple Ads (formerly Search Ads) shows your app at the top of App Store search results for the keywords you choose. For a small app it is often the fastest way to get the first few hundred installs from people who are already looking for an app like yours. It is also easy to waste money on. This playbook is the setup we see work for indie apps on a small budget, plus the honest answer to the most common question: why did my campaign get zero impressions?

Before you spend anything

Apple Ads sends people to your product page. If that page does not convert, every tap costs you more than it should. Apple's own troubleshooting page also says your app title, descriptions and keywords are used to judge how relevant your app is for a search, so weak metadata can cost you impressions as well as installs. Check three things first:

• Your first two screenshots say what the app does in a few words, and show the real app.
• Your subtitle names the main benefit, not your tagline. Our guide to the subtitle and keyword field covers this in detail.
• Your ratings are not putting people off. A few recent replies to reviews help.

Apple's App Store advertising page currently says: "Eligible developers who sign up for Apple Ads will have a 100 USD credit applied to their new account." Full terms apply and offers change, so check the current offer in your account before you rely on it. If you get it, it is the cheapest way to learn what your keywords cost.

Basic or Advanced

Apple offers two products. Apple Ads Basic charges per install, places ads only in App Store search results, has no keyword or audience settings and is capped at $10,000 (US) per app per month. Apple Ads Advanced charges per tap, lets you choose keywords and placements, and has no budget ceiling.

Basic is fine if you truly have no time. This playbook uses Advanced, because the whole point is to learn which searches bring you paying users, and Basic does not let you choose them. In Advanced, create a search results campaign and choose to manage bids yourself rather than letting Apple maximize conversions, since the automatic option requires Search Match to be on.

The setup

1. Exact match only. New keywords default to broad match in Apple Ads, which also matches related terms and variants. Switch each keyword to exact match and turn Search Match off in the ad group. Apple's campaign structure guide says the same. You want to know exactly which searches you pay for.
2. Competitor names as keywords. People searching for a well known app in your category are already looking for what you do. Apple recommends a separate competitor campaign for this. Bid on their names, exact match.
3. Add your own strongest keywords. The words you already rank for, plus the two or three that describe your core feature. Put these in a category campaign, and your own app name in a brand campaign so competitors cannot take that spot cheaply.
4. Separate campaigns for big markets. A campaign can target several countries or regions. Apple suggests a campaign of its own for a large market or one that needs its own budget, and grouping the rest by shared traits such as language or customer value. For most indie apps that means the US alone, then the rest grouped.
5. Start at Apple's suggested bid. When you create a campaign or ad group, Apple shows a suggested max cost per tap (CPT) bid based on your app and similar advertisers. Apple calls it "simply a reference point", but it is a better starting point than a guess. Your max CPT bid is the most you will pay for a tap, and Apple notes you often pay less.
6. Budget $20 to $25 a day at first. Small enough to be safe, big enough to see data within a few days. Note how Apple defines the daily budget: it is the average spend per day over a month. Some days can spend more than the daily figure, but monthly spend will not exceed the daily budget times 30.4.

Choosing competitor keywords well

Not every competitor is worth bidding on. A good competitor keyword is an app that does the same job for the same person, so the searcher would genuinely consider yours instead. A meditation app is not a good keyword for a habit tracker, even if both sit in Health and Fitness.

A short way to build the list:

• Search your core keyword in the App Store and note the first ten apps.
• Drop any that solve a different problem or target a very different user.
• Keep the big name only if you can afford it. The well known leader usually draws the strongest bids.
• Add the smaller apps from that list. They are often far cheaper and their searchers are less loyal.

Write each name the way people type it, and keep each as its own exact match keyword so you can see which one earns its cost. Do not copy their names into your App Store keyword field: that is against the App Review Guidelines, even though bidding on them in Apple Ads is a normal practice Apple describes in its own best practices.

The first week

Apple says it can take 24 to 48 hours for performance data to gather after a new campaign starts, and suggests letting it run several days before making major changes. Give it two to three days. Then look at each keyword:

• No impressions: your bid may not be competitive, or the term has little search volume. Raise the bid in small steps, about 15% at a time, up to a ceiling you decide in advance. Apple's own advice is incremental increases, using the bid recommendation as a guide.
• Taps but no installs: the keyword is not a good match, or your page is not convincing these people. Pause it, or add it as a negative keyword if it keeps matching.
• Installs at a cost you can live with: leave it alone, then raise the budget slowly.

Scale only what works.

Reading the numbers: TTR, conversion rate, CPT, CPA

Apple Ads reports a handful of metrics. These four tell you most of what you need, using Apple's glossary definitions:

Read them together. A high CPT can still be a good buy if conversion is high, because CPA is what you actually pay per user.

Apple also shows impression share for keywords. If it is low and the keyword converts well, Apple suggests raising the bid. We would not publish target numbers for any of these. They vary too much by category, country and price, so compare your keywords with each other, not with benchmarks from someone else's app.

Custom product pages for ad groups

In search results ad groups, Apple Ads lets you create ad variations from custom product pages that you build in App Store Connect. Each ad group can have one active custom ad; the rest use your default product page. Apple notes that you can create custom product pages without submitting a new app version, and you can have up to 70 of them.

This is worth doing once you have two or three keyword themes that work. If your app tracks both water and sleep, an ad group for sleep keywords can send people to a page whose first screenshots are about sleep. The searcher sees what they asked for, which usually helps conversion. Keep the screenshots honest and readable at small sizes, and if you support iPhone Duo, our guide to iPhone Duo screenshots covers the extra sizes.

Why you got zero impressions

If you bid $4 a tap and still got nothing, check the simple causes first: the campaign and ad group are running, the payment method works, and the audience setting is left at Apple's default of reaching all eligible users. Apple warns that changing it may narrow your audience.

If all that is fine, the keyword is probably saturated: big apps with large budgets win every auction. Apple Ads works like organic search here. In a crowded niche a small budget will not get shown, however good your app is.

What to do instead:

• Go long tail. Three or four word searches that describe a specific job ("scan receipts for taxes" rather than "scanner") are usually cheaper and closer to what you offer.
• Bid on smaller competitors. The fifth best known app in your niche is usually far cheaper than the first.
• Pick countries where the auction is quieter. The same keyword often costs much less outside the US.
• Use negative keywords. If you later add a discovery ad group with broad match or Search Match to find new terms, Apple suggests adding your exact match keywords as negatives there, so your own campaigns do not compete with each other.

Track install to paid, not just installs

Cheap installs are not the goal. Look at how many installs turn into paying customers, per keyword where you can. If that number is low, the problem is often after the install: the paywall shows too early or too late, the trial is unclear, or the first screen does not deliver what the ad promised. Fix that before you raise the budget.

How asopilot helps

Amelia, the agent inside asopilot, sets up this starter for you as one card you approve: exact match campaigns per country group, competitor and core keywords, Apple's suggested bids and a daily budget you choose. Before anything runs she checks each keyword and tells you plainly when it is too crowded for a starting budget, with cheaper alternatives. After launch she checks every day, raises bids in small steps within your ceiling, pauses keywords that waste money and shows install to paid conversion next to the spend. Budget increases always wait for your OK.

You can run a free audit of your App Store page to see what to fix before you spend.