Tips and Tricks from Masterclass to Drive Apple Search Ads Performance

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to consumers spending more time on their mobile devices. Consequently, Apple Search Ads has become one of the most popular marketing platforms.

Similar to other biddable channels like Paid Search, Social Advertising, and Ecommerce Channel Ads, early adopters have reaped significant benefits in the initial stages. However, as more marketers join the platform, auctions may become more competitive, resulting in increased prices. Therefore, marketers need to develop more effective techniques to generate positive ROI in the face of growing competition.

While there is still an opportunity for early adopters on Apple Search Ads, it is important for marketers to start preparing for the future as new biddable channels emerge. Bidding on brand terms alone is no longer sufficient for success.

So, what should marketers do?

The Importance of Account Structure in Apple Search Ads

Organizing keywords into categories can enhance management and enable the setting of appropriate targets. With the platform's increasing popularity, having a robust account structure becomes even more important to maximize program management and optimization.

Advertisers using Apple Search Ads should start by selecting one of the following four categories:

Brand terms: Be aware that competitors may bid on these terms, even if you don't. Keep in mind that an ad will push the top organic result in the App Store search results down the screen. - Generic or category keywords: While brand terms are important, it's crucial to consider how app users who are unfamiliar with your brand may search for your app. - Competitor terms: Bidding on competitor terms has proven to be a successful strategy with search engine marketing, and it remains true with Apple Search Ads. - Discovery campaigns: Allow Apple Search Ads to choose keywords based on your app's metadata. Once you have an understanding of what your users are searching for, you can add those keywords to your lists.

Additional Tips from the Apple Search Ads Masterclass

While the program structure is undoubtedly important in Apple Search Ads, there are other factors to consider.

• Bid on more than just brand terms: Building out ad groups with competitor and category phrases is equally important as bidding on brand terms. Paid advertising can replace organic listings at the top of the page, so controlling the top spot with ads can prevent competitors from appearing before you.

• Understand how app users search: App searches tend to be brief queries, unlike standard web searches. Consider this when creating your keyword lists.

• Learn how to match: Apple Search Ads offers broad match and exact match, familiar features to search engine marketers. Additionally, Apple Search Advertising has a keyword discovery engine called Search Match that automatically matches your ads to search terms, eliminating the need to research every possible phrase.

• Expand your keyword lists with Discovery campaigns: By using Search Match, you can allow Apple Search Advertising to match your ads to users based on their search terms. Periodically review these results to find new keywords to include in your campaigns. Also, use negative keywords to remove irrelevant keywords found through Search Match.

• Influence how Apple Search Ads match terms: Use negative keywords to keep phrases you add to your exact match ad groups separate from your broad match ad groups. This ensures that the algorithm understands which ad group to extract advertising from when a user searches for crucial terms.

• Utilize Creative Sets: With Creative Sets, you can include more App Store assets to create diverse ad versions. These will appear in addition to the image and text ads generated by Apple Search Ads.

For example, users searching for a travel app may use different keyword searches depending on their specific needs (e.g., Travel Dining or Travel Fitness). Aligning your creativity with the keyword search allows you to capitalize on the power of relevance, a key factor in successful advertisements.

• Use dayparting: If you don't have the budget to run Apple Search Ads 24/7, utilize ad scheduling to choose the hours and days your ads appear on the App Store. Align your advertising with your app marketing strategy to maximize effectiveness.

• Consider seasonality: If your business is affected by various holidays or calendar events throughout the year, make sure to rank for relevant terms during those periods. Create separate ad groups for these terms to easily pause and resume them in succeeding years.

• Review the Impression Share report: Use the Impression Share report to compare your performance on Apple Search Ads to your competitors. This metric shows the share of impressions your ads received from the total impressions served on the same search terms or keywords in the same countries and regions. Use this information to adjust your campaigns, especially for brand phrases, to ensure your crucial terms appear frequently.

Follow the advice from the experts to make your Apple Search Ads more effective.

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