Breaking: Apple's Search Ads go LIVE!

"Simplicity, relevance, results": these are the unique selling points of the just launched Search Ads, according to Apple. You can surely expect a lot of simplicity from anything made by Cupertino-based tech giant, but what about the other two? Remember that (infamous) "Tweet Sponge" image I posted a few months ago (below)? Will Apple really make their ads more relevant and trackable? Let's explore the available options.

Is it really live? Like, really?

Kind of. The App Store's Search Ads were officially launched to a wider public yesterday and you can now configure your very own campaign, like a boss. There is a big boomer, though. Or perhaps two:

• The Ads only target US territories and the storefronts are available exclusively in English (why am I even being so passionate about emerging markets).
• The ads will only start their broadcast on October 6. For now it's all "on hold"

Summing up, the platform is live, the ads aren't. In any case, it's still worth spending a while putting up the ad groups and planning your long-awaited attack on the competition. After all, it will be all about who will outspend whom utilizing the smartest keyword combination. Your App Store experience is about to change forever.

Gimme some hints, Paul

At your service. Upon signing up to the platform, you will be welcomed by the Campaign setup page. Simply choose the app, name your campaign and set the budget. Here is where you can also select campaign-level negative keywords. In my personal case, I am targeting apps of other airlines to promote my executive aviation app, Flapper, so I definitely want to exclude keywords, such as "entertainment" or "check-in" to avoid users who aren't in the search mode for flights.

As a next step, you have to select a proper bid and a target "CPA". Note that Apple mistakenly refers to CPI (cost per install) as "cost per acquisition", so to make folks believe they actually get new users, and not pure installs. Mobile wizards like me know how wrong this is, but instead I just politely shoot for a CPC (CPT?) bid of $0.50 and a target cost-per-install (acquisition?) of one dollar. I expect that App Store will now optimize my ads, so that I don't pay more than a dollar for each new download.

It's time for the keyword game. Before you start, consider the following best practices for the keyword selection and campaign structuring:

• Use Apptweak or SensorTower to find out the best keyword. Apple's Search Popularity is a strong indicator of search volume, but not of the keyword difficulty.
• Create a granular Ad Group structure, with very few keywords under each ad set. You should also consider building individual ad groups for the most important keywords, as well as dividing them into different territories.
• Run A/B test: (1) with and without Search Match feature, (2) Broad match vs Narrow Match, (3) with and without negative keywords.

The keyword suggestions seem to be directly correlated with the search term suggestions which iOS users encounter while browsing for apps. Try to run as many tests as possible to understand what works and what doesn't.

Hats off to Apple for building a simple customer re-engagement targeting feature! You can now limit your ads to only new users or those who already have your app, so as to prevent competitive search spill off. Audience selector consists of Gender, Age, and Location. Here again, you should consider setting up multiple ad groups for different genders, locations, etc.

As mentioned before, only the States are available for selection. Damn, Apple!!!

Once set up, your ad will appear to all users searching for the selected keywords, as shown below:

Now, on a positive note, Apple gives $100 in free credits to everybody who enrolls in the beta version of the Search Ads! Woop woop! I bet this will be a surprise to virtually any Apple customer. Let me count the times I got something for free from Apple (...)

Tell me about the measurement

Here is the deal: App Store only gives access to a simple analytics platform, useful for finding the best performing ad groups and the overall install volume, but nothing more than that.

As of today, little is known about App Store's appetite for the real-life mobile attribution integration. In other words, the coming weeks will be full of uncertainty in terms of the exact performance of App Store ads. You'll know the installs, but the metrics such as LTV, retention, or simply optimization towards specific in-app events won't be available.

There are a number of alternative methods you can test. And if you know of any better way to approach it, please comment below:

--Data "extrapolation" and trends--

Simply limit your marketing spend during the launch-weight period and (or) try to estimate the impact of Search Ads alone. Measure the spikes / drops in retention, purchases, etc. using existing analytics tools. For example, if you now spend $20,000 on Search Ads and your retention metrics did not decrease, ceteris paribus, you are good to continue.

--Match the click and install dates--

You can use the "attribution API" (what a hypocritical name) to 'attribute' the installs to Search Ads (see more: https://searchads.apple.com/help/measure-results# ). Looking at the SDK code I noticed the following two paramaters: 

“iad-conversion-date" = “2016-06-14T17:18:07Z"; 

"iad-click-date" = “2016-06-14T17:17:00Z";

Perhaps there would be a possibility to pull in the data about the exact conversion (install) time of the Search ad, to then compare it with the raw data of your attribution provider (Adjust, Appsflyer, etc.). They all have the raw stats available for the download. Of course the accuracy would diminish for larger apps (many downloas at within the same minute). 

--Run ads for one of your apps only--

In some cases, Apple allows (large) developers to publish two apps with the same name of purpose, usually at a premise of distinctive target territories. Why not try to run Search Ads for one of your apps, so as to better understand the exact impact?

Games studios, in turn, might decide to run Search Ads extensively for a selected portfolio of their apps, so as to estimate the volume, and then scale up using the "Have downloaded my other apps" targeting features.

I remain convinced that Apple will eventually realize that integrating a mobile attribution provider (Adjust, Appsflyer, Kochava, Tune) is the best way to go. I count on you, App Store Team!

How to start?

Interested in the Search Ads product? Just shoot me a message and I will set up a campaign for you.

PS. See also my other article on the topic from a few months ago: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/breaking-app-store-soon-charge-some-search-results-paul-malicki?trk=prof-post

=======

Paul Malicki is a passionate mobile marketing expert and an advisor to multiple startups. He is the angel investor and head of growth at Flapper and previously acted as a Global CMO of Easy (Easy Taxi), the world's largest taxi app. He recently published his first book on mobile, the Chief Mobile Officer's Guide to Growth, available exclusively at Amazon: LINK.