How to Do Apple Search Ads (ASA) Right and Grow Your Downloads

[@appfigures]

👉 I promised I'll answer all of the questions from the chat that I couldn't answer live as comments, and those are now all answered. Feel free to reply to follow up. And if you don't see an answer to your question leave a comment with it and I'll follow up.

[@sahasrabhujaneuron5975]

I'm new to ASA, and thanks for sharing the tips, which must have been acquired through your own experience. That's what counts! Many thanks!

[@logankoshenka]

Ariel! You're awesome. This is incredibly helpful. Thank you for this video and all the other content you make. I'm an iOS Engineer and I've learned so much about ASO from your channel 🙏

[@appfigures]

That's great to hear!

[@sharkjawdigital]

Ariel for the win 🏆 Great course.

[@tyler07830]

Hi Ariel, great vid as always! Could you do a similar one with Google Play Ads??

[@eva8503]

Thank you, Ariel, for the video! Do you recommend a specific number (or range) of keywords for each campaign? If I add 40 exact match keywords to one campaign, is that not efficient?

[@eva8503]

I set daily max $20 and max bid $1 - I haven’t had any results so far. It's been 2 hrs since I ran the campaign. Does it take some time to start running or I set the budget too low?

[@Khad-j8x]

I created my campaign and its been more than a week with no downloads, its about $10 per install, it worked for literally one day then stopped again. the status of it is running.

[@codinghire]

Great video! I've heard targeting demographic (Gender and Age) is usually a bad idea because Apple will not show your ads to anyone that's opted out of Personalized Ads, which is a higher percentage of people than you might think. One of the biggest limitations with Apple Search ads is scaling them up, so you don't want to do anything to limit your reach.

[@appfigures]

Thanks Ben! That's certainly a challenge but really depends on the site of your audience. If your app is more niche you might want to relax those while having an app that can be used by "everyone" will probably mean you should add filters because the audience size is larger. But... It's much "cheaper" to relax your targeting than to tighten them after you already burned on taps that didn't convert, so I'd start with targeting demographics and monitor.

[@appfigures]

Anthony T: Q: ​What do you do if your campaign is not spending ? A: That probably means your CPT is too low, meaning other bidders are paying more to show up in the same keywords so ASA takes them first. You can increase your CPT, find less popular/expensive keywords, or tighten up your targeting.

[@appfigures]

Mark Johnson: ​Q: What’s the best way to find out the maximum to spend on CPA if you have a subscription app? There should be a basic formula for LTV and then using that number somehow to figure out max CPA? A: This is as much art as it is science, but strictly thinking of the numbers, your LTV (Lifetime Value) minus what you want to keep (profit, which is more flexible for apps vs. other goods) is how much you can spend to _acquire_ a user. So if your LTV is $100 and want to keep $10 of it, your acquisition cost could go as high as $90. Now, that's not what you can spend pet tap because not every tap converts into a download and not every download converts to a paid user. So we're not done yet. Next, take your new paying subscribers for the last 30 days and divide them by page views for the last 30 days, then divide that by 5, which is an arbitrary number to reflect conversion from paid ads being lower than organic discovery. Multiply that by how much you're willing to spend to acquire a new user and that should be your CPT. You don't really need to do this if you have any paid campaigns running right now, but if you do, take the total spend for the last 30 days and divide it by the number of new paying subscribers in the last 30 days. That's how much it really costs you to get a new paying subscriber. If what you're willing to spend is more than what you're really spending you can increase your budget. If it's the opposite you need to optimize (find keywords with lower CPT)

[@appfigures]

TC: Q: ​Is rating quantity or rating ratio more important for ASO? A: It's the absolute number of new recent ratings. From what I've seen, recently = last 30 days. Because Apple uses ratings as a proxy for engagement, both good and bad ratings count.

[@thanidaphonjaiharn7530]

I can't to find create campaign, this first time I make it please help me 😊😊😊

[@VisaCode]

I know the video is quite old, but what was the promo code for? He said optimise and above but that was an impression so what was it for? Anyone

[@appfigures]

It was indeed for Optimize and above. That’s where you’ll find the majority of our ASO tools.

[@Martin-l7c9d]

Is there a maximum of keywords you should use? They all shape a certain type of user and are not just random but are quiet a lot

[@appfigures]

Not really, but more keywords does decrease focus so make sure you can beat the competitors for those.

[@Martin-l7c9d]

​@@appfigures Thank you! Appfigures has been a great help. Im currently at around 50 keywords in a rather niche market. From experience can you tell me when the ads usually start running? I created the campaign 4 Days ago and the expenses are still at 0,00€ with my CPT at 0,50€

[@appfigures]

It should happen within a few hour. 12-24 is the max I’ve seen. That probably means your bids are too low or the keywords aren’t popular enough and haven’t had any searches

[@rajeevkumar-b5u9g]

THERE IS CREAT BUTTON IS NOT SHOWING IN SEARCH AD CAMPION

[@slyvek2]

Will "Exact" keywords used in Search Ads improve its position in search results during the campaign and after the campaign is over?

[@appfigures]

Not really. Paid ASA campaigns don’t impact organic ranks directly.

[@AnujYadav-ef7bi]

I have run my Campaign with $10.00 cpt, but still I am not getting Impression on ASA, How much time ASA takes to give Impressions after running Campaign?

[@appfigures]

It really depends on the keywords. While $10 may seem high in for some keywords it’s actually low.

[@appfigures]

Several viewers asked: Q: What's a good/bad DPR ratio? A: Lower is better, higher is worse. Ideally, every download would rate the app, which would mean a DPR of 1. I've never really seen that in the wild, for obvious reasons, so your goal is to get as close to 1 as possible.

[@FranciscoPrada-m6x]

Can you set in app goals within the apple platform?

[@appfigures]

Not really. You’ll need a 3rd party SDK for that.

[@nurex-gamesandapps8378]

Hi dear Ariel after when yoh start campaigning if there’s showing “ running “ after how hours or days it’s really start running or it’s running right away? Because i started campaigning but showing running but mo impressions or taps or installs why?

[@appfigures]

That usually means your budget is too low, your keywords aren't relevant enough, or your keywords don't get any traffic. I'd try expanding the keywords or increasing your budget.

[@aibochan1764]

My ad spend doesn’t show in app figures and there’s no integration for ASA so how do we get this data in the dashboard?

[@appfigures]

appfigures.com/support/kb/595/how-to-connect-your-apple-search-ads-account-to-appfigures

[@appfigures]

Yassine: Q: ​Do all these optimizations matter if your competitors outspend you and have plenty of money to burn? A: Absolutely. It's unlikely that your competition is bidding on every possible keyword in existence. Big budget campaigns are usually not as optimized and burn more than an optimized campaign would -- which means they leave room for a smaller budget campaign to also gain visibility. You'd have to spend more time optimizing your targeting options, hours/days of spend, and on keyword research, but it's possible.

[@appfigures]

Dmytro Surname: Q: will we have an android organic breakdown? DPR is great, but i see 80% is focused on the App store A: Yes! I've been looking at a whole bunch of different factors that impact organic ranks on Google Play, which is much more elaborate than the App Store, and will be sharing more in the future along with new tools to get the necessary visibility.

[@otime7180]

What is your bid formula that you mentioned?

[@bharathpatel5795]

Very much interested in this question. Thanks in advance @Ariel

[@appfigures]

Check out the answer I gave Mark Johnson. It's two formulas in one + an explanation.

[@appfigures]

Arnaud Joubay: Q: ​How to avoid side effects on your organic traffic? A: The relationship between ASA and organic isn't tight enough to cause issues, with one big exception. When apps have a very very low conversion rate (from page view to download) the algorithm could penalize them and push them down the ranks. If you're running a big campaign with many irrelevant keywords you could get into this situation. ASA won't let you do that easily unless you spend a lot of money, so I wouldn't worry about it too much

[@appfigures]

Leonardo Bilck: A: ​What is your estimate of minimum monthly spend to achieve organic discovery results? in that case, what's a good ballpark for KWs amount? A: Organic discovery doesn't tie directly to paid spend because more downloads doesn't mean higher keyword ranks. That's a myth I've debunked more than once through Keyword Teardowns. But paid still helps with organic indirectly by improving the chances of getting new ratings. How many ratings depends on how well your app converts downloads to ratings (which I call DPR). And how many ratings you'd need to rank higher depends on the competitors in that keyword. So, the answer isn't a static number but rather a number that depends on those two, and the amount of spend would depend on how quickly you want to get there. A simple way to figure out how many downloads you'd need is to multiply the average number of new ratings the top 5 apps for your keyword are getting and multiplying that by your DPR -- you can get all of these numbers from Keyword Inspector. Q: ​Still about "low cost" campaigns, should you aim for lower popularity and cheaper KWs or high popularity with lower bids and try to get some installs? or anything else? A: That really depends on the keywords, app type, and audience. I'd recommend trying both with the same set amount of budget. You can keep it small, $100 - $250, per campaign and keep track of: 1. How many downloads each got you 2. Over how much time 3. Your max CPT Then, when both are done, continue the campaign that got your more downloads quicker. The high-popularity campaign won't necessarily win because you'll have less visibility there, but if it does, make sure the max CPT isn't too high so that a few taps would eat the entire daily budget. Q: ​Should you ever use broad match campaigns to discover new keywords? A: I wouldn't recommend it because you end up paying a changing and ever-increasing amount for what is not likely to convert. A better option for learning and research is to use something with a constant cost that does what Apple does (or better) to find relevant keywords and test them in an exact match campaign. This lowers your spend and increases your conversion. I use the Competitor Keywords report for this type of research and the results are (almost always) far more relevant than a broad match campaign because a broad match campaign looks at every keyword individually, and generic keywords can expand into ones that are completely irrelevant. Instead, using organic results coming fro similar apps/competitors will be a lot more relevant and contextual, and you don't have to pay for each one. Q: ​How does your KW inclusion in your metadata affects the campaign bids/prices? Does having a high position in any given KW lower your effective cost? A: It doesn't, and in some cases that I've seen, and this is a theory at best, spending on ASA can hurt your organic ranks. I'm not entirely sure why, and I don't have enough evidence to really say this is true for everyone, but I did notice a relationship.

[@FitnessChapter]

where can i write you in privat i got some questions?

[@appfigures]

You can find me on Twitter (@arielmichaeli)

[@appfigures]

Ruth Bailey: Q: ​What's the best practice to find new keywords if your Discovery campaign isn't showing you anything new or they are appearing as 'Unknown'? A: I prefer to look at competitors/similar apps as well as get suggestions based on relevant -- You can get those from the Competitor Keywords and Suggested Keywords reports in Appfigures. Q: ​Should you have a separate campaign per territory? A: That's my preference. It offers a bit more flexibility at the cost of a bit more setup, but then enables you to target more specifically and to organize your keywords better. You could organize your keywords with ad groups and but I always find those to be more difficult to manage. Q: ​Would you not recommend a low budget Discovery campaign with a search match only ad et? I wouldn't. See my answer to Leonardo Bilck for more details. Q: ​If you add targeting, won't you miss all users that have their privacy settings on? A: Yes, but depending on how wide of an audience you're aiming to reach, it may not be a problem. Apple used to disable sharing information default but has switched away from that a few years ago, so most devices are "targetable".

[@appfigures]

Luc at MyScript: Q: ​Could you explain again organic growth and what it means for Search Ads? A: Organic growth doesn't really impact paid growth. The opposite is possibly true if you use the paid downloads as a way to grow your ratings, which will have an impact on organic ranks as long as your keywords are optimized. See the answer I gave Leonardo Bilck for more on ratings.

[@iphonegamesapps]

Any tips for when a whole campaign is not showing any search ads let alone clicks. 😂

[@appfigures]

That usually means your budget is too low, your keywords aren't relevant enough, or your keywords don't get any traffic. I'd try expanding the keywords or increasing your budget.