Apple Ads is Apple's paid search and placement platform for the App Store, and in 2027 it is still the most direct way to put an app in front of people already looking to download one. Apple says about 65% of App Store downloads happen right after a search (Apple Ads, 2026). Yet many app teams hand it a small test budget, leave Apple's defaults switched on, and judge it on install count alone. This guide covers how the platform works after the 2025 rename from Search Ads, how to structure campaigns, which numbers to track, and what to fix before you spend another dollar in 2027.
Key takeaways
- Roughly 65% of App Store downloads follow a search, so keyword intent is the core of Apple Ads (Apple Ads, 2026).
- Creative volume can swing results by orders of magnitude: in ApsteQ's LunarLinc campaign, 113 video ads drove 41,420 installs versus 468 from 83 image ads (ApsteQ case study, 2023 to 2024).
- Judge channels on retained users, not installs: 60% of EarningsCall downloads were monthly active in the 2022 to 2023 campaign (ApsteQ case study, 2023).
- Cost per install equals cost per tap divided by tap-to-install conversion, so fixing your product page can cut costs as much as lowering bids.
What is Apple Ads and how does it work in 2027?
Apple Ads lets you bid for placement inside the App Store, where each ad is an App Store listing promoted above or among organic results. Apple renamed Search Ads to Apple Ads in 2025, and the platform now covers four placements: the Today tab, the Search tab, search results, and product pages (Apple Ads, 2026). The older name still dominates search queries, so you will see both in vendor reports.
The auction rewards relevance. An ad shows only when your app matches the query or the surrounding context, and Apple prices the placement by what you bid and how likely people are to tap. That is why a niche app with a tight keyword set can beat a bigger competitor on cost. For a deeper walkthrough of the original product, see our Apple Search Ads guide.
Basic versus Advanced
Apple offers two products, and the choice shapes everything downstream. Apple Ads Basic is a simplified setup where Apple picks the targeting and you pay per install. Apple Ads Advanced gives you keyword control, every placement, and cost-per-tap pricing. Compare them in the table below, which draws on Apple's own product descriptions (Apple Ads Help, 2026).
| Feature | Apple Ads Basic | Apple Ads Advanced |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Pay per install | Pay per tap (CPT) |
| Keyword control | Apple chooses | You choose, with match types and negatives |
| Placements | Search results | Today tab, Search tab, search results, product pages |
| Custom product pages | No | Yes, per ad group |
| Best for | Teams with no UA staff and a small budget | Teams that want to learn, scale and report on keywords |
Basic is fine for a first month of learning. Any team serious about growth ends up on Advanced, because you cannot optimize what you cannot see.
A quality example
Installs alone tell you little. ApsteQ's work for EarningsCall, a US fintech app for investors, produced a 2022 to 2023 campaign in which 60% of downloads were monthly active, with 3K+ MAU on 5K+ downloads (ApsteQ case study, 2023). That was a different channel mix, but the lesson carries over: intent-heavy channels like App Store search tend to be judged best on active users, and that is the number to bring to any Apple Ads review.
How do you structure an Apple Ads campaign that scales?
Split campaigns by intent, not by convenience. Use separate campaigns for brand keywords, competitor keywords, generic category keywords, and discovery (Search Match). This keeps budgets, bids and reports clean, so you can see which type of intent actually pays back. It is the single most common structural change we make when reviewing an account through our user acquisition service.
- Start with brand. Bid on your own app name so a competitor cannot sit above you. This is cheap and defensive, and it gives you a clean baseline for tap-through rate.
- Add generic category keywords in exact match. Pick 15 to 30 terms that describe what the app does. Exact match limits waste while you learn.
- Run one discovery campaign. Switch on Search Match and broad match with a low budget, then mine the search terms report weekly. Promote winners to exact match and add losers as negative keywords.
- Add competitor keywords last. Expect lower conversion here, since users searching a rival often want that rival. Cap the budget.
- Match each ad group to a custom product page. Custom product pages are alternate versions of your App Store listing, with their own screenshots, text and preview video, that you can point to specific keywords (Apple Developer). A meditation app bidding on "sleep sounds" should land on a sleep-focused page, not the generic one.
- Set bids by goal. Start from a max CPT you can defend, then add a cost per acquisition goal once you have enough conversions for Apple to learn from.
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