Apple Search Ads: the checklist we run before scaling spend

Scaling an Apple Search Ads account is easy. Scaling it without the cost per install drifting upward is the hard part. Across our own apps and the accounts we manage for partners, we run the same checklist before adding budget. Here it is, in the order we go through it.

1. One job per campaign

Brand, category, competitor and discovery traffic behave differently and deserve different bids and different budgets. If they live in one campaign, the brand terms quietly subsidise everything else and the reports tell you nothing. We split them before we do anything else.

2. Search Match and broad match are for discovery only

Search Match and broad match are how you find new terms, not how you spend most of the budget. They run in the discovery campaign with a modest budget. Anything they find that converts moves into an exact match campaign, and gets added as a negative in discovery so the two never compete.

3. Defend the brand, cheaply

A brand campaign on your own app name and its misspellings is usually the cheapest traffic in the account. It also stops a competitor from sitting above you on your own name. Keep it in its own campaign so its numbers do not flatter the rest.

4. CPA targets per country, not per account

An install in the United States, Germany and Türkiye is worth very different amounts to a subscription app, and the auctions are different too. We set a cost per acquisition target for each storefront from the app's own revenue data, then let bids follow those targets. One blended account-wide target hides exactly the markets that are losing money.

5. The keyword list is a living document

Every week: pull the search terms report, promote what converts, add negatives for what spends without converting. Monthly: check impression share on the terms that matter, and look at what the category's new entrants are bidding on. A keyword list nobody has touched in six weeks is already stale.

6. Match the ad to the search with custom product pages

Someone searching for "bedtime stories in my voice" and someone searching for "kids audiobooks" want different first screenshots. Custom product pages let an ad group land on a page built for that intent, and the conversion rate difference is often larger than anything you can achieve with bids.

7. Fix the store page before buying more traffic

Paid traffic multiplies whatever the product page already does. If the screenshots are weak or the subtitle wastes its characters, every extra dollar of Apple Search Ads is a dollar spent on a page that does not convert. App Store Optimization is not a separate project from paid; it is step zero.

8. Measure what happens after the install

Installs are the easy number. We connect Apple Search Ads to the app's attribution so we see trial starts, subscriptions and the first renewal by campaign and keyword. Scaling decisions are made on those, not on installs.

Only then: raise the budget

With all of the above in place, raising budget is a boring, predictable operation. Without it, more budget usually means a higher cost per install and a harder conversation at the end of the month.

We manage Apple Search Ads, App Store Optimization and social campaigns for other apps as well as our own, with close to $100,000 a month under management. If you would like a second pair of eyes on your account, here is how we work.