An advertiser working on a MacBook. The Apple Search Ads Create Campaign page is open on the screen, showing four available ads placements: Today tab, Search tab, search results, and product pages.

Best Practices

Ad Placements

Make your mark with multiple ad placements across the App Store. Show more people what your app has to offer, helping increase searches for your brand and downloads of your app. If you’re using a single ad placement and looking for a better overall performance value, running multiple placements could be
your solution.
Tap into the power of exposure.
Promoting apps in more than one placement can offer a better overall performance value. An analysis of U.S. app users showed that advertisers reached more people and increased searches for their brand when they ran ads in multiple placements simultaneously. And because you pay only when people tap your ad, you can drive a lot more exposure at little to no additional cost. Get ready to see your collective campaign performance benefit.
62% of surveyed users were more
likely to check out apps that were
highlighted across the App Store.1
An iPhone with the App Store open. The search term “vacation planner” is entered in the search box and an ad for the example app, AwayFinder, appears at the top of search results.

Search Results

Fine-tune your search
results campaigns.

Search is the way most people find and download apps on the App Store, so getting your app to the top of search results is a priority. Nearly 65 percent of downloads happen directly after a search,2 so use these tips to strengthen your campaigns and help your app get discovered.

  • Choose effective keywords.
  • Organize your keywords into four campaign types: Brand, category, competitor, and discovery.
  • Set up ad variations to make your ads more relevant to customers.
  • Choose Reach All Eligible Users — our default option — to automatically optimize your ad to reach the most people.
  • Use Recommendations for keywords, keyword bids, and daily budget.


Learn more about search results ads
An iPhone with the App Store open. An ad for the example app, AwayFinder, appears on the Search tab at the top of the Suggested apps list.

Search Tab

Use Search tab and
search results together.

Run Search tab and search results campaigns at the same time to reach additional users and increase searches for your brand. Using these placements together can also drive more downloads at a lower overall acquisition cost,3 showing just how valuable this pairing is. 

Creating a Search tab campaign is easy — you don’t need to add keywords, and you only need to set one bid.

Learn more about Search tab ads
An iPhone with the App Store open and an ad for the example app, AwayFinder, displayed prominently on the Today tab. The ad shows the app icon, name, and subtitle, which says “Explore, Plan, & Book Travel”

Today Tab

Increase your impact right
from the start.

Promote your app where more than half a billion visitors start their journey to discover new apps every week. Today tab ads are our most prominent placement — they’re fully visible when people first arrive to the App Store — and are the go-to option to reach people who wouldn’t have found your app otherwise.

Learn more about Today tab ads
An iPhone with the App Store open. An ad for the example app, AwayFinder, appears at the bottom of an App Store product page, where users would see it if they scrolled down the page.

Product Pages

Gain visibility among
people browsing apps.

Don’t miss out on customers who are actively researching apps. They can come across your app after landing on a product page from an outside link, or from within an App Store article or search. Product page ads can extend campaign performance, complementing your ad placement strategy.

Run an ad across app categories, or refine the categories where it runs.

Learn more about product page ads
Look at big picture performance.
When reviewing campaign reporting, remember that an install isn’t necessarily only the result of the last ad placement a user saw. What a customer sees one day, in one placement on the App Store, may influence what they tap and download in the days ahead. After you allocate budgets and set bids across different ad placements, it can take time to see the real effects each ad placement has on your overall results. This is why it’s a good idea to let your campaigns run for some time before making changes.
The Campaigns dashboard in Apple Search Ads, showing performance metrics for a Today tab campaign, a search results campaign, a product page campaign, and a Search tab campaign.

Search results campaigns drive performance and capture conversions while ads on the Today tab, Search tab, and product page help you move up the funnel as well, driving valuable awareness and consideration for key brand or seasonal moments.

Explore the results of advertising
in multiple placements.

Below are some of the performance gains Apple
Search Ads advertisers have seen by running ads in
more than one placement on the App Store.

#1 app marketing platform driving new member sign-ups over six-month period.
136% increase in installs week over week with a multi-placement Black Friday campaign.
140% increase in impressions in brand campaign after running Today tab ads during Black Friday.
179% increase in taps in brand campaign after running Today tab ads during Black Friday.

60% lower cost per install compared with similar ad platforms.
25% of new iOS user acquisition in first month from Apple Search Ads.
25% higher ROI compared with similar ad platforms.
15% higher retention compared with similar ad platforms.

14% increase in downloads year over year from Apple Search Ads.
30% more impressions year over year.
19% increase in new subscription revenue.
52% increase in tap-through rate on search results campaigns.

3Х higher average revenue per user compared with similar platforms.
2Х higher retention compared with similar platforms.
4Х higher install-to-purchase compared with similar platforms.
56% higher tap-through rate on search results campaigns within a month of running Today tab ad.
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