Advanced | Campaign Management

Duplicate campaigns, ad groups, and keywords

How to duplicate campaigns

Apple Search Ads Advanced lets you quickly duplicate existing campaigns for different audiences, seasonal promotions or new markets. Campaign duplication saves you time and accelerates launches.

Go to your Campaigns dashboard and select the campaign you want to copy.
Choose Duplicate from the Actions menu.
Choose a campaign name, check or adjust countries and regions and set a budget and daily cap.
Include or remove ad group keywords and negative keywords, campaign negative keywords and Creative Sets.
Set your campaign’s status to Pause or schedule it to start on a specific date so you can review and refine campaign and ad group settings before your ads run.
Click the Duplicate button.

Once the duplication process is complete, your new campaign will appear in the list on your Campaigns dashboard. From there, you can make any adjustments needed, including entering budget order and invoice details, if applicable.

It’s important to keep in mind the following when duplicating campaigns:

If you don’t include keywords in your new campaign but you have Search Match on for select ad groups, only those ad groups will serve ads. If Search Match is turned off for all ad groups, your campaign will not serve ads. Either add keywords or turn on Search Match after you duplicate the campaign.
Duplicated keywords and negative keywords will retain their original status and match type. You may adjust these after duplication.
Creative Sets ad variations are app-specific and language-specific. If you have sets in your original ad groups, they’ll be shared if your new campaign uses the same promoted app and countries and regions. If these selections are changed, Creative Sets may not be shared.
If your original campaign used location refinements for a single country or region, they’ll be lost if you change the country or region associated with your new campaign.
Your budget will default to the amount set for your original campaign. You can keep your existing budget or increase it any time. If you want to decrease it, you can do so during the duplication process or before your new campaign’s start date. If you set your campaign to Pause, you can lower your campaign’s budget only before you click the Duplicate button. If you schedule a later start date, you’ll be able to lower the budget anytime before that date. You can’t decrease your budget after your campaign’s start date.

How to duplicate ad groups

When you duplicate ad groups and keywords within or across campaigns, any applicable audience refinements – such as device location, device type, or demographics – will be copied.

To duplicate an ad group or ad groups:

Go to the Ad Groups dashboard within your chosen campaign.
Select the ad group or groups you want to copy.
Click Duplicate in the Actions menu.
Choose whether to duplicate keywords, negative keywords and Creative Sets.
Set a start date and end date, if preferred, for your duplicated ad group.
Select the destination campaign from the Duplicate to menu.
Click the Duplicate button.

Once the duplication process is complete, the suffix “_copy” will be added to your duplicated ad group’s name.

Note that if the combined size of your ad groups and keywords exceeds the data limit of 10,000 targeted and negative keywords, you may not see the option to duplicate both settings and keywords. Select fewer ad groups and try again.

Certain audience refinements may be dropped during the duplication process if they aren’t relevant to the destination campaign. For instance:

If your destination campaign is promoting a different app that doesn’t support the device type specified in the originating ad group.
If the original and destination campaigns are promoting different apps, the “New users” customer type won’t duplicate.

Other refinements may be adjusted automatically during the duplication process to fit your destination campaign. For instance, if the original and destination campaigns are promoting different apps, the “Returning users” customer type may become “Users of my other apps”.

When duplicating, your original bid amount for each keyword is also copied. If you choose to duplicate settings and keywords, some keywords may be skipped because the bid amount isn’t valid in the destination ad group for a different campaign. Your keyword bid amount must be less than the destination campaign’s daily cap or lifetime budget.

Ad group duplication may be aborted if the number of selected ad groups and existing ad groups in the destination campaign exceeds the limit of 2,000 ad groups per campaign.

How to duplicate keywords

You can duplicate keywords from one ad group to another – or to multiple ad groups whose campaigns are within the same campaign group. Each keyword’s match type will be copied, and you can choose to copy keyword-level max CPT bids, use the ad group default max CPT bid or set a custom bid.

To duplicate keywords:

Go to the Keywords tab within your ad group.
Select the individual keywords you want to duplicate.
Choose "Duplicate Selected Keywords" or "All Keywords" from the Actions menu.
Select the destination ad groups and campaigns.
Choose to use the existing keyword or ad group default max CPT bid, or set a new bid.
Click Duplicate, and Apple Search Ads will copy your keywords.

Note that an ad group can have up to 5,000 keywords. If the number of selected keywords to duplicate results in your destination ad group exceeding this limit, you can’t duplicate this list of keywords. Select up to the number of keywords recommended in the error message, and try again.

Specific keywords can’t be duplicated if they already exist in the destination ad group with the same match type, or if the bid amount exceeds the campaign’s budget. You can’t duplicate keywords once the process is complete.

How to duplicate negative keywords

You can duplicate campaign negative keywords from one campaign to another. Ad group negative keywords can be duplicated to another ad group in the same campaign, or in a different campaign.

To duplicate negative keywords:

Go to the ad group’s Negative Keywords tab, or the Negative Keywords tab on the campaign’s All Keywords dashboard.
Click Selected Negative Keywords or All Campaign/Ad Group Negative Keywords from the Actions menu.
Select a destination campaign or ad group for your negative keywords.
Click on "Duplicate".

Note that each ad group and campaign can have up to 5,000 negative keywords. If the number of selected negative keywords pushes your destination ad group or campaign over this limit, the duplication process is aborted.

Specific negative keywords may not be duplicated if they already exist in the destination campaign or ad group with the same match type.

If you’re experiencing issues when trying to duplicate keywords, ad groups or campaigns

There are a few reasons why duplication may fail:

Your destination campaign or ad group would exceed the keyword or negative keyword limit.
More than 200 unique items were skipped during the duplication process. These items may include invalid keywords and settings.

Ad group keywords, ad group negative keywords and campaign negative keywords are skipped during the duplication process because:

Your keywords and match type already exist in the destination ad group.
Your bid amount for that keyword isn’t valid in the new campaign. If your keyword bid amount is higher than your budget in the destination campaign, your keyword won’t duplicate. Adjust your budget or bid amount, and try again.
Your negative keyword text and match type already exist in the destination campaign or ad group.
There’s already an ad group with the same name and suffix in the destination campaign.