Customers print memories.
Pictarine grows conversions.

With Apple Search Ads brand campaigns, the Pictarine team captured strong customer intent from searches related to their company and app name. To drive visibility for broader Utilities category searches by mobile users looking to get pictures printed quickly in a store, the team ran category campaigns with exact match. 

“We tested many partners, but nothing compared to the Apple Search Ads performance. It is now the only acquisition platform we use for iOS. We have found that the quality of traffic that Apple Search Ads delivers is better than organic traffic and conversion rates – the percentage of users that go to a store and pay for a print – is 50 percent. That’s higher than any other platform was able to deliver,” says Martin.

During holidays like Mother’s Day and Christmas, when demand for photo apps tends to rise and people print pictures as gifts, the team at Pictarine prepared for increased search volume on the App Store. The team incorporated relevant seasonal keywords into generic campaigns and increased daily caps to be more competitive on key days.¹ During these seasonal spikes in interest, Pictarine saw the volume of downloads from Apple Search Ads generally increase by as much as 4x.

“Apple Search Ads is unique because it’s the only way to be featured at the top of relevant search results on the App Store. It’s the perfect experience to increase visibility during our busiest seasons when people are searching for an app like ours,” believes Martin.

To track and attribute app downloads, the Pictarine team integrated the Apple Search Ads Attribution API directly. With the integration, the team was able to better understand the value of different customer groups over time and the keywords that drove their conversions. They also enjoyed no longer having to rely on a third party for this analysis, as well as the related cost savings. 

“The Attribution API from Apple Search Ads offers reliable performance insights. Now we know in real time if a download is from a new user or a redownload. We can optimize our bids based on the value over time of downloads driven by specific keywords or by a certain audience type. It’s a huge benefit to be able to understand performance with that level of detail,” says Martin.