Own the search bar in the App Store.

Four things, in order: find the searches worth buying, structure the account so each intent can be judged on its own, match a product page to each of those intents, and connect post-install value back to the phrase that produced it. Day to day that means weekly promotion and negation of search terms, creative tests held long enough to believe, bid work driven by payback, and one report that reads alongside your other channels. A good engagement also leaves your team with a documented structure they could run themselves.

It depends on your category and market, but public benchmarks give a useful frame. MobileAction's 2026 report puts the 2025 yearly average cost per download on search results ads at $2.51, down from $2.76 in 2024, with cost per tap ranging from $1.26 in Q2 to $1.88 in Q4. Competitive categories like finance and dating sit well above those averages, and brand keywords well below. We model your own numbers from the audit rather than quoting an industry average as a forecast, and we work to a payback target you set.

Because the ad appears at the moment of decision, inside the store, with a one-tap install. MobileAction records an all-time average conversion rate of 63.95% on search results ads — roughly an order of magnitude above typical web funnels, because there is no landing page, no form and no checkout between the tap and the download. The implication matters: the leverage on this channel is in phrase choice and post-install value, not in conversion-rate optimisation. That is where we spend the hours.

Often yes, because the users are different. App Store searchers have already decided to solve a problem, so they tend to activate and retain better than users interrupted mid-scroll, which usually shows up as a lower price per subscriber even when the install cost is higher. The way to settle it is not opinion but arithmetic: compare cohorts on trial start, conversion to paid and day-30 retention rather than on install price. We set that comparison up in the first month, and if Apple Ads is the wrong channel for your economics we will say so.

You get less granularity than the web and enough to run the channel well. SKAdNetwork returns aggregated, delayed postbacks with limited conversion values, so we design the value schema deliberately — picking the handful of post-install events that predict revenue — and read it alongside your MMP or analytics and your own billing data. Where the signal genuinely runs out, we use holdouts and geo tests rather than a confident model built on thin data. We are explicit about which numbers are measured and which are modelled, on every report.

They are alternate versions of your App Store page — different screenshots, captions and promotional text — that an ad can point to. You need one per meaningful intent group rather than one per keyword: the person searching a competitor's name wants a comparison, the person searching a problem wants the fix, the browser wants the range. Three to six pages covers most apps. We build them from your existing assets where we can, test one variable at a time, and feed the winners back into your main listing so organic search benefits too.

Yes, and it is a common arrangement. We usually own the App Store surface — keywords, structure, product pages, bids — while your team keeps the platforms it already runs, with one shared definition of a qualified user so nobody is optimising against a different target. We share the keyword and creative learnings both ways, because the phrases that win in the store usually win in paid search too. Where you would rather hand over the whole acquisition mix, our analytics team wires the measurement so every channel is judged the same way.

Structural waste is usually the fastest win: separating brand from category spend and negating the terms that never convert tends to show up within the first two weeks. Creative testing needs a month or two to produce decisions you can trust, and value-based bidding needs one full payback cycle — which for a subscription app means waiting for renewals rather than guessing. We publish the sequence up front so you know which improvements are arriving when, and the weekly session means you see the work as it happens rather than in a monthly summary.

Yes, with one honest caveat: below a certain budget the auction cannot teach us much in a reasonable time, so we would rather scope a short research-and-listing engagement than take a retainer that cannot work. For pre-launch apps the highest-value work is usually store listing, keyword research and a small Search Match budget to learn what people actually type. We will tell you plainly where your first dollars are best spent, even when that is not this service.

You keep everything and we help you leave well. The account is yours throughout, the structure and naming convention are documented, the keyword universe and negative lists are exported, and the measurement setup is written down rather than living in someone's head. We will train the person inheriting it and stay available for a defined handover period. Clients who know they can leave easily tend to stay for the right reasons, which is the arrangement we want.