The App Store is a global platform with over 600 million weekly visitors. While 70% of the App Store visitors use search to find their next app, 65% of all downloads happen after these searches. Also, the average conversion rate for search results ads is more than 50%.
Considering these numbers above, and the $500M ad revenue of Apple in 2019 and $4B estimated for 2022, it is evident that Apple will be seeking ways to expand its ad business significantly in the upcoming years.
As a part of this growth process, Apple has recently expanded its Apple Search Ads inventory with new ad placements – on the Today tab and “You Might Also Like” list of an app’s product page on the App Store.
New Opportunities to Promote your app on the App Store
By now, the Search tab and search results placements have been available for advertisers with Apple Search Ads on the App Store.
Now, Apple offers two new ad opportunities to help developers and advertisers reach users across their entire App Store journey to drive discovery and downloads of their app.
In this blog, we’ll dive deep into the details of these new ad placements and provide you with a complete guideline to leverage them into your user acquisition funnel.
Today tab Ads
This new ad placement will appear on the Today tab on the App Store.
This ad placement will be clearly marked as an ad with the same blue banner as Search tab ads and search results ads. And it’ll be working with Cost-per-Tab (CPT) model.
Considering it’s right on the page visitors see first when they open the App Store, this will undoubtedly be a very valuable ad placement for developers.
Your app icon will be in the center of the ad. The app name and subtitle that you submitted to the App Store Connect will also be included. Assets from the custom product pages you set as your top destination will animate in the background of the ad and will appear in a color from your app icon.
A Complete Guideline for the Today tab Ads
The Today tab ad placements must be a custom product page with at least four portrait or five landscape images. And this page will be approved by App Store Connect and Apple Search Ads, respectively. Custom product pages can also be submitted for approval independently of an app update in App Store Connect. In addition to reviewing your app icon, name and subtitle Apple Search Ads will review your custom product pages assets.
After the App Store approves a custom product page, it’ll appear on Apple Search Ads to create a Today tab campaign. Once a Today tab campaign is created, the ad will need to go through Apple Search Ads ad review.
The Today tab ad placements must correspond to the guidelines below:
- Your app icon, name, subtitle, and custom product page assets can’t include content that’s considered violent, offensive, sexually explicit, or otherwise inappropriate. Images containing guns, weapons, or graphic violence are not allowed.
- The custom product page you use must be localized in the default language of the country or region where you’re running your campaign.
- No pricing, offers, ranking, or other incentivized promotions are allowed in your app icon, name, subtitle, or custom product page assets. App rankings and app awards claims are also not allowed.
- Your app name and subtitle must match the localized language for the associated country or region where your campaign is set to run.
- The phrases “Game of the Day” and “App of the Day” can’t be used in your app icon, name, subtitle, or custom product page assets.
- Your app name, icon, subtitle, and custom product page assets must comply with Apple Advertising Policies.
Similar to the Search tab, the Today tab ad placements offer you two audience options; reach all eligible users and choose specific audiences.
Available targeting parameters include devices, customer types, demographics such as gender and age, and locations.
Once you select “Choose specific audiences” and add other targeting parameters, you will narrow your audiences and drastically limit your impressions. The main reason is the users with Personalized Ads turned off cannot be exposed to your ad.
On the other hand, if you select “Reach all eligible users”, your ad can be delivered even to the users with Personalized Ads turned off. Therefore, to reach the broadest audience and maximize your impressions, you should go for the “Reach all eligible users” option.
Owing to their high visibility, the Today tab ad placements have the potential to be exceptionally worthwhile for Apple Search Ads. These ads can be visible to all users as soon as they open the App Store, so it is anticipated that they will considerably impact this fierce competition in the app marketing ecosystem.
Product Page Ads
The second new ad placement in the App Store will be coming directly to the product pages themselves. While scrolling down to the bottom of product pages, you can see the “You Might Also Like” section. Advertisers will be able to place ads under this section.
You can run your ads across all relevant app categories or refine the categories.
You cannot target a particular app.
You can only run your ads on the product pages of relevant apps. As a result, you will most likely encounter ads for direct competitors on different apps’ product pages.
Unlike Today tab ads requiring custom product pages, product page ads are created with the assets already uploaded on your App Store product page.
Key Takeaways
It’s no doubt that these new ad placements are golden opportunities for developers and marketers of all sizes to grow their businesses. The sooner you leverage these new ad placements into your user acquisition funnel, the better your app or game’s visibility can be.
Sign up free now to improve your app’s visibility and attract more attention to your app across the App Store.
