First presented at After Work ASO meetup in Berlin, this 102-slide presentation by SplitMetrics' Head of Customer Success covers scaling Apple Search Ads keywords.
Inside you'll also find 2019 industry benchmarks - something to compare your own numbers against.
12. Traffic of a higher quality and bigger conversion rates. Compare “games” vs.
“education games for kids”.
Long-tail keywords are less competitive, and therefore cheaper.
More sustainable results.
Why use long-tail keywords
13. Apple’s algorithm determines this relevance based on your app category and metadata — title,
subtitle and keywords.
Keywords technical relevance
14. 1. Impressions volume, which can be assessed by search popularity;
2. Competition, which can be assessed by the number of search results;
3. Technical relevance, which is the app’s position in search results (preferably <100);
4. Logical relevance: the bigger TTR and download rate for the app, the better;
5. Default CTP Bid: the average bid for a category or a given app to reach target KPIs
(and we’ll come up to this later in this presentation)
Checklist for keywords:
15. “80% of SEOs and marketers do keyword research wrong. They plug in a main keyword to Google’s
Keyword Planner, download the result, and then start sorting through them in a spreadsheet. But
here’s the thing: literally thousands of other marketers have already searched the exact same keyword”
Neil Patel
16. Two approaches to finding relevant keywords
1. Keywords pickling and analysis
2. Discovery campaigns in Search Ads
19. Keywords pickling
- App store suggestions
- PPC search suggestions
- Google ads keyword planner
- Keyword multiplicator and synonyms
20. What to do with them?
- Get keywords performance metrics
- Remove low volume terms and irrelevant keywords
- Check the keywords efficiency index
- Group keywords
- Bids tailing
21. Discovery campaigns pros
- Discovery campaigns are a relatively simple method of expanding the keywords list
gradually;
- There are hardly any preparatory activities or research needed to get started;
- Discovery campaigns allow to immediately find relevant keywords (technical
relevance) and evaluate their performance (CPT, TTR, etc.), which is impossible using
Keyword Planner;
- Discovery campaigns also help find negative keywords.
22. Discovery campaigns cons
- The discovery process requires expertise and constant attention;
- It takes time to obtain good results;
- You have to allocate part of your budget for the discovery;
- Apple Search Ads has a limitation on the number of keywords in a group; this can be a
problem for large accounts, but in practice, everything usually works well.
23. Step 1 - Create appropriate account structure
Keep things in order!!
25. Step 3 - Identify good search terms
- Mind that there is no post-install data available for search terms in MMPs
- The best way to evaluate the quality of search terms is to look at their Cost per
Acquisition (CPA).
- For example, if your target CPA is $5.0, then queries with Downloads > 0 and CPA <
$5.0 can be considered winning.
26. Step 3 - What to do with them
- Convert them into exact match and add them into your exact match group (depending
on the structure semantic / value based it can be a certain topic or a certain value)
- Add them as a negative exact match to your discovery campaign
- Optionally add them to the broad match adgroup
27. Step 4 - Identify bad search terms
- The search terms that don’t bring any downloads
- The search terms that result in 3 x Target CPA.
28. Step 4 - What to do with them
- Add them as exact match negative to your discovery campaign
29. Step 5 - Identify the search match terms with
insufficient data
31. Step 6 - Keep mining new keywords
- Take these steps every 1-2 weeks.
- The traffic volume will start dropping in your discovery campaigns in a while - that’s
natural.
- You can gradually increase the CPT bid in your discovery campaigns to get into auctions
with more expensive keywords.
32. Step 7 - Consider Broad Match
Broad match is similar to Search Match, but in this case you can use a list of keywords and the results. It will
match your ads to relevant search terms such as partial or close words, long variants, synonyms or related
search terms.
33. Step 7 - Consider Broad Match
Think of it as an iceberg: if you create a group with several broad match keywords
and set a small budget, you can generate hundreds of related search terms.
43. 2. Average Conversion Rate
-Update your metadata, video and imagery you’ve provided in your listing. It makes sense to
modify these app page elements to achieve much better results.
-Make your ad more relevant to search queries by adding creative sets. You can align them with
particular themes and / or audience.
-Focus on segments that drive high TTR and CVR.
-Mind localization. In order to improve relevance of the ads for another market modify app’s
metadata.
-Work on the rating of your app.
44. 3. Average Cost per Tap
Avr. CPT $0.95 in 2019 vs
Avr. CPT $0.84 in 2018
61. Brand Generic Competitor
Ad group Ad group list
Campaigns
Ad groups Ad group list
Keywords Keyword list Keyword list Keyword list
Exact match
62. Exact Match
[taxi]
Broad Match
taxi
Search Match
Common Misspellings
Search Term Match Source Matches Search Terms
Exact Match
Singular/Plural
Example
taxii
taxi
taxis
Singular/Plural
Common Misspellings
Synonyms
Related searches
Phrases with the term
Metadata keywords
Other search data
taxii
taxis
cab
find a driver
taxi service in berlin
63. Pg. 63
Brand Defense
High TTR -> low CPT
Cannibalization vs. Incrementality
Brand
Ad group
Campaigns
Ad groups
Keywords Keyword list
64. ● General terms
● Users are in “exploration
mode”
● Multiple ad groups for level
of intent (likelihood a person
downloads the app)GenericCampaigns
Ad groups
AG 1
Audiobooks
Keywords Keyword List
(audiobook app,
Listen
audiobooks,
download
audiobooks,...)
AG 2
Books
AG 2
Podcasts
AG 2
Free Audiobooks
Keyword List
(romance ebook,
ebook
subscription, buy
books,...)
Keyword List
(podcast online,
streaming
podcast, stream
podcast,...)
Keyword List
(free Audiobook,
Audiobook free
download,...)
65. Pg. 65
Competitor
AG 1
Audiobooks
Keyword List
(competitor 1,
competitor 2,...)
AG 2
Books
AG 2
Podcasts
Keyword List
(competitor 1,
competitor 2,...)
Keyword List
(competitor 1,
competitor 2,...)
● Usually more
expensive
● Capture installs from
competitors
Campaigns
Ad groups
Keywords
66. Discovery
Search
Match
Broad
Match
Brand Generic Competitor
Exact Match AG 1,
Exact Match AG 2,..
Exact Match AG 1,
Exact Match AG 2,..
Campaigns
Ad groups Exact Match AG 1,
Exact Match AG 2,..
Keywords Keyword list AG 1,
Keyword list AG2,...
Keyword list AG 1,
Keyword list AG2,...
Keyword list AG 1,
Keyword list AG2,...
Keyword
list
67. Campaign
Explore new search terms
1. Relevant search terms
can be missed
2. Use in markets where
you don’t master the
language
Discovery
Search
Match
Broad
Match
Ad groups
73. Brand Generic Competitor Discovery Probing
Search
Match
Exact Match Exact MatchExact Match
Campaign
Broad
Match
Exact MatchAd groups
74. Brand Generic Competitor Discovery Probing
Search
Match
Exact Match Exact MatchExact Match
Campaign
1
Broad
Match
Exact Match
1. Add all targeting
Exact Match terms
as negative Exact
Match keywords in
Discovery Campaign
Ad groups
75. Brand Generic Competitor Discovery Probing
Search
Match
Exact Match Exact MatchExact Match
Campaign
Broad
Match
Exact Match
2
2. Adding Exact Match
keywords as Broad
Match keywords to
the Discovery
Campaign
Ad groups
76. Brand Generic Competitor Discovery Probing
Search
Match
Exact Match Exact MatchExact Match
Campaign
Broad
Match
Exact Match
33. Add Search Terms from
Discovery as Exact
Match keywords to the
Probing
(Bid = 1.25 * CPT)
Ad groups
77. 4
Brand Generic Competitor Discovery Probing
Search
Match
Exact Match Exact MatchExact Match
Campaign
Broad
Match
Exact Match
4. Redistribute keywords
with enough volume and
reasonable cost-per-goal
to the other Campaigns
(weekly)
Ad groups
92. 1. Let Apple collect data
on CPA before
implementing a CPA goal
2. Pause SKAGs that
realistically have no
chance of reaching your
CPA goal
3. Make sure CPA goal
doesn’t minimize the
volume
4. Use high max CPT bid &
CPA goal
5. Drastically lower CPA
when keywords are
underperforming
6. Test different CPA
goals
98. Bid change for
Keyword 1
Time
Keyword 1
= (B - A) - (D - C)
Impact of bid
change
A
B
Keyword 2
C
D
Impressions
Assumption:
Keywords have to follow a
common trend before the
bid change
Assumption
99. Bid increase for
Keyword 1 from €3
to €5
100
105
30
5
Impact of bid change from €3 to €5:
= (30 - 5) - (105 - 100)
= 20
+ 20 impressions
Time
100. Pg. 100
>> Bid automation
Increase/Decrease bids based on CPA over period since the last bid change:
bid(cpa_high = 5, cpa_low = 1, curr = 'USD', change = 0.1)
Maximizing monetary profit subject to budget constraints:
find optimal keyword-bid pairs
102. Moritz Daan
Co-Founder &
Partner
Sirid Krüger
Marketing
Manager
Michael Shubin
ASO Evangelist
André Ziller
Online Marketing
Manager
Teo Ivanov
Head of User
Acquisition