Key workshop takeaways from App Promotion Summit London
To truly scale when investing in Apple Search Ads as part of your iOS digital marketing mix, developing an effective strategy must take priority over mere tactics. A clear strategic framework to guide spend on Apple’s search network maximizes budget impact and connects you with more high-value customers. Approach your Apple Search Ads opportunity by defining clear goals, ideal audience, and success metrics. Let insights drive keyword selection and various ad placement testing. Discover how leveraging advanced automation can transform your approach, allowing you to go beyond simple, manual adjustments and implement effective and efficient methods on a large scale. Maintaining such a strategic focus ensures that you make the most of your investment on the platform.
Speaking at APS London
At App Promotion Summit (APS) London, Hamilton Radcliffe, General Manager of Search Ads Maven by Kochava, led a workshop session discussing common challenges and ways to succeed on Apple Search Ads. He presented several scenarios where potent strategies can help marketers optimize spend, highlighting the power of automation offered by Search Ads Maven.
Want to watch the whole session? Check out the full video here.
Engaging Audience Conversation on Challenges
Throughout the session, engaging discussion with the audience clarified shared challenges, many of which Radcliffe shared from a poll of attendees during a recent Search Ads Maven webinar.
One of the key challenges is the manual effort required to manage campaigns effectively. From setting up keywords to optimizing on post-install events, a significant amount of work is involved in ensuring that campaigns perform at their best. Radcliffe highlighted the importance of finding ways to streamline these processes and make them more efficient. This often necessitates employing automation.
Another common issue encountered by marketers is difficulty in scaling campaigns once they achieve a certain level of success. It can be challenging to maintain performance while increasing spend, expanding to more keywords, and reaching a larger audience across more countries and regions. Radcliffe emphasized the need for automation strategies that allow for scalability without sacrificing performance.
The complexity of the Apple Search Ads platform itself is also cited as a hurdle. With a wide range of targeting options and optimization settings, it can be overwhelming to navigate and make informed decisions about campaign management. Radcliffe suggested that having a clear strategy in place can help marketers cut through the noise and focus on what really matters for their campaigns.
Key Takeaways Across Three Scenarios
Radcliffe unpacked three scenarios based on work he has done with clients. Here are quick takeaways from these scenarios:
Scenario 1: Automating “Other” Ad Placements
Automating bids for additional placements (today/featured/product pages) can maximize impressions and lower your cost per acquisition (CPA). Dynamic bidding based on daily spend and performance can improve cost per goal and increase impressions.
Watch Radcliffe unpack scenario 1
Scenario 2: Quickly Pausing Underperforming Keywords
Application of the Bernoulli trial, a math equation, to automatically pause underperforming keywords before significant spend accrues, prevents wasted spend. Deploying this equation efficiently pauses keywords that aren’t delivering conversions, saving both time and resources. While this calculation can be done manually, it can also be automated through a tool such as Search Ads Maven.
Watch Radcliffe unpack scenario 2
Scenario 3: Manual Daily Budget Adjusting
Manually adjusting daily budgets is a significant pain for any Apple Search Ads marketer who is juggling a lot of campaigns. There are ways to automate daily budget adjustments using a linear relationship between return on ad spend (ROAS) and daily cap to optimize campaign performance. In testing done by Radcliffe and the Search Ads Maven team, this linear model has improved overall campaign efficiency up to 22.4% by automatically adjusting budgets based on recent ROAS.
Watch Radcliffe unpack scenario 3
Automation and Strategic Thinking for Apple Search Ads
In conclusion, the overall theme is leveraging automation and strategic thinking to overcome the manual, time-intensive nature of effectively managing ASA campaigns at scale. By focusing on strategies rather than tactics, marketers can achieve better results and drive more value from their campaigns. With the right tools and approach, marketers can overcome the challenges of managing Apple Search Ads and unlock the full potential of this powerful advertising channel.
To learn more about Search Ads Maven, contact Radcliffe and the team here.
Watch the full APS London session