Apple Search Ads

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by Xaron, Dec 12, 2016.

  1. Xaron

    Xaron Well-Known Member

    Oct 16, 2013
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    Dear all, I haven't found a topic about this but has anyone of you ever tried the pretty new Search Ads from Apple? Have you had success? Did it completely fail for you? Atm you still get a $100 voucher when you sign up so I did and will see what the outcome will be for our submarine simulation game.

    I already have some numbers but they are currently still too few to have some significance.

    Cheers!
     
  2. Xaron

    Xaron Well-Known Member

    Oct 16, 2013
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    #2 Xaron, Dec 20, 2016
    Last edited: Dec 20, 2016
    Ok, no one interested in this? So far I'm pretty satisfied with the results. I have search ads running for about 10 days now for a $7.99 game:

    [​IMG]

    So I spent €54.49 to create 30 sales for €7.99 each.
     
  3. alex_p

    alex_p Well-Known Member

    Is this new the search ads? Sounds worth looking into!
     
  4. Xaron

    Xaron Well-Known Member

    Oct 16, 2013
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    I think Apple introduced this in August or September this year, so yes, this is pretty new:

    http://searchads.apple.com/

    Plus you get a $100 code when you signup now, still valid till end of this year.
     
  5. alex_p

    alex_p Well-Known Member

    Perfect thanks - can confirm the $100 code is still given out!
     
  6. rasterzone

    rasterzone Active Member

    Aug 2, 2016
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    Software Engineer
    Michigan, U.S.
    Thanks for sharing!

    I just signed up today. I'm gonna start with 2 cents for CPT and see how it goes.

    --
    Alan Scarantino
    Founder, Rasterzone Entertainment
    http://GalleryHero.com
     
  7. alex_p

    alex_p Well-Known Member

    Good shout, I went in low as well at $0.10 for my $1.49 game so far... 3 impressions in about 12 hours...

    Does it mean I'm bidding too low?
     
  8. Xaron

    Xaron Well-Known Member

    Oct 16, 2013
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    Hard to say, I use $0.20. I think much more important are the keywords you use. The more generic the more unlikely that you will get impressions and taps because then you are in the same boat with others who have the same keywords.
     
  9. alex_p

    alex_p Well-Known Member

    Thanks for the tips - I guess it's about experimenting and trying to find a sweet spot. Thing is, developers already pay 30% cut to the platform and then if you factor in ads, tax etc it leaves a very tight profit margin.
     
  10. Xaron

    Xaron Well-Known Member

    Oct 16, 2013
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    Here's an update for the last 3 months from my side. Still using search ads. Working great for me:

    [​IMG]
     
  11. g8minhquan

    g8minhquan New Member

    Mar 18, 2017
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    Thanks for sharing. Your results look great.
    I tried signing up for this but it threw an error when I filled my billing details and applied the promo code.
    Will try with a different credit card
     
  12. SleepyMousegame

    SleepyMousegame Well-Known Member

    Jul 14, 2016
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    French Polisher
    London, UK
    Thanks for sharing. I'm going to give this a go now. Will post back if I get some results
     
  13. SleepyMousegame

    SleepyMousegame Well-Known Member

    Jul 14, 2016
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    French Polisher
    London, UK
    Has anyone successfully set this up using a UK credit card? I keep getting an error to try again later.
     
  14. SleepyMousegame

    SleepyMousegame Well-Known Member

    Jul 14, 2016
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    French Polisher
    London, UK
    I've just got my card working now. I had to wait 24hrs before trying a new card.
     
  15. Esqarrouth

    Esqarrouth Well-Known Member

    Oct 13, 2016
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    6
    18
    Dev
    Land of Stone
    http://prnt.sc/eqsdy4

    Didn't work very well for me. My game is $1.

    Ignore the stats for "last". I had limited time to waste the funds so I didn't do any targeting there.

    Also should mention that this was made before I did any work on the ASO. So that probably kind of explains the bad numbers.
     
  16. Happybyte

    Happybyte Well-Known Member
    Patreon Silver

    Mar 1, 2011
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    Used it for some time - spent a few thousand dollars.

    Doesn't seem a good thing in my case.

    1) most of conversions happened were conversion from search phrases that did include my app name, so was actually nearly pointless

    2) felt nearly impossible to scale, as volumes were not growing, despite setting much higher budgets/bids

    Conclusion:

    Cons:
    Bad for apps that are already optimized for search.
    You start paying for your organic conversions.
    Competitors steal your keyword traffic.

    Pros:
    If your app is not optimized for search.
    You can steal search traffic from competitors.
    Obviously, not a good thing, but money don't stink, are they?

    So it works for some apps, but doesn't work for others - Only a test can prove.

    In my case it worked badly for an already optimized app.
    Rising budgets didn't help to scale up.
    I paid for my organic downloads.
    On an unoptimized app it worked well.
    But again it was not possible to scale to production volumes.
     
  17. neilsarkar

    neilsarkar Member
    Patreon Silver

    Apr 9, 2017
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    Founder at Super Serious Company
    Baleal, Portugal
    whoa, those are some great results. we used our $100 credit on a previous app and it didn't do much, although granted that app sucked. this is inspiring me to look back into Apple Search Ads for our current game. will post back with results!

    also, out of curiousity, did you use popular keywords or sparse but targeted ones or a combination of both?
     
  18. Cinnabar

    Cinnabar Member

    Feb 24, 2015
    6
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    indie game dev.
    The Hague, NL
    Thank you, that is just what I needed to know!
     

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