Apple Ads practice: Bidding

Once you started your campaign and got some installs, it's time to adjust your bids. There are two main metrics to consider when doing it: Impression Share and ROAS.

If you don't use third-party services, you can get impression share from Apple Ads dashboard under Insights -> Custom Reports -> Daily Impression Share. It is provided as an Excel file, which is not very convenient, but usable.

To track your income, you will need to use an attribution service (MMP). In ASATools we display both impression share and LTV/ROAS in the same report.

In this screenshot you can see CPT bid (editable), CPT, CPA, LTV (avg proceeds per download), as well as impression share (IS), last 7 days impression share (7d IS), and ROAS at one place. With this data you can adjust your bids to maximize impression share while keeping ROAS in positive.

When adjusting CPT bids, think in terms of increasing or decreasing them rather than focusing on their absolute values. As you can see on the screenshot, I have keywords with CPT bid $0.50 and avg CPT $0.25.

It is quite common for Apple Ads to have no impressions with CPT bid $1.00, but after raising it to $1.50 you may start receiving taps at a $0.60 CPT. The reverse can also happen: if your CPT bid is $1.50 and CPT is $0.60, you may stop receiving impressions when your set CPT bid to a $1.00.

Also, sometimes lowering your CPT bid when you have 90% Impression Share can reduce your CPT without loosing impressions. It all depends on your competitors activity and should be tested.

For low-medium traffic keywords you can leave the bids as they are if your ROAS is positive. For high traffic keywords, try lowering the bids, and check whether you impression share stays at the same level.

If your keywords generates good revenue but the CPT is too high, you can use Custom Product Pages to reduce your spend. Apple Ads use eCPT, meaning that your TTR affects the final price you pay per tap. The better your conversions are, the less you'll pay for the ads.