Paid user acquisition
Coverage for Apple Search Ads, Google App Campaigns, paid social, and DSP-style performance acquisition - with a focus on what changes outcomes (not just tactics).
Apple Search Ads guide
Structure, bidding, creative, and incrementality - without hype.
Google App Campaigns
Setup, creative assembly, measurement, and what to watch for.
Latest posts
Read the newest briefings and weekly roundups.
Paid UA posts
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PPC Land: ChatGPT Ads now supports app attribution via AppsFlyer and Adjust (7 markets)
OpenAI has added AppsFlyer and Adjust integrations to ChatGPT Ads, giving app advertisers install and in-app event attribution in the US, CA, AU, NZ, UK, JP and KR. The practical change: ChatGPT Ads becomes testable like other performance channels, without custom plumbing.
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ConsultMyApp: For Apple Ads share of voice, the top 2 ads are not the market (track the top 50)
ConsultMyApp argues that ‘screenshot-level’ Apple Ads monitoring (just the visible 1-2 ads) systematically misreads competitive pressure. Their case is simple: the auction stack is dynamic, lower positions can still deliver impressions, and pushing the unseen tail onto the visible leaders overstates who is really winning.
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Apple Ads share of voice: why you need the top 50 auction positions (ConsultMyApp)
A credited summary of ConsultMyApp’s argument (and data) that screenshot-based SoV is not market share. The ‘tail’ from auction ranks 3 to 50 is small per app, but big in aggregate, and it is where competitive moves show up first.
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Apple Ads terms quietly expand the definition of where Apple can run ads
A credited summary of PPC Land’s analysis of Apple’s updated Advertising Services Terms, which removes explicit ‘Apple-owned surfaces’ language from the placement definition. The practical takeaway: treat this as a legal precondition for expansion, and audit your measurement and creative assumptions now.
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Apple Ads guide (2026): placements, structure, and what the costs really look like (SplitMetrics)
A long, benchmark-heavy guide to Apple Ads (formerly Apple Search Ads). The useful bits: four placements behave differently, multiple search ad slots are now normal, and category economics vary wildly.
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Apple Ads: a subtle Terms change that could hint at third-party inventory (Mobile Dev Memo)
Eric Seufert spots updated Apple Advertising Terms language that appears to grant Apple latitude to place Apple Ads beyond Apple-owned surfaces. If true, it raises a big follow-on question: what does attribution look like when Apple Ads is not just on Apple inventory?
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Apple Ads publishes Maps + News/Stocks policies (July 2026): what’s actually prohibited
Apple’s Advertising Services policies for News/Stocks, Maps, and Sports Programming read like ‘App Store rules, but for ads’. The practical angle: copy quality, substantiation, UI-mimic bans, and a surprisingly specific Maps category exclusion list.
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VAR vs own goal: why short, event-led keywords break App Store search (ConsultMyApp)
A quick, funny APPlyzer snapshot that makes a real point: ambiguous acronyms (VAR) can send both organic results and Apple Ads targeting into the weeds.
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VAR searches in Apple Search Ads: why ambiguous acronyms break targeting (ConsultMyApp)
A credited summary of ConsultMyApp’s small-but-useful case study: in the US App Store, ‘VAR’ demand is real, but the term is ambiguous enough that Apple Search Ads can serve weather apps and a Wi‑Fi analyser. The fix is simple: add context (e.g. ‘football VAR’), then build keywords and negatives around the clearer intent.
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App Store Marketing Weekly – Week 25 (2026)
This week’s theme: permission UX and auction UX are both funnel surfaces now. If you treat policies as paperwork and ads as ‘just bids’, you ship friction you cannot measure until reviews or CPCs punish you.
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US streaming App Store search wars: why ‘TV streaming’ is the clean front door (ConsultMyApp)
A skimmable summary of ConsultMyApp’s US streaming keyword + Apple Ads stack analysis, including where intent is clean vs chaotic (free movies, sports, kids, and anime).
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US streaming App Store search is not one market, it’s a pile of intents (ConsultMyApp)
A skimmable summary of ConsultMyApp’s ASA/organic keyword analysis for US streaming searches, where ‘TV streaming’ is clean, but sports, free, and device-utility terms are chaos.
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Apple Ads is adding Creative Assets for Today tab and Search Results ads (fall 2026): what changes for creative workflow
Apple Ads says advertisers will be able to upload their own images and videos as ‘Creative Assets’ for Today tab and Search Results ads. It shifts the constraint from ‘use your product page screenshots’ to ‘design an ad on purpose’, and that will change testing cadence, approvals, and how you map intent to landing experiences.
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ConsultMyApp: UK retail App Store search wars (AliExpress owns the front door, Very shows up everywhere)
A credited summary of ConsultMyApp’s UK retail Apple Ads analysis across generic, non-brand shopping intent. The big point: ‘retail app’ is basically irrelevant, intent clusters behave wildly differently, and the winners are the ones who understand where the auction is actually retail-relevant.
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UK retail Apple Ads: the App Store search wars (whitepaper + key takeaways)
A quick, skimmable summary of ConsultMyApp’s UK retail Apple Ads whitepaper, with the charts, the ‘intent not category’ lesson, and a simple workflow you can steal.
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ConsultMyApp: UK finance Apple Ads winners (Monzo leads banking, investing dominates ISA intent)
A credited summary of ConsultMyApp’s Apple Search Ads benchmark across 40 UK finance keywords. The key takeaway: ‘Finance’ is a bundle of intent pools, and paid share-of-voice can diverge sharply from organic rankings (Starling vs Monzo/Zopa is the clearest example).
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Mother’s Day Apple Search Ads (US, iOS): who bought the moment, and what their creatives reveal
APPlyzer-backed Mother’s Day snapshot for the US App Store: the organic winners across cards and photo intent, the Apple Search Ads advertisers who showed up on peak seasonal queries, and the Custom Product Page patterns that worked.
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Mental health is no longer a rising tide category, it is an intent-matching game (and CPPs are the lever)
ConsultMyApp argues that US iPhone demand proxies for several core mental health terms have softened since 2024, while Apple Search Ads competition remains intense. The practical response is tighter intent segmentation and Custom Product Pages that prove the right thing after the tap.
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App ratings as a growth lever: what a 4.0★ vs 4.8★ signals (ConsultMyApp)
A credited summary of ConsultMyApp’s analysis of 17k+ US App Store apps: ratings behave less like a vanity metric and more like a qualifying condition for top chart positions, plus a conversion lever for paid. The practical takeaway is simple: treat rating work like acquisition work (prompt timing, issue triage, review mining), not an afterthought.
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A primetime TV mention is mostly a brand-demand event (and you can measure it)
ConsultMyApp uses MarineTraffic’s Late Show mention as a clean ‘outside-in’ experiment: downloads jumped ~57%, rankings moved fast, and the biggest lift showed up in branded search, not generic category demand.
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Apple Maps search ads are reportedly coming: what it means for app teams (and everyone fighting for intent)
A Bloomberg report via 9to5Mac says Apple is preparing to add paid placements to Apple Maps search results, letting businesses bid on queries. It’s another signal that ‘Apple Ads’ is becoming an ecosystem, not just an App Store channel.
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How Apple Ads auctions actually work: relevance gates, then bids reshuffle (ConsultMyApp)
A skimmable summary of ConsultMyApp’s Apple Ads auction analysis: semantic relevance seems to gate eligibility, but bid and predicted performance do most of the ordering once you are in.
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What is an app marketing agency (in 2026 terms), and what should it actually do?
A solid reminder that the best ‘app marketing’ isn’t installs-only. It’s a joined-up system across storefront discovery, onboarding, lifecycle CRM, creative testing, and analytics.
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How the Apple Ads auction actually works (hint: relevance gates, then bid + predicted performance)
ConsultMyApp analysed a real UK Apple Ads auction dataset and found semantic relevance isn’t the whole story. This summary captures the practical takeaway: treat exact/broad/search match as different eligibility gates, then manage Search Terms like a safety system.
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Apple just created a new App Store ad slot. Here are the dating apps already winning it
Apple is testing a new UK Apple Ads placement under the #1 organic result. APPlyzer data shows which dating apps are already winning auction position #2, and which could benefit in the US next.
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ChatGPT vs Gemini in the App Store: what their ASO + Apple Ads battle teaches
ConsultMyApp uses an iOS US snapshot to show how ChatGPT and Google Gemini conquest each other’s brand terms, and why the top-5 Apple Ads stack matters.
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App Store Marketing Weekly – Week 10 (2026)
This week’s highest-signal App Store + Google Play moves, plus what to do next (age assurance, ads, and release-risk).
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Apple Ads search results are expanding: two ads per query (and what to check first)
AppTweak reports Apple is expanding Apple Ads placements within App Store search results, allowing up to two ads for a query. That raises competition on high-intent keywords and makes brand defence, CPP alignment, and budget monitoring more important.
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APPlyzer hits 100,000+ users: what it signals about app marketing data
A credited summary of Business of Apps’ piece on APPlyzer passing 100k users, and what the ‘free tier + auction stack visibility’ positioning suggests for teams choosing competitive intel tooling in 2026.
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Google Ads budget pacing is changing for ad-scheduled campaigns (and it can double spend)
Google will pace budgets to the full 30.4x monthly limit even when campaigns only run on scheduled days. If you use ad scheduling as a guardrail (like weekends-only), expect spend to jump unless you adjust daily budgets.
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App Store Marketing Weekly – Week 09 (2026)
This week’s highest-signal App Store and Google Play moves, plus what to do next (ads, CPPs, policy, and measurement).
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Google App Campaigns in 2026: what changed, what’s still a black box, and how to win anyway
Adapty’s 2026 Google App Campaigns playbook: what’s new (Web→App Connect, Shorts, AAK), how to structure campaigns, and the tracking/creative rules that actually move results.
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Apple Ads: the ‘stability’ playbook is relevance + control, not automation
Business of Apps’ recap of Viktor Orlov’s Apple Ads talk: why structure and control beat ‘smart bidding’, why IPM is the hidden scaling wall, and how Custom Product Pages turn relevance into lower CPIs.
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APPlyzer 26 launches with expanded Apple Ads auction visibility
Business of Apps’ write-up on ConsultMyApp’s APPlyzer 26 release: what’s new (top-5 auction visibility, CPP/IAE tracking, market intel) and how to interpret it.
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App Store Marketing Weekly – Week 07 (2026)
The week’s highest-signal ASO + Apple Ads updates, with what it changes for app marketers.
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Apple Ads: additional search results ad placements roll out in March 2026
Apple is adding more Search Results ad slots in March 2026. What changes operationally, and what app marketers should do next (creative, CPPs, negatives, and measurement).
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Apple Search Ads in 2026: a practical playbook (structure, bidding, and incrementality)
A no-fluff guide to setting up Apple Search Ads for control and learning: campaign structure, keyword strategy, bid loops, and how to avoid paying for installs you would have earned organically.
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Your screenshots are the funnel (not the decoration): 10 practical ways to make them convert
ConsultMyApp’s checklist is a good gut-punch for anyone treating screenshots as a design task. The punchline: your first three frames have to confirm intent fast, and CPP/CSL variants exist so you do not explain everything to everyone.
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2026 mobile app marketing trends: creative systems beat ‘more traffic’
Mobidictum’s write-up of SocialPeta/AdChampagne’s 2026 mobile app marketing trends: fewer advertisers, heavier creative output, and why creative capability is becoming the moat.
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Apple Ads in 2026: why March’s extra search slots will reset your benchmarks
MobileAction’s view on Apple Ads’ March 2026 search results expansion: what changes, what won’t, and the measurement guardrails to put in place before your baselines drift.
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Custom Product Pages for global expansion: 6 practical plays
MobileAction’s guide to using Apple Custom Product Pages for localization, seasonal relevance, Apple Ads message match, and testing.
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EU DMA: Apple Ads and Apple Maps will not be designated (for now)
The European Commission decided Apple Ads and Apple Maps won’t be designated under the Digital Markets Act. What that means (and what it doesn’t) for app teams operating in the EU.
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Promotional text is a fast conversion lever on iOS (and it can support Apple Ads)
Gummicube’s reminder that iOS promotional text is prime messaging real estate: 170 characters, editable without an app update, and useful for conversion momentum and campaign alignment.
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How to win ASO during big events: micro-peaks + message match
AppTweak’s sports-event playbook: why event demand spikes in micro-peaks and how to align ASO + Apple Ads + CPPs.
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ASO news recap (Jan 2026): more Apple Ads inventory + Gemini ‘Ask Play’
AppTweak’s January 2026 ASO updates: expanded App Store search ads inventory, Google Play’s Ask Play, and new store assets.
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Google Gemini’s Apple Search Ads ‘blanket coverage’ in Dec 2025 - key takeaways
A short, practical summary of ConsultMyApp’s Apple Search Ads data deep dive on Gemini’s unusually broad coverage (and what app marketers can learn from it).
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Preparing for Apple Ads’ extra Search Results placements: what to watch, what to tighten
ConsultMyApp’s take on the March 2026 Apple Ads Search Results expansion, with a practical checklist for avoiding surprise CPI spikes as more inventory goes live.
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Apple will show more ads in App Store search results from March 3
MacRumors’ report on Apple expanding App Store search ads: phased rollout, multiple positions in search results, and what advertisers can (and can’t) control.
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App Store search results are getting more ads in March 2026 - what changes for ASO & Apple Ads
A short summary of 9to5Mac’s report on Apple expanding search-result ad placements beyond the #1 slot, and what app marketers should watch.
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How to spot high-impact Custom Product Page opportunities
ConsultMyApp’s CPP framework: attention vs intention, keyword eligibility gates, and a practical way to choose which CPPs are worth building (organic + Apple Ads).
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High-impact Custom Product Pages: decide if you’re matching intention or stealing attention (ConsultMyApp)
A skimmable summary of ConsultMyApp’s CPP playbook: CPPs are not ‘more creatives’, they are intent-specific entry points with a clear go/no-go gate (keyword eligibility).
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Yodel’s ASO lifecycle playbook: intent-led keywords, creative differentiation, and expansion
A short summary of Yodel Mobile’s 2026 ASO playbook: build keyword strategy around intent, use clear metadata frameworks, improve creatives, and scale via localisation plus CPP/CSL variants.
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Apple Ads automation in 2026: what to automate (and what not to)
AppTweak’s Apple Ads automation guide: where automation helps first, and the guardrails to keep it from scaling mistakes.
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Apple Ads tools in 2026: what features actually matter
AppTweak’s buyer’s guide to Apple Ads tools: what to evaluate (intel, CPP tracking, benchmarks, reporting) and how to choose.
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Apple Search Ads in 2026: placements, setup, and what to optimize first
AppTweak’s 2026 Apple Search Ads guide, focusing on practical levers: intent, structure, CPP alignment, and measurement.
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Apple will add more search ads in App Store search results (2026 rollout)
Search Engine Land reports Apple will add additional inline ad placements inside search results in 2026, with relevance gating who even enters the auction, not just bid size.