How discovery and brand share the auction

Why four campaigns#

Apple Ads rewards clear intent separation, so run brand, category, competitor and discovery as four distinct campaigns with their own budgets and goals. Brand captures exact names of your app and studio, category covers generic need terms, competitor covers rival app names in your niche, and discovery explores broad match plus Search Match for new ideas. Apple Search Ads became Apple Ads in April 2025 as inventory grew beyond search, and this four part structure still organises every placement cleanly. Read Apple best practices for campaign structure alongside our Apple Ads hub for the family view.

Separation keeps reporting honest because blended campaigns hide which intent pays. Brand usually shows high tap through rate and low cost per tap, while discovery shows lower rates but brings new users who never typed your name. Start from the brand category competitor guide to define each intent, then mirror the split in every market you serve. Our account structure guide shows how campaign groups hold the four types together.

Brand defence first#

Brand is your cheapest defence: bid on exact match variants of your app name, studio name and flagship feature names so rival apps cannot take your demand unchallenged. Keep brand bids measured rather than maximal, because relevance is naturally high and overbidding only inflates the price you pay for users who sought you out. Use exact match discipline for brand terms and add negatives that block generic spill into the brand campaign. Practitioner shorthand ASA remains common in reports, so label campaigns clearly for colleagues.

Hold brand cost per tap below category cost per tap as a health rule, and review search term reports weekly for new misspellings and localised variants to add. Where brand volume is small, a single ad group suffices; where it is large, split by language or market. Ask our team for a brand audit when rival coverage appears on your own name.

Discovery that finds#

Discovery exists to surface terms you would never have chosen, using broad match and Search Match in low bid ad groups with tight daily caps. Keep bids modest, budgets contained, and expectations focused on learning rather than volume. There are exactly four App Store placements (Today tab, Search tab, search results, product pages under You Might Also Like), and discovery learnings from search results transfer well to product page behaviour. See Apple success stories showing discovery growth for realistic pacing.

Run discovery per market and language rather than as one global catch all, because localised intent differs sharply. Pair discovery with the Search Match guide for match controls and the broad match guide for bid starting points. Harvest on a fixed weekday so learning compounds.

Harvest rules weekly#

Harvest turns discovery into growth: each week promote proven search terms into exact match ad groups in category or competitor campaigns, then negate them in discovery so spend does not compete with itself. A term with repeated taps, solid conversion and acceptable cost per acquisition earns promotion; a term with taps and no installs earns negation. Our keyword harvesting guide sets thresholds, while the negative keywords guide keeps the split clean.

Log every move with date, term, destination and reason, because harvest history explains performance shifts months later. Aim to graduate a small set of winners weekly rather than bulk moves monthly; steady harvest keeps relevance high. Advanced supports 5,000 keywords and 5,000 negatives per ad group, so structure has room to grow.

Budgets and bids#

Weight budgets by intent value: brand smallest for its volume, category largest for scale, competitor contained for testing, discovery fixed as a learning levy. A common starting split is brand 10 per cent, category 50 per cent, competitor 15 per cent, discovery 25 per cent, tuned after four weeks of cost per acquisition data. Advanced uses CPT billing with a monthly ceiling of daily budget multiplied by 30.4, so monthly planning stays predictable. Our budget maths guide models the ceiling.

Bid highest where intent is clearest (brand exact), mid where competition is open (category exact), and lowest where learning leads (discovery broad). Revisit shares when tap through rate or conversion shifts, not on hunches. The max CPT guide sets bid tiers that respect each intent.

Frequently asked questions#