This week, Business Insider reported that Apple is testing AI-powered buying functionality for App Store ad campaigns. The tool is similar in approach to Google’s Performance Max and Meta’s Advantage+ solutions, and is being tested with a small group of advertisers and will automate the placement of ads within the App Store.
Julie Gaylord, Senior Manager of Search and Social at M&C Saatchi Performance, provided her perspective on the potential of this new tool.
“Similar to Facebook’s Advantage+, this new Apple AI feature will function as a buying tool to assist advertisers in serving their content to the most relevant users. This initiative epitomizes the leap big companies such as Amazon, Google, and Facebook are making to incorporate AI into their platforms.”
She continues; “Previously, advertisers would have to set up separate campaigns to test the effectiveness of Apple Search Ads placements, causing them to invest large budgets to gain placement-level learnings. This tool eliminates the need for this breakout, allowing advertisers to pool their investment and allow Apple to decide where to serve on their behalf, boosting efficiency in the long term. This can also be seen as a positive for Apple’s ad business to reduce the friction for new advertisers to begin spending on the platform without committing to a specific strategy.
This change reflects the continued push for advertisers to have less of a hand in the platform levers they pull manually and instead push them to rely more heavily on the automated tools that the platforms provide. We see this in other platforms such as Facebook and Google, where broad audiences consistently drive the most efficient performance. This allows the platform’s algorithm to take the reins and find the best possible user at the right time.
What does this mean for advertisers?
- Stay in the know: Understand these new features and how they can assist or affect your strategy.
- Test, learn, and iterate: Conduct thorough testing to gauge the effectiveness of these new AI features compared to campaign benchmarks.
Given Apple’s wide scope and ownership of other built-in iOS Apps, it will be interesting to see how these placements could expand. There could be an opportunity to provide advertisers with more ad placements to test potential efficiencies.
If you have any questions about Apple Search Ads, contact us so we can help your brand grow.
Further Reading
Making App Store Optimization and Apple Search Ads work together
