Apple Ads with a small budget

Yes, Apple Ads works with a small budget: you set the budget yourself, can pause at any time, and only pay for installs (Basic) or taps (Advanced). Start in App Store search results, with a few exact keywords in one country.

Apple Search Ads is now Apple Ads

In April 2025 Apple renamed Apple Search Ads to Apple Ads, because the ads now run in more places than search. You'll still see the old name in many places.

Basic or Advanced

• Basic: ads in search results only. You set a monthly budget and pay per install, at a price Apple suggests or you choose. No keywords: Apple's automation does the rest. Up to $10,000 per app per month.
• Advanced: you pay per tap and choose your own keywords. Ads can run in search results, on the Today tab, on the Search tab and on other apps' product pages. You set a daily budget per campaign, with no maximum.

Basic is the easiest start if you have little time. Advanced gives you control over every keyword and shows you which searches bring downloads.

How the daily budget works

In Advanced, your daily budget is an average. Some days it spends more, when there are more chances for downloads. Over a month, you never pay more than your daily budget times 30.4.

The four campaigns Apple suggests

• Brand: your app's name and your company name, exact match.
• Category: words that describe what your app does, exact match.
• Competitor: names of apps like yours, exact match.
• Discovery: the same words in broad match plus Search Match, to find new search terms.

Start small

1. Pick one country where your app already does well.
2. Run search results ads only. Leave the other placements for later.
3. Start with brand and a few category keywords in exact match, so you pay only for searches you chose.
4. Use Manage Bids and set a max cost per tap you're happy with. Apple's automatic Maximize Conversions needs a daily budget for at least five downloads a day, Apple says.
5. Add search terms that don't fit you as negative keywords.
6. Give it a few weeks, then keep the keywords that bring downloads and pause the rest.

Fermium100 runs your Apple Ads campaigns from the same place as your keywords, and shows what each paid keyword costs, what it brings, and which search terms turn into downloads.