Apple announces the introduction of new Apple Search Ads territories bringing the total to 59 territories.
Apple has expanded the number of Storefronts eligible for Apple Search Ads from 13 to 59 and you need to move quick to maximise your reach while costs are competitive. Don’t spend hours optimising CPT Bids and budget allocation for up to 59 territories, this is exactly what the Blackbox Platform was built to handle.
It wasn’t too long ago when Apple Search Ads was only an advertising option in the United States Storefront. The advertising platform cautiously expanded into the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand six months after its original launch in October 2016. The next releases followed a similar pattern of a handful of territories roughly every half a year.
The last release was in August 2018 and this saw the total of eligible Apple Search Ads Storefronts reach 13. Given the previous release pattern, we were overdue a new release of Storefronts - until yesterday. Apple has made up for the delay in releasing new Storefronts by expanding to 46 new territories.
The total list of 59 territories available for Apple Search Ads are as follows:
- 🇦🇱 Albania - AL
- 🇦🇷 Argentina - AR
- 🇦🇺 Australia - AU
- 🇦🇹 Austria - AT
- 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan - AZ
- 🇧🇪 Belgium - BE
- 🇰🇭 Cambodia - KH
- 🇨🇦 Canada - CA
- 🇨🇱 Chile - CL
- 🇨🇴 Colombia - CO
- 🇭🇷 Croatia - HR
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic - CZ
- 🇩🇰 Denmark - DK
- 🇪🇨 Ecuador - EC
- 🇪🇬 Egypt - EG
- 🇫🇮 Finland - FI
- 🇫🇷 France - FR
- 🇩🇪 Germany - DE
- 🇬🇷 Greece - GR
- 🇭🇰 Hong Kong - HK
- 🇭🇺 Hungary - HU
- 🇮🇳 India - IN
- 🇮🇩 Indonesia - ID
- 🇮🇪 Ireland - IE
- 🇮🇱 Israel - IL
- 🇮🇹 Italy - IT
- 🇯🇵 Japan - JP
- 🇯🇴 Jordan - JO
- 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan - KZ
- 🇰🇼 Kuwait - KW
- 🇱🇧 Lebanon - LB
- 🇲🇴 Macao - MO
- 🇲🇾 Malaysia - MY
- 🇲🇽 Mexico - MX
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands - NL
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand - NZ
- 🇳🇴 Norway - NO
- 🇴🇲 Oman - OM
- 🇵🇰 Pakistan - PK
- 🇵🇪 Peru - PE
- 🇵🇭 Philippines - PH
- 🇵🇱 Poland - PL
- 🇵🇹 Portugal - PT
- 🇶🇦 Qatar - QA
- 🇷🇴 Romania - RO
- 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia - SA
- 🇸🇬 Singapore - SG
- 🇿🇦 South Africa - ZA
- 🇰🇷 South Korea - KR
- 🇪🇸 Spain - ES
- 🇸🇪 Sweden - SE
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland - CH
- 🇹🇼 Taiwan - TW
- 🇹🇭 Thailand - TH
- 🇺🇦 Ukraine - UA
- 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates - AE
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom - GB
- 🇺🇸 United States - US
- 🇻🇳 Vietnam - VN
Why should I care?
The expansion means that you have the opportunity to promote your app almost globally to users who are actively searching for an app. The estimated half a billion iPhone users in the 59 supported territories will be shown ads at the top of the search results in the App Store. This demographic is a salient audience to target given the users’ intent to search for an app; and this has been shown by Apple Search Ads’s strong average conversion rate of tap to download of 50%.
Apple Search Ads allows app advertisers to boost their app to the top of the search results, which is an invaluable way of increasing the discoverability of your app in the iOS App Store. The App Store is saturated with an estimated 2 million apps, and improving your organic ranking through an App Store Optimisation strategy can be slow. The Search Ads algorithm determines which app to show and the cost of a tap based on what your nearest competitors are willing to pay for the search term. This means that to take full advantage of the new territories, you need to do it before your competitors do. And, don’t just trust Apple on this, we have seen this routinely happen with Storefront releases.
The algorithm also factors in how relevant your app is for that search term; resulting in an ad that isn’t intrusive to expectations of the user. This is also reflected in the styling of the ad, with only a blue background and ‘Ad’ logo to differentiate it from the other search results.
What do I do now?
First mover advantage is within grasp right now so, don’t delay creating your campaigns. We recommend taking advantage of the second version of the Apple Search Ads Campaign Management API or use a programmatic platform that does the day-to-day management on your behalf.
Instead of spending valuable time managing your budget and optimising Cost Per Tap Bids for up 59 territories (!), focus more on the progression of your app’s functionality.
Click here to see how you can get more app downloads from Apple Search Ads across the 59 territories with the Blackbox Platform, register your app today on the Blackbox Platform and receive $100 budget towards you campaign.