Insights from Dilip Reddy on brand defense, ROAS, and scaling for Apple Search Ads

App Store Optimization (ASO) is an important part of successfully marketing your subscription app. Not only do you need an attractive listing that makes your app stand out on the app stores, but you also need to ensure that users discover your app — instead of your competitor’s — when they’re searching for certain keywords.

Dilip Reddy is a data engineer and expert on Apple Search Ads. Founder of Search Ads Optimization, Dilip helps app developers and marketers optimize their Apple Search Ads campaigns and increase their ROI using data-driven insights and automation. This week, Dilip joined us on the Sub Club Podcast and shared his advice for getting the most out of Apple Search Ads.

Run brand defense

One of the most important aspects of an optimized search ads strategy is defending your brand’s keywords from competitors. After all, if your competitors snap up traffic related to search terms that are relevant for your app, you could lose out on valuable future customers.

But that doesn’t mean you need to go all-out on bids for every single keyword. On the contrary, Dilip recommends experimenting with lower bids to reduce costs while maintaining visibility for your brand. Capturing traffic more efficiently like this allows you to both reduce ad spend and increase revenue by capturing potential subscribers with high LTV.

Use broad match keywords

There are two types of keywords in Apple Search Ads: broad search and exact match. Exact match is like it sounds — you specify particular keywords that you want to rank for. But with broad search, you can capture additional high-intent keywords that you may not have considered before. As Dilip points out, “An added benefit for these keywords is that they’re so dynamic. They change every week. They may be low in popularity. So your competitors may not be bidding.”

Take advantage of new markets

Apple is constantly expanding into new geographies, which opens up new audiences and growth opportunities for subscription apps. This year, Apple added support for Brazil and six other countries in Latin America, and Dilip thinks apps can take advantage. “I’m noticing the trend of adding as many as countries as possible, because if you think about it, there’s only like five or six localizations that [you need]. For example, with Spanish, you can [reach] … most of Latin America with the same kinds of keywords.” These new markets generally have less competition and lower CPA — a ripe opportunity for acquiring new users in a cost-effective way.

Getting started

If you’re new to Apple Search Ads, it can seem a little overwhelming. Selecting the right keywords, dialing in your bids, monitoring your results and making adjustments as needed… there’s a lot to think about! But Dilip has some advice for apps that are just getting started: “Use Apple Search Ads as customer discovery. You don’t have to spend a daily budget of  hundreds of dollars. You can get five or six installs a day spending $10 or $20. But [take that data], and use it to target high-intent users and improve your app.”