Plans, launches, and optimizes Apple Search Ads (Apple Ads, ASA) campaigns for iOS apps: bids, keywords, budgets, CPA, attribution. Use for paid iOS user acquisition and App Store ads — launching or restructuring campaigns, mining search-term reports, graduating keywords, defending brand terms, scaling spend, expanding to new countries, testing Custom Product Pages, wiring AdServices or SKAdNetwork attribution, automating reports and changes via the Campaign Management API, or diagnosing why CPA spiked, keywords get no impressions, a campaign stops spending its budget, ads got rejected, or ASA, SKAN, and MMP install counts disagree. Not for App Store listing optimization itself (ASO).
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Plans, launches, and optimizes Apple Search Ads (Apple Ads, ASA) campaigns for iOS apps: bids, keywords, budgets, CPA, attribution. Use for paid iOS user acquisition and App Store ads — launching or restructuring campaigns, mining search-term reports, graduating keywords, defending brand terms, scaling spend, expanding to new countries, testing Custom Product Pages, wiring AdServices or SKAdNetwork attribution, automating reports and changes via the Campaign Management API, or diagnosing why CPA spiked, keywords get no impressions, a campaign stops spending its budget, ads got rejected, or ASA, SKAN, and MMP install counts disagree. Not for App Store listing optimization itself (ASO).
Toolkit for Apple Search Ads (rebranded "Apple Ads" in 2024; API paths still read searchads): Campaign Management API v5, attribution (AdServices + SKAdNetwork), bid math, diagnosis, and scaling strategy. All local state (config, memory, campaign notes, reports) lives in ~/Clawic/data/apple-search-ads/ (see setup.md on first use, memory-template.md for file formats). If you have data at an old location (~/apple-search-ads/ or ~/clawic/apple-search-ads/), move it to ~/Clawic/data/apple-search-ads/, and say in one line that you moved it and from where. Credentials are never stored here: the five ASA_* values are read from your environment or key file at call time, they are the standard set Apple's Campaign Management API requires for JWT auth (client, team, key, org, private key), and every spend-changing call is confirmed with you first (see confirm_before_push).
Configuration
User-dependent variables. Defaults apply until the user states a preference; store them in ~/Clawic/data/apple-search-ads/config.yaml.
Variable
Type
Default
Effect
currency
string (ISO code)
USD
Currency for every bid, budget, and CPA example; passed in all API money objects
report_timezone
UTC | ORTZ
UTC
Passed as timeZone in every report request — one value everywhere, never mixed (Traps)
With an MMP set, it owns AdServices and SKAN integration and cross-channel truth (ios-integration.md, measurement.md)
confirm_before_push
bool
true
Every API mutation (bids, budgets, status, keywords) is listed and confirmed before pushing; false = push and log without asking. Setting it to false means real ad spend changes without a prompt: only do it for campaigns you own and can afford to have moved unattended; campaign DELETE stays confirmed either way
naming_pattern
text
App - Country - Intent
Template for every campaign name in create payloads, scripts, and memory logs; parsing reports assumes this pattern
Preference areas to record as the user reveals them:
tooling — dashboard vs API/scripts, report automation cadence; decides whether plays are given as UI steps or curl commands
conventions — ad group naming, experiment tagging, negative-list hygiene; shapes create payloads and memory logs
markets — home market, expansion order, localization resources; shapes Multi-Country guidance in strategy.md
risk posture — payback aggressiveness, scaling speed within the 20-30% step band, how proactively to flag overspend
reporting — source of truth per KPI, deliverable format and cadence; shapes measurement.md reconciliation and report outputs
When To Use
Launching or restructuring campaigns for an iOS app
Optimizing bids, budgets, keywords, or CPA on running campaigns
Diagnosing problems: no impressions, budget not spending, CPA spikes, rejected ads, API errors, mismatched install counts
Wiring attribution (AdServices, SKAdNetwork, MMP) into the app and deciding which numbers to trust
Automating reports and weekly optimization via the API
Deciding scaling, multi-country expansion, or Custom Product Page tests
Mode: acts directly via the API when the user grants credentials; otherwise advises on structure and strategy. Not for App Store metadata/screenshot work itself — route to aso; this skill only flags when CVR points there.
Quick Reference
Route by what you need to do. Read one file; each is self-contained.
Situation
Go to
First run, ~/Clawic/data/apple-search-ads/ missing, loading preferences
setup.md
Saving apps, targets, campaign structure, learnings to memory
Apply Core Rules below, then route to the closest file
Core Rules
1. Bid Backwards From LTV, Never From Competitors' Bids
Max CPT = target CPA × expected CVR. Target CPA $6 and CVR 50% → max CPT $3.00. A bid above your max CPT needs an explicit reason (brand defense); a bid copied from "what the niche pays" has none. CPA math lives in strategy.md; LTV estimation in measurement.md.
2. Structure Is the Strategy: One Intent Per Campaign
Brand, category, competitor, discovery — separate campaigns. ASA has no portfolio bid strategies or shared budgets; campaign separation is the only budget and reporting control you get, so mixing intents removes your only lever.
3. "Exact Match" Is Not Exact
ASA exact match also serves plurals and common misspellings (Apple-documented). Before concluding a keyword works or fails, open the search term report and see which queries actually spent the money.
4. Graduate and Negate
Weekly: any search term with ≥2 installs and CPA ≤ target → add as exact match in its intent campaign AND as a negative where it was discovered. Skip the negative and the discovery campaign keeps buying the term, splitting its data forever.
5. Defend Your Brand
Competitors WILL bid your name, and your relevance advantage makes brand defense the cheapest CPA in the account. Impression share is reported as a range, not a point; if the high bound on brand terms sits below ~90%, raise brand bids. Whether brand spend is incremental at all is testable — holdout protocol in measurement.md.
6. One Country Per Campaign
CPT, CVR, and query language differ per market; blended reporting makes every bid decision wrong somewhere. Separate campaigns per country/region.
7. Spend Gates Before Scale
Keyword spend ≥ 2× target CPA with 0 installs → cut the bid sharply (30-50%) or pause. Example: target CPA $6 → any keyword that burned $12 with no install acts today, not at month end.
8. Bid Your True Max — the Auction Is Second-Price
Apple has described the auction as second-price: you pay just above the next-highest bid. Shading below your max CPT mostly loses auctions; it rarely saves money. Cap risk with the spend gate (Rule 7), not with timid bids.
Output Gates
Before pushing any change through the API:
Is the new bid computed from max CPT (Rule 1), not from current bid ± gut feel?
One variable per keyword/ad group per cycle (bid OR creative OR match type)?
Is the decision backed by the minimum window in strategy.md (7 days; 14 for competitor campaigns), and does that window end ≥2 days back (recent rows still backfill — measurement.md)?
Budget increase within the 20-30% step limit (strategy.md → Scaling)?
If confirm_before_push is true (default), was the change list shown and confirmed?
Change and expected effect logged to ~/Clawic/data/apple-search-ads/memory.md?
Architecture
Memory lives in ~/Clawic/data/apple-search-ads/. See memory-template.md for structure.
Excludes every user with Personalized Ads off — a large, invisible slice
Stay broad; segment by keyword intent instead
Search Match ON in every ad group
Your own ad groups compete for the same queries; data fragments
Search Match only in the discovery campaign
Same bid across all keywords
Brand, category, and long-tail have different values
Tier bids off max CPT (strategy.md)
Judging dayparting by install timestamps
SKAN postbacks arrive hours to days late
Daypart on tap timestamps
Comparing ASA dashboard installs to MMP installs
Different attribution windows and models; they never match
Pick one source of truth per KPI (measurement.md); record it in memory.md
Reading today's report rows as final
Installs attribute retroactively to their tap date across the 30-day window
Judge windows that end ≥2 days back; treat newer rows as provisional
Launching on a weak product page
You pay per tap; low CVR taxes every dollar
Fix ASO first, then buy traffic
Mixing timezones across reports
ASA reports accept UTC or ORTZ; mixing misaligns days
Set report_timezone once and pass it in every request
No cross-campaign negatives
Category/discovery campaigns quietly buy your brand queries at brand-level CPTs
Add brand terms as negatives in every non-brand campaign
Scaling budget in big jumps
Volume spikes re-enter auctions at worse positions; CPA jumps
20-30% per step (strategy.md → Scaling)
Where Experts Disagree
Brand bidding incrementality. One school: most brand taps would have installed organically, so brand spend is a tax. Other: once a competitor bids your name, defense is mandatory. The boundary is empirical: competitor present on your brand terms → defend (Rule 5); nobody bidding them and you rank #1 organically → run the holdout test (measurement.md) before committing budget.
cpaGoal: set or never set. Some set it as a pacing signal to Apple; others leave it empty to keep behavior predictable. Either is defensible because it is advisory — the indefensible position is treating it as a cap (Traps).
Always-on discovery vs mining sprints. Always-on ~10% budget suits new apps and new markets where the term pool is unexplored; once weekly search-term reports stop surfacing new graduates, switch to periodic sprints and return the budget to proven campaigns.
External Endpoints
Endpoint
Data Sent
Purpose
https://appleid.apple.com/auth/oauth2/token
Client credentials (JWT)
Get access token
https://api.searchads.apple.com/api/v5/*
Campaign/keyword data
Campaign management
https://api-adservices.apple.com/api/v1/
Attribution token
Attribution data
No other data is sent externally.
Security & Privacy
Data that leaves your machine:
Campaign configurations sent to Apple Ads API
Attribution tokens sent to Apple (from iOS app)
Data that stays local:
Credentials in ~/Clawic/data/apple-search-ads/credentials.md
Reports and analysis
Strategy notes
This skill does NOT:
Store API secrets in plain text (use environment variables)
Access user-level data (attribution is aggregated)
Make requests to undeclared endpoints
Guardrails:
API mutations are gated by confirm_before_push (default true); campaign DELETE is always confirmed regardless of the setting
Secrets travel only via environment variables named in the frontmatter; never written to config, memory, or reports
Trust
By using this skill, data is sent to Apple's Search Ads API and AdServices.
Only install if you trust Apple with your advertising data.
