Download rate
Download rate shows how often a tap on your ad turns into a download. It measures the step between your ad and your app: the product page the tap opens.
Updated
After a user taps your Apple Ads ad, they land on your product page or a Custom Product Page. Download rate tells you how many of them download the app. It is the metric Apple calls conversion rate in its own reporting, and Adapty Ads Manager calls it download rate to keep it apart from the subscription conversion rates further down the funnel.
How download rate is calculated
Adapty Ads Manager reports two versions, matching the two download definitions.
- Download Rate (Total) = (Total Downloads / Taps) × 100% if Taps > 0, otherwise 0%. Total downloads include view-through downloads from users who saw the ad without tapping.
- Download Rate (Tap-Through) = (Tap-Through Downloads / Taps) × 100% if Taps > 0, otherwise 0%. Only downloads that followed a tap within the 30-day window count.
Because view-through downloads are divided by taps they did not come from, Total download rate can exceed 100% on ad groups with few taps. The Tap-Through version is the cleaner measure of how well a tap converts.
Download rate and Apple’s “conversion rate”
Apple reports downloads per tap as conversion rate, and many Apple Ads guides and benchmarks use that name. It is the same idea as download rate. In a subscription app, though, conversion usually means a trial or purchase, so Ads Manager reports those separately as Trial CR, Subscription CR and Conversion CR, each divided by downloads rather than taps.
Download rate benchmarks
Adapty’s Apple Ads for subscription apps 2026 report publishes this metric as CR, downloads divided by taps, across 8,000+ apps and 1,000,000+ ad groups in 2025 campaigns. Country and category figures are separate aggregates; there is no category-by-country matrix, and per-row app counts are not published.
| Scope | Download rate |
|---|---|
| United States, all categories | 62.71% |
| Utilities apps, all countries | 73.61% |
| Education apps, all countries | 66.1% |
| Productivity apps, all countries | 60.15% |
| Health & Fitness apps, all countries | 51.65% |
| Finance apps, all countries | 44.24% |
Source: Adapty, Apple Ads for subscription apps 2026. These are downloads per tap, not install-to-trial or trial-to-paid rates.
How Custom Product Pages affect download rate
The report compared ad groups with and without Custom Product Pages. When the page a tap opened matched the keyword’s intent, more taps turned into downloads.
| Variant | Download rate (CR) |
|---|---|
| Without Custom Product Page | 63.91% |
| With Custom Product Page | 70.05% |
Source: Adapty, Apple Ads for subscription apps 2026, aggregated at ad-group level. This is a measured effect in the study population, not a guaranteed result.
How to improve download rate
- Send each intent to a page that matches it. A Custom Product Page built around the keyword’s promise keeps the message consistent from ad to page.
- Fix the first screenshots, which carry most of the decision on a product page.
- Separate brand and generic traffic. Brand searchers already want your app and convert far better, so mixing them hides weak generic keywords.
- Add negatives for searches whose taps rarely become downloads.