Search Match

In a normal search results ad group, you pick keywords and match types, and Apple shows your ad only on searches those keywords cover. With Search Match turned on, Apple also shows your ad on searches it judges relevant to your app, based on your App Store metadata, information about similar apps in your category and other search data. You set a bid, but you do not choose the terms.

How Search Match works

• It is set at the ad group level, so you can keep it on in one ad group and off in others.
• It relies heavily on your product page. Your name, subtitle, description and category shape which searches Apple considers relevant.
• Every search it matches appears in the search terms report, alongside taps, installs and spend, so you can see exactly what it bought.
• It works alongside negative keywords. Negatives added to the ad group or campaign keep Search Match off terms you do not want.

When to use Search Match

Search Match is a discovery tool. It belongs in a campaign or ad group whose job is finding new keywords, not in campaigns built around keywords you already know.

• Use it at launch or in a new country, when you do not yet know which searches convert.
• Use it in a dedicated discovery ad group with a modest bid and a budget you are prepared to spend on learning.
• Turn it off in brand, category and competitor campaigns. There it competes with your exact keywords and makes results harder to read.
• Revisit it after major metadata changes, since a new subtitle or description can change what it matches.

Harvesting search terms into exact keywords

The value of Search Match comes from what you do with its search terms report. The usual workflow is called harvesting.

1. Review the search terms Search Match served, over a window long enough to include trials and first renewals, not just installs.
2. Pick terms that brought installs which went on to trials or subscriptions at an acceptable cost.
3. Add those terms as exact-match keywords to the right campaign: brand, category or competitor. There you can bid on each one precisely.
4. Add the same terms as exact-match negatives in the discovery ad group, so Search Match stops competing with your new keywords.
5. Add irrelevant or non-converting terms as negatives, so budget stops flowing to them.

Common pitfalls

• Leaving Search Match on everywhere, which spreads spend across loosely relevant queries.
• Never adding negatives, so the same irrelevant terms keep consuming budget.
• Harvesting without negating, so discovery and exact campaigns bid against each other on the same term.
• Expecting precise control. Search Match trades control for reach; exact match is where control lives.

Related terms: discovery campaign, the campaign type Search Match usually lives in; search popularity for sizing harvested terms; and impression share for seeing how much of a term you win.