More App Store Ad Spots
When a user searches on the App Store, your ad can appear at the top of their search results. And starting in 2026, we’ll be introducing more ads to increase opportunity in search results.
[…]
Your ad will run in either the existing position — at the top of search results — or further down in search results. If you have a search results campaign running, your ad will be automatically eligible for all available positions, but you can’t select or bid for a particular one.
Me: I really hate the advert when you search on the App Store, I wish Apple would change that.
Apple: Wish granted!
I have a bad feeling about this.
App Store search is ineffective and primitive, and doesn’t reliably show high-quality, relevant results for queries.
How can it be improved?
More advanced search algorithms, like the last two decades? Nope!
AI-assisted relevance and ranking, like this decade? Nope!
When all you have is an insatiable desire for more “services revenue”, you can only see one solution…
Why should Apple just take 30% of the lifetime value of your customers in perpetuity when they can charge you 90% of that just to acquire them!
Do additional ad positions in App Store search mean that if someone searches for your app by name, Apple can bury your app even lower than its current (hopefully) #2 position in the results?
Previously:
- App Store Ads Gone Wild
- Gambling Ads on App Store Product Pages
- App Store Ads in Today and App Pages
- More App Store Search Ads
- How to Improve the App Store
- Experimenting With App Store Search Ads
Update (2026-01-23): Joe Rossignol:
In an email to developers this week, Apple indicated that it will begin showing additional ads in App Store search results starting Tuesday, March 3.
Previously:
Update (2026-04-03): Jeremy Provost:
With Apple’s introduction of a second search ad, for any query where we weren’t #1, we’ve effectively moved down one position.
We can thank Liquid Glass for allowing even more of this “content” to show through. If you’re counting at home, roughly 70% of the interface is covered in ads. A casino ad, to boot.
[…]
A week later, here is the effect this change has had on our downloads.
Previously:
Update (2026-04-16): Jeremy Provost:
I wanted to share some updated numbers from our own apps. To isolate the impact, these numbers only include App Store Search impressions from iOS devices, comparing Mar 26–Apr 8 to the prior two weeks. In other words: how much visibility we’ve lost in search.
[…]
It’s still early, but the pattern continues: visibility is holding when we pay and dropping when we don’t.
Update (2026-05-05): John Gruber (Mastodon):
I feel like a variation of Zero-One-Infinity is a good rule of thumb for ads, too. From the perspective of users — and probably developers — zero was the best number of ads for Apple to show in App Store search results. One was worse but acceptable. But now that they’re showing more than one, they’re on their way to infinity. They’ve started down the slippery slope. Remember when Google only showed one ad in search results?
Anyway, who’s looking forward to ads in Apple Maps this summer?
That Apple is willingly embarking on this enshittification is just mind blowing. They don’t need to do this. They don’t need this revenue. Google having no taste or respect for its users, I get, that’s their business model. But this is at odds with Apple’s business model of delighting the actual customer.
yopp:
Sadly this is Tim Cook’s legacy.
Previously:
Update (2026-05-14): Marcus Mendes:
The Apple Ads division recently formed a group called Emerging Team, and its representatives are reaching out to developers looking to reactivate or try out ads in the company’s ecosystem for the first time.
Update (2026-05-29): Jeremy Provost:
Our update after two weeks showed consistently less search ad impressions for our apps, unless we invested heavily in paying for Search Ads.
Here are some updated numbers.
Still not looking good.
And the results for Nihongo have been pretty depressing.
Before the rollout, my organic and paid downloads had remained pretty steady for most of the last year. After the rollout, my my organic installs dropped, and my paid installs rose. My overall downloads actually stayed roughly flat, but a large chunk of what used to be organic downloads appears to have shifted into paid downloads instead[…] Essentially, my ad spend almost doubled while overall downloads remained steady.
Via Marco Arment:
Why stop at 2 ads in App Store search results?
Why not just eliminate the organic search results entirely and show ONLY ads for all search and browse pages, thereby forcing developers to pay for EVERY new customer?
THAT’s the Apple way!
Update (2026-06-01): Nick Heer:
These ads are effectively another surcharge Apple has foisted upon developers for the privilege of distributing software to my iPhone and yours. Far from being premium “curated” experience, the App Store is this way because Apple has every incentive to steadily make it a little bit worse for users and developers — because where else are you going to go for your iPhone apps?
Update (2026-06-08): Jeff Johnson:
It’s a good thing that Apple added that second App Store search ad slot.
See also the app’s website and privacy policy.
6 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
Hear me out: if your sale comes from an App Store ad, you already paid Apple and they shouldn't get their 15/30 tax on it.
How would Apple like that?
Strange move. Making the App Store less effective so people rely on ai / web search more, seems counterintuitive.
"Hey that ad you wanted...we couldn't put it at the top of the search results like you were hoping for...but we'll take your fucking money anyway!"
It's bad enough that these ads exist at all but now they are whacking us from every direction
I know from looking at my own sales numbers that *I* drive sales to *Apple*, i.e. whenever I buy an ad elsewhere, myself, with no help from Apple, sales go up. The “store” did nothing to deserve this extra revenue, aside from whatever downloads cost. Apple makes money when I spend money.
Now, this: if *I* spend money to drive people to Apple’s store, those people will probably *search* and instead of finding what I *paid* to have them find, they will see Apple’s crap ads first instead (or maybe prefer those, over me). Apple is not using its 30% to help developers, it is actively against us.
The sort-of-solution is to make sure you encourage users to click app store page links directly, and avoid search. Deny Apple its ad revenue. If you heard an ad and found out about a product, click the web page or podcast show notes, etc. and jump directly to the App Store page (which has a unique ID). Do not do the easy thing of trying to search by name.
