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How to Use Apple Search Ads for Keyword Research (ASO)

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App Masters10:36Open on YouTube
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The bottom line

Apple Search Ads' keyword tool surfaces App Store keywords with decent traffic and low competition. That matters because iOS 11 has weakened the old ASO tactics, and the same keywords can be tested for conversion in ads.

Key takeaways

  • iOS 11 made the old ASO tactics pay off much less, so new keyword sources are needed. 1:23
    • Under iOS 10, the same strategies brought a 50 to 100 percent rise in downloads.
    • Under iOS 11, one client got 5x impressions but only about a 6% rise in downloads.
  • Adding suggested keywords again and again in a new Search Ads campaign shows what people search for. 4:39
    • No budget is needed, because the campaign is never run, only used to browse keyword suggestions.
    • A Chrome extension turns the blue popularity bars into numbers, which makes the good suggestions easier to spot.
  • Checking a few interesting suggestions in an ASO tool turns them into low competition keywords. 6:00
    • Only a few picks go into Sensor Tower or Mobile Action for competition scores, not the whole list. Examples for a camera app were shake camera, analog camera and slide shake.
    • Some finds are misspellings that carry a lot of traffic and almost no competition.
  • The same keywords can also be bid on, because they may convert well. 7:45
    • A client ran ads on keywords found this way, and some of them converted really well.

I've been using search ads to discover new keywords, especially when I feel kind of stuck, and I've been able to find some really decently traffic keywords with low competition.

Steve P. Young, App Masters

Chapter summaries

0:00 Why iOS 11 calls for new keyword ideas

With iOS 11, the app name carries more weight, and obvious keywords run out fast.

  • The app name should hold the exact keyword phrase you target. 1:53
    • Skip clever names. Think through what the app should be called.
    • One client's app name was his target phrase, and downloads rose well.
    • Phrase examples: seven-day exercises or butt exercises, instead of just exercise.
    • Apple keeps changing the rules, so a strong name is the safest base going forward.
  • Obvious keywords run out, so you have to think outside the box. 2:34
    • The keywords already in the app were the pretty obvious ones.
    • Typing a client's app name into Search Ads turned up new ideas.
    • The strategy was found by accident, while stuck on what other keywords existed.
    • The process is easy enough to hand to a virtual assistant.

3:06 Browsing Search Ads for keyword ideas

The new campaign screen in Search Ads works as a free keyword idea generator.

  • Any app can seed the search, even an old one. 3:22
    • The demo uses Oh Snap, a camera app built in 2014.
    • Start a new campaign and enter the app, with a budget only if you like.
    • Signing up for Search Ads is the only requirement.
    • The tool is useful for bid keywords too, not only for ASO.
  • The keywords section is the part to focus on. 4:18
    • The screen has two uses: ASO ideas and keywords you can bid on.
    • Some suggestions show really high popularity.
    • Any keyword can be typed in to see its number, once the extension is installed.

5:18 Browsing suggestions for candidates

Clicking through suggestions and flagging the ones with strong signals gives a short list worth checking.

  • Unfamiliar or strong suggestions are worth a closer look. 5:27
    • Any suggestion with a long popularity bar gets looked up.
    • Terms like "surged popularity" and "tap" are checked before they are judged.
    • "Candid video" shows only a short bar, so it is a maybe, not a find.
    • "Slide shake" looked interesting enough to send to Mobile Action and Sensor Tower.
  • The app's own features point to relevant terms. 6:05
    • The app flips the screen when the phone is shaken, so "shake camera" fits it.
    • "Photo editor" is an obvious suggestion that needs no checking.
    • Other camera suggestions were "perfect camera" and "thermal camera".
  • Suggestions partly mirror what competitors rank for. 6:18
    • Some suggestions are already in the app's own keyword field.
    • Entering competitor names shows which keywords they may be using.
    • "Collage maker" and "awesome photo collage" were expected, so they were skipped.

7:32 Using the findings

The method is most useful when an app has few obvious keywords to target, and its growth effect is still unproven.

  • Traffic is visible up front, so only competition needs checking. 7:32
    • The same list also shows which keywords make sense to advertise on.
    • Ad results then show which keywords convert and which do not.
  • The method gives fresh ideas when keyword research stalls. 8:40
    • It helps most when an app can only target a select set of keywords.
    • It was also tried for a game that has not launched.
    • It found good traffic with low competition, but the effect on growth is unknown.

In the growth library

Steve P. Young, Founder of App Masters, app marketing agency and ASO course creator. Shows how to use the keyword suggestion tool inside Apple Search Ads as a free ASO research source, including how to filter for traffic and competition and how to reuse the keywords in paid campaigns. Worth hearing for the claim that it surfaced low-competition keywords with decent traffic, such as misspellings, when standard research had stalled.

More from App Masters · The whole library, and ask it anything

Transcript308 lines
0:00

coming up you're gonna discover how to use Apple search ads to find new keywords for your campaign and more importantly for ASO I've been able to find some really nice gems using this exact strategy stay tuned what is app nation is your boys TP young back and better than ever and I want to show you a brand new module that I just recorded for the new app masters Academy and it shows you somehow I just stumbled upon this a little strategy but how I go into search ads and try to use a tool to come up with brand new keywords and for a few clients that have been doing ASO on because as you guys might be aware it was a lot harder now with iOS 11 but I've been using search ads to discover new keywords especially when I feel kind of stuck and I've been able to find some really decently traffic keywords with low competition so it's Apple search ads and I'm gonna show you how to use it to find these

1:05

nice hidden gems so let's go straight into the module what is up at masters Academy this is the ASO masters course and this is a brand new module that I just put together because with iOS 11 like a lot of things are changing on iOS 11 and what we typically saw in iOS 10 we saw like 50 to 100 percent increase since it downloads and now with iOS 11 things are starting to change those are the same strategies are working because one client with five X's impressions so these strategies that are in ASO masters they're working but we only saw about a 6% increase in downloads so a lot of things are changing and we just have to really come up with new strategies and that's why I came up with this brand new strategy because I was just stuck so I think let me talk about this first but iOS 11 now that it's out I think it's really really important especially if you have a new app to really think about what keywords you want to put in

2:01

the app name so don't come up with anything clever like really think through what the app name should be called and try to target keywords that would be perfect for your app name I know one of the clients that we've been working with and we actually saw a really good increase in downloads but he was always starting off a good bar like his app name was the keyword phrase that he was targeting so if you're going after exercising or exercise you know think think about like you know seven-day exercises or butt exercises whatever it is the phrase that you want to go after I think that's gonna be really important moving forward - okay because Apple is doing a lot of changes but I stumbled upon this strategy because I was stuck I was just like what other keywords are there for this app because for me I want to get really creative right I don't want to think inside the box all the time I want to think outside the box and so I

2:50

got kind of stuck meaning that the keywords that I was obviously already putting in there we're inside the box like okay they're pretty obvious right but I want to think about okay what else could there be and so what I did was I just wanted to search ads and I put the clients app name in there and I just like stumbled upon this particular strategy so let's get into the screen share I'll show you exactly how to use search ads to find some really really good traffic keywords that have low competition I found some really nice gems in there okay you know always gonna find the nice gems but it's a really easy process and you can have a v8 do this as well alright let's get into the screen share alright guys so I'm in search ads what you want to do is create a new campaign so I'm Mari in that screen right now and I'm gonna put my app name in there so if you haven't signed up definitely sign up I'm gonna

3:32

put oh snap it's a camera app that I built back in 2014 it's out there my target to us now you don't have to put a budget if you want to put a budget you can I'm not actually gonna run search ads campaigns I'm actually just gonna find different keywords so that's why I'm using this tool before as well and if you wanted to find new keywords that you want to actually bid on then this is a great tool as well a client that we were both working together on he's like Steve I saw the new keyword and say he came up with and I started running some ads against them and some of these are really converting really well so it's a great tool to find different keywords that you might not be bidding on that actually would convert for you all right so two spots a so and actual search ads keywords that you can bid on okay so this is the part that we're gonna focus on the keywords part and in this section now I actually have a Chrome extension

4:24

installed where I can see scores so if you don't have that extension installed you're just gonna see blue bars that show you the the popularity of this but because the extension is installed I can actually see numbers so that helps me write so what you do is this is really simple you're gonna laugh but I just to put add two keywords and I just keep doing this so as you can see you know I'm starting to see some popularity and without the Chrome extension you're gonna see this blue bar sorry call just came in all right without this extension you're gonna see a blue bar man I put this on two huts there okay anyways look this is all let's just throw this fanciness out the window I'm gonna keep collecting on add two key words and as you can see there are some key words with really high popularity now if you have the Chrome extension so I'm actually gonna do this real quick but you could put oh snap any

5:14

key word and I'll start doing that and you can see the number and then this all becomes numbers too right so anyway so I'm gonna add this two key words oops alright good so again it started me over but I'm just gonna click keeps clicking active key word and here's what I'm really trying to find is okay this one has surged popularity I don't know what that is let me figure that out or this one has a pretty good trap you know search traffic let me figure out what this is or pick tap okay that's interesting let me figure that out so I'm just looking for some that have really decent search volume so if I'm only just seeing this vlog bar like oh snap okay that's interesting candid video okay tap anywhere not that huge but alright could be potential but slide the shakes that's interesting so let me see what the the competition score is in mobile action and Center Tower or any ASO tool you want to use you can throw the

6:02

competition try to find competition there so I'm just going to keep clicking right photo editor that seems to be obvious but shake camera cuz my camera allows you to shake and it flips the screen right so that might be interesting for me to put into sensor tower as well so after keywords again and some of these are keywords that are re in my actual keyword field right so you can put competitors in there just to figure out okay what other keywords they might be using in their keyword field that's what is coming up with certain some some of the suggestions are coming up with that but analog camera okay that's interesting so now I'm just pulling out keywords that have decent traffic right this is probably too little too little too little but I'm just trying to find some you just keep clicking through like okay interesting perfect camera that's interesting thermal camera slide shake okay candid

6:51

photos collage maker of course awesome photo collage and you just keep clicking and what you do is you can either pool all these keywords and throw them into sensor tower but what I've been trying to able the or just some really nice gems so I'll just I usually pick a few that I'm like oh that's interesting let me get the scores on that or that's interesting so I'll select a few I won't put all of them in but I'll select a few and a lot of these are already in my keyword fields anyways but there's a few that I've been able to find like I didn't even think about that that was really cool like certain misspellings that I've been able to find or I'm like oh man like I didn't think this misspelling would have so much traffic but it does and very little competition so I've been using search ads to actually find these keywords and what like I said to recap you can find the low competition keywords using this tool

7:41

and they have decent traffic so you can already see the traffic right they have decent traffic and then secondly you can find certain keywords that actually might make sense for you from a search ads perspective and so you figure out like oh this actually does convert or this isn't converted as well my client who's already writing search ads and I did the optimization like I said he's actually seeing some really good keywords that are converting really well based off the streets research that I did alright hope that was helpful if you got anything out of this and if you're starting to utilize that strategy look what I love is data so please provide me with that like hey Steve that worked or Steve that didn't work whatever it is please let me know as well and if you want to see anything within at masters Academy please please please don't hesitate to reach out to me and let me know what you want to see as well we're

8:25

gonna bring on a lot of experts onto the Academy to talk about what you have the most questions says because if I can't answer it I probably know somebody who can all right thanks guys I'll see you on the next course I'm back hope that was helpful look I've been using search ads a lot and it's been really really helpful especially when I am stuck or when you're like hey it's a very nice app there's only select keywords I can target go in there maybe give you get some inspiration within search ads but it'll find some really really cool keywords especially especially when I'm stuck and I've actually done it this for a game so I'm gonna see what the results are I haven't shared the results I didn't want to really talk about the game side of things because we haven't launched the app but just at the ASO for the client but I found some really cool keywords that have good traffic below competition but we don't know what

9:14

that's gonna do in terms of growth so we'll figure that out that part out later but I'll I'll share those I'm sure I'll share those statistics when that comes out as well and if you want to check out masters Academy go to app masters Academy comm masters Academy comm get access to all our courses it has the ASO masters what this module is pulled out of the Apple future course a brand new game design course and we're gonna be creating a lot a lot more courses as we start building this up and ramping this up it's not gonna say $25 a month for very long I'm gonna start increasing the prices as I know we've revamped the website we've ramped the layout and I know the strategies are working in there as well oh the last thing I'll plug is the version 2 of blackhat ASO strategies up on masters Academy so if you got the first version the second one is up on app masters Academy you could see how we

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do all of it now moving forward the first version was good I talked to somebody who modified that first version I was like oh this is a way better way of doing it and so this better this version is working out pretty well for us and the black hat SEO strategy is actually still pretty effective I show how my keyword rankings go up and down based off of just reviews in your keywords or reviews Cavan keywords in your apps or reviews alright guys that's it at masters Academy calm and I'll see you next time YouTube Thanks