Apple changed three things under every Apple Ads account in 2026. It launched Maximize Conversions bidding for search results campaigns on February 25 (Apple Ads, News, 2026). Additional search ads arrived from March 3, so your ad can now run further down the results (MacRumors, January 23, 2026). And in June, Apple paused every lifetime-budget campaign (Apple Ads Help, Manage Budgets).
Apple's campaign-structure page mentions none of it, as of September 28, 2026. Its recipe still works, but the defaults around it can quietly break it: Search Match left on in brand, discovery buying the brand name, campaign names nobody can read. Our cost guide covers the break-even bid behind each lane.
(Apple Search Ads became Apple Ads on April 14, 2025, so older guides call this Apple Search Ads campaign structure.)
Key Takeaways
- Run four search lanes: brand, category and competitor on exact match with Search Match off, plus discovery (Apple Ads, 2026).
- New campaign for a new budget, storefront, placement or bid strategy; new ad group for a new bid, audience or page.
- Negate everything you own in discovery, plus a broad brand negative.
- Run one Search Match engine per storefront.
What does a good Apple Ads campaign structure look like in 2026?
In 2026, Apple still tells advertisers to "organize your keywords into four campaign types: Brand, category, competitor, and discovery" (Apple Ads, Ad Placements best practices). Brand, category and competitor run exact match with Search Match off. Discovery mines new terms. The 2026 version adds three layers: storefront groups, placement campaigns and an optional automated lane.
Read the account top-down: the app you're promoting in Apple Ads, then storefront groups, then one campaign per placement and lane. Ad groups inside each campaign pair a theme, an audience and a custom product page with their keywords. Optional campaign groups exist mainly for agencies and restricted access (Apple Ads Help, Structure Your Account).
The 2026 account blueprint for one app
Why split lanes at all? Brand defends a position you own. Category and competitor buy growth at a price. Discovery is research: its output is keywords, not installs. One blended CPA hides four different answers.
The stakes sit in search: Apple says almost 65% of App Store downloads follow a search, per 2022 data (Apple Ads, Ads on the App Store). All of this applies to Apple Ads Advanced. Basic has "no keywords or audience settings" (Apple Ads Help, Compare Apple Ads Solutions).
When do you need a new campaign, and when is an ad group enough?
Create a new campaign when a campaign-level setting must differ: budget, countries or regions, placement or bid strategy. Apple's 2026 glossary defines a campaign as "a set of ad groups that share a budget, location targeting, and other settings" (Apple Ads, Glossary). Create a new ad group when the bid, audience, match type, Search Match or page must differ.
| Level | What you set there | Split here when… |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign | Daily budget (the only budget type since June 2026), countries or regions, placement, bid strategy (Manage Bids, or Maximize Conversions with a target CPA) | You need separate money, storefronts, placement or bid logic |
| Ad group | Default max CPT bid, audience (customer type, age, gender, location, device), keywords and negatives, Search Match on or off, ad variation, schedule | A bid, audience, match type or landing page should differ |
| Keyword | Match type (locked once saved), keyword-level bid | Rarely: override the bid instead of splitting |
Budget is now the sharpest line. Apple paused "all campaigns that used lifetime budget" in June 2026, so each campaign's daily budget is the only budget left (Apple Ads Help, Manage Budgets). Monthly spend won't exceed it × 30.4. If two things need separate money, they need separate campaigns.
Apple also allows a lighter setup: one campaign per country, with ad groups "dedicated to brand, category, competitor, and discovery broad match keywords" (Apple Ads, Campaign Structure best practices). It suits a small storefront. In our reading, though, a busy discovery ad group can then spend the shared budget brand needed.
How should you split campaigns by country?
Apple suggests single-country campaigns for "larger markets that require dedicated budgets or have unique objectives." Otherwise, it suggests grouping by attributes "like customer value, language, global region, or sales center location" (Apple Ads Help, Structure Campaigns).
Our house rule is stricter. Split a storefront out when it can fund its own lanes, or when it needs its own keywords and market-specific custom product pages. Group the rest by language and value tier, such as GB, CA, AU, IE and NZ as one English tier-2 group.
How do you set up brand, category, competitor and discovery campaigns?
Build four search results campaigns per storefront group. In 2026, Apple defines brand as keywords "that relate to your app or company name." Category covers your "category or genre and what your app does," and competitor covers "apps that are similar to yours" (Apple Ads, Campaign Structure). These three run exact match with Search Match off.
Discovery gets two ad groups. One holds broad match versions of all your other keywords, with Search Match off. The other "doesn't include any keywords but has Search Match on." Here's the full setup, with match types per lane.
| Lane | Keywords and match | Search Match | Ad groups | Bid posture | Judge it on |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BRAND | Exact: app name, company name, known misspellings | Off | Core; optional broad "variants" (ours) | Apple: "most aggressive" bids on top performers | First-position impression share, incremental CPA |
| CAT | Exact generic terms, one theme per ad group | Off | One per theme, each with its page | High on proven terms, capped at break-even | CPA against break-even |
| COMP | Exact competitor names, grouped by competitor | Off | One per competitor cluster | Selective: relevance-gated and costly | CPA against break-even, tap-through rate |
| DISC | Broad versions of your exact keywords, plus no-keyword Search Match | Off in broad; on in Search Match ad group | Two | Apple: "more moderate" | Terms graduated per week, then CPA |
Swipe sideways for more columns.
The bid wording is Apple's: "most aggressive max CPT bids" for top performers in the exact lanes (Apple Ads, Campaign Structure), and "more moderate bids" for broad match and Search Match ad groups (Apple Ads, Manual Bidding best practices). Your branded keywords earn the top of the range. Generic keywords earn it once they've proven out.
Why is Search Match the easiest leak to miss?
Because it starts on. Apple calls Search Match "a default feature for Manage Bids search results campaigns" (Apple Ads Help, Understand Search Match). Build a brand campaign on default settings and you've built a discovery campaign with a brand label. Turn it off in every brand, category and competitor ad group, under Edit ad group settings.
Then prove it in reporting. The Match Source dimension "identifies whether your impression was the result of Search Match or a bidded keyword" (Apple Ads Help, Reporting Definitions). Any Search Match impressions in an exact lane mean a leak.
How do the four lanes perform?
Differently enough to need separate budgets and KPIs. In AppTweak's 2025 U.S. medians for apps, brand campaigns converted 73.5% of taps at a $2.84 cost per install. Generic (category) campaigns converted 59.8% at $5.31, competitor 50.1% at $6.78, and discovery 44.5% at $3.10 (AppTweak, Apple Ads Benchmarks 2026, August 19, 2026).
How the four lanes perform (U.S. apps, 2025 medians)
Note discovery's CPI: second-cheapest despite the lowest conversion rate, because its median tap costs $1.16 against $2.05 for brand (AppTweak, 2026). Cheap isn't proof, though. The negatives section shows what it might really be buying.
How should you split budget across lanes?
Apple publishes no split. AppTweak suggests brand 30%, category 35%, competitor 30% and discovery 5% (AppTweak, February 17, 2026). FoxData gives ranges without a source (FoxData, April 2, 2026). Fixed shares ignore your economics, so we fund each lane against its own target:
- Brand: enough to hold your first-position share goal, once you've tested whether your brand campaign is incremental.
- Category and competitor: up to the break-even bid per lane.
- Discovery: a fixed test cap, reviewed monthly.
How should you build ad groups inside each campaign?
Build one ad group per keyword theme, tight enough that one bid, one audience and one page suit every keyword. Apple's 2026 help says "each ad group should focus on a common keyword theme or strategy related to your app" (Apple Ads Help, Ad Groups). Up to 5,000 keywords fit, but that's a ceiling, not a target.
Pair each theme with one page. "Each ad group can only have one active custom ad," so the page choice is an ad group decision (Apple Ads Help, Create Ad Variations). It pays. In AppTweak's 2025 U.S. data, apps converted taps at 58.7% with a custom product page, against 55.5% on the default page.
Generic campaigns used custom pages most (30.7%) and discovery least (13.8%), per the same report. Our framework covers which custom product page each theme needs, and the keyword loop explains one theme, one page, one ad group.
Split audiences only when a bid should differ. Apple's customer types are all, new and returning users, plus users of your other apps (Apple Ads, Glossary). Go easy on age and gender: those refinements "automatically exclude customers with Personalized Ads turned Off" (Apple Ads Help, Modify Audience Settings). Apple says devices with Personalized Ads off produced "78 percent of App Store iOS 17 and later search volume."
Keep match types apart. Once you save a keyword, "its match type can't be changed" (Apple Ads Help, Add and Manage Keywords). Decide exact or broad per ad group, never per keyword.
How do negative keywords stop your campaigns competing?
Negatives keep every query in one lane. Apple's 2026 rule is to add all your brand, category and competitor keywords to discovery "as exact match negative keywords" (Apple Ads, Campaign Structure). But an exact negative "won't stop your ad from appearing for close variants." A broad negative blocks any search containing all its words (Apple Ads Help, Match Types).
The negative-keyword matrix
Rows receive the negative keywords; columns are what they block. Keep the matrix in a sheet: Apple's help covers campaign- and ad-group-level negatives only, with bulk uploads of up to 5,000 per ad group (Apple Ads Help, Use Negative Keywords).
| Receives the negative | Your brand terms | Category terms | Competitor terms | Newly graduated winners | Wrong-intent terms | Where to add |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BRAND core (exact) | n/a | Exact, only if a category term is a close variant of your name | Exact, only if a rival's name is a close variant of yours | n/a | Exact, for unwanted close variants you find in Search Terms | Ad group |
| BRAND variants (broad, ours) | Exact: every brand exact keyword, so core keeps them | Exact: your category keywords | Exact: all competitor keywords | n/a | Broad, as found | Ad group |
| CAT (exact) | Exact: all brand terms | n/a | Exact: all competitor terms | n/a | Broad, e.g. "template" or "printable" for a budgeting app | Campaign |
| COMP (exact) | Exact: all brand terms | Exact, where a rival's name is also a generic word | n/a | n/a | Broad, for the name's non-app meanings | Ad group per competitor |
| DISC (both ad groups) | Apple: exact, all. Ours: plus one broad negative of your brand name | Exact, all (Apple) | Exact, all (Apple) | Exact, the day a term graduates (Apple) | Broad, as found | Campaign |
| AUTO (Maximize Conversions) | Same as discovery | Exact, all | Exact, all | Exact, the day a term graduates | Broad, sparingly in weeks 1–2 | Campaign |
| Search tab, Today tab, product pages | No keywords in these placements, so no keyword negatives | n/a | ||||
Swipe sideways for more columns.
Apple negates your brand in discovery as exact match, yet exact negatives don't block close variants. So discovery can still buy brand misspellings and brand-plus-feature searches. Apple counts "new downloads and redownloads" within 30 days as installs (Apple Ads Help, Reporting Definitions), so those queries flatter discovery's CPA.
Our deliberate deviation: one broad negative of your brand name in discovery and Maximize Conversions, if the name isn't a dictionary word, plus known misspellings as exact negatives.
On September 28, 2026, we read the negatives advice in six ranking guides (Apple, AppTweak, Search Engine Land via its October 2025 archive, FoxData, Sonar and Yodel Mobile) and text-searched each for "close variant." All six say to negate core keywords in discovery; none flags the close-variant gap.
How does an automated lane change the negatives?
Go easier on it at first. MobileAction, citing Apple, warns against "overly aggressive negative keyword usage early in the campaign" (MobileAction, March 16, 2026). Our Maximize Conversions guide explains why brand queries flatter an automated lane.
Also run one Search Match engine per storefront. Negatives only block queries you already know, and a Manage Bids discovery campaign and a Maximize Conversions campaign both hunt new ones, so they'll overlap. Pause the old discovery campaign when you migrate. We found no Apple documentation on which campaign serves when both are eligible; this rule is ours.
What's the weekly negatives loop?
Once a week, open the Search Terms tab, which shows "search terms that led to impressions, taps, and conversions" (Apple Ads Help, Understand Dashboards and Settings). Sort every term into one of three bins:
- Winner: add it as an exact keyword in its lane, and as an exact negative in discovery or AUTO the same day.
- Waste: add it as a negative where it appeared.
- Brand leak: add the variant as an exact negative in discovery or AUTO, confirm the broad brand negative is in place, and bid on the variant in brand.
Winner thresholds live in the discovery-to-exact promotion rules of our automation guide. Check wrong-intent terms against your own Search Terms before negating them, because a broad negative can kill a converting query.
Where do Maximize Conversions and the second ad slot fit in the structure?
Maximize Conversions belongs in your discovery lane. In 2026, its automatic ad group "requires Search Match to be turned on" (Apple Ads Help, Create Campaigns). The second ad slot needs no new campaign at all: you "can't select or bid for a particular ad position" (Apple Ads Help, Search Results).
Last verified against Apple's pages: September 28, 2026.
Why is Maximize Conversions a discovery lane?
Search Match is required there and optional everywhere else. Manage Bids lets you switch it off per ad group, but the automated lane can't, so it can never be brand-only (Apple Ads Help, Understand Search Match). It also takes no max CPT bids (Apple Ads Help, Set and Adjust Bids) and runs in search results only.
CPA caps "will soon be unavailable," still with no date as of September 28, 2026 (Apple Ads, Maximize Conversions best practices). The bigger constraint is money. Apple wants a daily budget "that allows for at least five conversions per day."
At a $4 target CPA, that's $20 a day, or about $608 a month. If discovery gets 10% of spend, the account needs about $6,080 a month first.
| Target CPA | Daily floor (5 × CPA) | Monthly (× 30.4) | Account spend if discovery gets 10% | …if it gets 5% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $2 | $10 | $304 | ~$3,040 | ~$6,080 |
| $4 | $20 | $608 | ~$6,080 | ~$12,160 |
| $8 | $40 | $1,216 | ~$12,160 | ~$24,320 |
Apple's five-conversions-a-day guidance × 30.4 days; the share scenarios are our arithmetic.
Below the floor, keep discovery on Manage Bids. Target CPA and the learning period are in our guide to which campaigns to move to Maximize Conversions.
What does the second ad slot change?
The second slot changes two measurements. First, judge brand on Impression Share (First Ad Position), which Apple reports apart from all positions (Apple Ads Help, Reporting Definitions). Second, watch discovery. In AppTweak's U.S. before-and-after, 28 days either side of March 25, 2026, discovery impressions rose 44.9% and installs 35.8%. CPI rose 4.3% (AppTweak, August 19, 2026).
What the additional search ads did to each lane (U.S. apps)
The exact lanes gained modestly, with CPI down 1.7–3.8%. AppTweak advises reviewing discovery's search terms more often. We'd also re-cap discovery's budget and re-check its negatives. Then run the brand holdout test to see whether brand spend still pays.
Do Today tab, Search tab and product page ads need their own campaigns?
Yes. In 2026, Apple's help says "a campaign is set up to run ads in one of several ad placements" (Apple Ads Help, Create Campaigns). Campaigns also duplicate only "into an ad placement of the same type" (Structure Campaigns). All four placements bill per tap. Only search results offers keywords and a target CPA.
So each placement gets its own campaign, budget and naming code. See the four Apple Ads placements for definitions.
| Placement | Where it shows | Keywords and Search Match | Requirements | Job in the structure | Code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search results | Relevant searches, at the top or further down | Yes; negatives too | Target CPA option; ad variations from custom product pages | The four lanes | SR |
| Search tab | Top of the suggested apps list, before a search | No | Default page or a custom product page as destination | Reach before the query; one bid | ST |
| Today tab | The App Store's front page | No | A custom product page; name, icon, subtitle and page assets approved for advertising | Launches and seasonal moments | TT |
| Product pages | "You Might Also Like" on other apps' pages | No | 90 countries and regions; not mainland China | Competitor-adjacent browsing | PP |
Swipe sideways for more columns. Sources: Apple Ads Help, Ad Placement Options and Search Tab, 2026.
Apple backs pairing a Search tab campaign with search results. In 2023 data from 4,439 advertisers, 71% "spent less to acquire users who were shown Search tab and search results ads" (Apple Ads, Ad Placements best practices). Treat that as direction. A Search tab campaign needs no keywords, and "you only need to set one bid."
Running these campaigns, from audiences to bids and measurement, is covered in our guide to Today tab and Search tab ads. Judge each placement on its own metrics rather than on search results CPA.
Which naming convention and account templates should you copy?
Name every campaign and ad group with fixed-order tokens, so dashboards, API reports and MMP exports sort without a lookup sheet. In February 2026, AppTweak's advice stopped at "app name, country, campaign type, and keyword match type" (AppTweak, campaign structure best practices). Placement and bid strategy now differ by campaign, so encode them too.
CAMPAIGN {APP}_{GEO}_{PLACEMENT}_{LANE}_{BID}[__T{YYMM}-{test}]
AD GROUP {LANE}-{theme}_{MATCH}_{AUDIENCE}_{PAGE}
APP short app code NOTA
GEO ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, or a US | GB | T2EN (= GB CA AU IE NZ)
group code in your legend
PLACEMENT SR search results | ST Search tab | TT Today tab | PP product pages
LANE SR: BRAND | CAT | COMP | DISC | AUTO
ST/TT/PP: ALL, or a theme code such as BACKTOSCHOOL
BID MB manual max CPT bids | MC Maximize Conversions (SR only)
MATCH EX exact | BR broad | SM Search Match only | NA (ST/TT/PP)
AUDIENCE ALL | NEW | RET | OTH (users of your other apps)
PAGE DEF default page | CPP-{name}| Campaign | Ad groups | Note |
|---|---|---|
NOTA_US_SR_BRAND_MB | BRAND-core_EX_ALL_DEF, BRAND-variants_BR_ALL_DEF | Variants ad group is optional |
NOTA_US_SR_CAT_MB | CAT-meeting-notes_EX_ALL_CPP-meetings, CAT-pdf-notes_EX_NEW_CPP-pdf | One theme, one page |
NOTA_US_SR_COMP_MB | COMP-rivalA_EX_ALL_CPP-switch | One competitor cluster per ad group |
NOTA_US_SR_DISC_MB | DISC-broad_BR_ALL_DEF, DISC-sm_SM_ALL_DEF | Apple's two discovery ad groups |
NOTA_US_SR_AUTO_MC | AUTO-core_SM_ALL_DEF (the automatic ad group) | Replaces DISC_MB in that storefront, never alongside it |
NOTA_T2EN_SR_CAT_MB | CAT-meeting-notes_EX_ALL_CPP-meetings | Grouped English tier-2 storefronts |
NOTA_US_ST_ALL_MB | ALL-core_NA_ALL_DEF | Search tab: bids and audience only |
NOTA_US_TT_BACKTOSCHOOL_MB__T2608-cppA | BACKTOSCHOOL-core_NA_NEW_CPP-school | Time-boxed test suffix |
"Nota" is a fictional app; swipe sideways for more columns.
Our house rules: fixed token order, uppercase codes, no spaces, and one legend tab defining every group code. Never encode things that change, such as bids or target CPA.
Names matter because Apple's attribution doesn't return them. The AdServices payload carries numeric IDs such as campaignId, adGroupId and keywordId (Apple Developer, AdServices). Our guide to Apple Ads attribution covers that pipeline.
The API under those names is changing too: Apple will sunset Campaign Management API v5 on January 26, 2027 (9to5Mac, April 2, 2026).
| Template | Fits | Campaigns | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | One storefront, under about $5,000 a month | SR_BRAND_MB, SR_CAT_MB, SR_COMP_MB, SR_DISC_MB; optional ST_ALL_MB | About 7–11 ad groups; native tools and manual checks are enough |
| Growth | One or two tier-1 storefronts plus one grouped tier | Per tier-1 storefront: BRAND, CAT, COMP on MB, plus DISC_MB or AUTO_MC per the budget-floor table, plus ST_ALL_MB. Tier-2 group: BRAND, CAT, DISC_MB | Add TT campaigns only for launches and seasonal moments |
| Scale | Many storefronts or apps | The same lanes per storefront group, plus PP_COMP_MB for competitor-adjacent browsing | One legend; automation rules scoped by lane code |
Swipe sideways for more columns.
At Scale, naming turns into rules. Choose tools that apply rules by campaign name pattern, so one rule can cover every _DISC_ campaign in every storefront.
What are the most common structure mistakes?
- Search Match left on in exact lanes (it's the default).
- Exact-only brand negatives in discovery.
- Two Search Match engines in one storefront.
- One campaign spanning tier-1 and low-cost storefronts.
- Brand terms inside a Maximize Conversions campaign.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best campaign structure for Apple Ads?
Four search results campaigns per storefront group: brand, category and competitor on exact match with Search Match off, plus discovery with broad match and Search Match ad groups. The Search tab, Today tab and product pages each need their own campaign, since Apple runs each campaign in one ad placement.
What's the difference between a brand campaign and a discovery campaign?
Brand bids exact match on your own name and is judged on first-position impression share. Discovery uses broad match and Search Match to find new terms for your exact lanes. In AppTweak's 2025 U.S. data for apps, brand converted 73.5% of taps and discovery 44.5%.
Should Search Match be on or off?
Off in brand, category and competitor ad groups, and on in discovery's Search Match ad group. It's the Manage Bids default, so check every new ad group. The Maximize Conversions automatic ad group requires it, so you can't turn it off there.
How do negative keywords work across Apple Ads campaigns?
Add every brand, category and competitor keyword to discovery as an exact-match negative, as Apple recommends. Exact negatives don't stop close variants, so we also add a broad brand negative to discovery and Maximize Conversions. Bulk upload takes up to 5,000 negatives per ad group.
How many keywords should an Apple Ads ad group have?
As many as share one theme, one bid and one custom product page. Apple allows up to 5,000, but a theme needs far fewer. Match type can't be changed once a keyword is saved, so keep exact and broad keywords in separate ad groups.
Should Apple Ads campaigns be split by country?
Split out countries that need their own budget or goals, and group the rest by language or customer value, as Apple suggests. Since June 2026 the only budget is a daily one per campaign, so a market that needs its own spend needs its own campaign.
Do I still need exact-match campaigns if I use Maximize Conversions?
Yes. Maximize Conversions covers search results only, requires Search Match and takes no keyword bids. Keep brand, category and competitor on exact-match Manage Bids, and negate their keywords in the automated campaign. Apple also wants a budget for at least five conversions a day.
The bottom line
Apple's four lanes still hold. What changed in 2026 is everything around them.
- Lanes: four per storefront, with Search Match off in the three exact ones.
- Split rule: campaigns for budget, storefront, placement or bid strategy; ad groups for bid, audience or page.
- Negatives: exact for everything you own, plus a broad brand negative in discovery.
- Engines and names: one Search Match engine per storefront; fixed-order names.
Work out each lane's ceiling in the free Apple Search Ads Calculator. Then book a free 30-minute call, and we'll audit your structure against the matrix and rebuild it with you. That's the core of our Apple Search Ads management.
