3 Automation Types for Managing Apple Search Ads Campaigns

User acquisition managers have a lot on their plate. Juggling multiple paid channels at once? Check. Collaborating with diverse teams across time zones? Check. Crafting a long-term strategy while putting out fires in the short term? Double check. As the tasks pile up, the need for automation becomes more obvious.

Automation solutions vary. In this article, we’ll break down three key approaches for managing Apple Search Ads campaigns:

• Automated Rules
• Condition-based Strategies
• AI Bid Optimization

To keep things practical, we’ll show how SplitMetrics Acquire applies these approaches in real-world scenarios.

What Type of Automation Should You Pick? 

Choosing the right automation solution depends on your campaign needs, goals, and resources. The table below compares Automated Rules, Condition-based Strategies, and AI Bid Optimization to help you identify the best fit for your Apple Search Ads campaigns.

Use this comparison to identify the automation type that aligns best with your objectives.

Exploring the Core Automation Types for Mobile User Acquisition

Broadly, automation for UA managers falls into three categories: Automated Rules, Condition-based Strategies, and AI Bid Optimization. 

Each approach has its own merits. The real challenge lies in understanding which method — or combination of methods — fits your campaigns best.

To make the right choice, you need to consider factors like campaign complexity, budget constraints, team resources, and performance goals, as each automation type excels in specific scenarios.

Automated Rules 

Automated Rules in SplitMetrics Acquire allow you to set specific conditions for campaigns, ad groups, keywords, and search terms, triggering predefined system actions when those conditions are met. 

These rules can be based on various factors, including campaign settings, performance metrics, and key parameters, enabling efficient and targeted management of advertising efforts.

Use Cases

Automated Rules give you the tools to customize, adjust, and manage your campaigns in a flexible way. For example, with these rules, you can:

• Adjust keyword bids automatically.
• Pause or resume keywords based on performance. 
• Control daily budgets, ad group bids, and CPA caps.
• Remove costly or low-performing search terms or use them as exact keywords in other campaigns.
• Move keywords between campaigns to optimize performance.

You can tailor these rules to match your strategy, combining multiple conditions for full control.

Here’s a practical example. 

Let’s suppose you’re running a meditation app campaign and notice the keyword “relaxation techniques” is not converting after spending $50. You can set a rule to automatically pause it. Similarly, if the keyword “guided meditation” achieves a CPA below $10, the rule can resume or increase its budget to maximize results. 

To stay on top of your overall spending, you can add another rule to notify you if the daily budget exceeds a pre-determined amount of money. This ensures you’re always aware of your spending limits and can act quickly if needed.

Advantages

Automated Rules reduce the need for constant manual monitoring and adjustments. Here are their main advantages: 

• Simple and quick configuration makes this automation accessible even for beginners.
• You can tailor rules to fit your specific goals, from budget management to keyword performance.
• They are flexible enough to suit any user acquisition approach. You can combine multiple rules with ease.
• They provide you with total oversight of conditions and logic, ensuring precise campaign adjustments and minimizing errors.

These advantages make Automated Rules a powerful tool for optimizing campaigns efficiently.

Limitations

You need to invest some of your time and energy into the initial configuration of auto rules. They require regular monitoring and updates to ensure they align with current campaign goals and performance metrics. Unexpected market or campaign shifts may also require manual intervention from your side.

Condition-Based Strategies

Condition-based Strategies rely on predefined criteria to trigger specific actions, thus enabling precise campaign optimization. 

They use advanced bidding techniques and Apple Search Ads expertise to target specific performance metrics, such as CPA, CPI, or ROAS on an individual keyword level.

Use Cases

Condition-based Strategies offer an efficient way to optimize campaigns by leveraging predefined triggers and advanced bidding techniques. By using them, you can:

• Dynamically adjust bids at the keyword level based on target KPI metrics like CPA, CPI, or ROAS.
• Scale campaigns by managing a larger set of keywords than manual efforts allow.
• Achieve consistent results by optimizing volume (conversions or installs), or revenue within target goals (scaling, decreasing cost or maintaining the average KPI closer to historical performance values).
• Prevent wasted spending by tailoring bids to align with your specific goals.
• Secure a high SOV without spend waste.

Imagine you’re running an Apple Search Ads campaign to promote a fitness app. Using Condition-based Strategies, you can set a strategy to automatically manage high-performing keywords and low performing simultaneously: the strategy reduces bids for keywords that exceed your target CPA of $10 on average, and boosting those which have not reached upper boundary CPA but brings you sustainable volume of events for let’s say, $9.5 CPA. That’s why condition-based strategies help you control acquisition costs. 

Additionally, you can maintain transparency by monitoring adjustments in near real time, ensuring the logic behind bid changes aligns with your goals.

Advantages

Time to review the advantages of Condition-based Strategies:

• These strategies are simple to configure, allowing you to start optimizing campaigns with minimal effort.
• They work effectively for achieving precise objectives, such as reducing CPA, improving ROAS, or scaling events/installs  volume. Condition-based Strategies also can be tailored to align with unique campaign goals and performance metrics.
• They handle a broader range of keywords compared to manual efforts and enable you to scale campaigns without additional workload.
• The algorithm optimizes bid adjustments by preventing overspending on non-converting or irrelevant keywords while boosting underperforming ones.
• Every adjustment is based on predefined settings, providing full visibility into the logic and ensuring precise management.

These advantages make condition-based strategies an asset for UA managers aiming to optimize Apple Search Ads campaigns while keeping control over performance goals.

Limitations

Condition-based strategies offer moderate control and work well for specific goals, but they still require manual recalibration to adapt to market changes and lack the flexibility to handle highly dynamic campaigns at scale. 

AI Bid Optimization

AI Bid Optimization in SplitMetrics Acquire is powered by Samba, our first set of AI models for marketing performance optimization, to manage and optimize bids at scale, ensuring campaigns meet their business goals effectively. These algorithms continuously analyze vast datasets, including:

• Apple Search Ads Data: Top-of-funnel metrics like CPT bid, Impressions, Taps, Spend, and CR.
• Mobile Measurement Partners (MMPs) Data: Conversion and user behavior insights.
• Temporal Data: Seasonal effects, daily fluctuations, and special events that might influence user behavior and campaign performance

AI Bid Optimization doesn’t just adjust bids for individual keywords — it manages the entire keyword portfolio holistically. By focusing on high-performing keywords and reallocating spend strategically, it ensures cost-effective conversions and maximizes results. Bids are adjusted in nearly real-time, so you can achieve rapid and precise optimization with minimal manual effort.

Use Cases

AI Bid Optimization in SplitMetrics Acquire is tailored for campaigns that need efficient and goal-driven management. Here’s how it can help:

• It’s great for handling portfolios with many keywords, where manual adjustments would be time-consuming and complex.
• AI Bid Optimization saves time by automating bid adjustments. It allows you to focus on other priorities without compromising the performance of your campaigns.
• It ensures the campaigns you run align with specific business objectives like maximizing conversions at target CPA.

These use cases make AI Bid Optimization an excellent choice if you’re looking to streamline operations and achieve results efficiently.

Imagine you’re promoting a habit tracker app with a portfolio of 250 keywords. Managing bids manually for each keyword is time-consuming and inefficient. With AI Bid Optimization, the system takes a holistic approach, analyzing historical data, user behavior insights, and performance metrics across the entire portfolio in real time.

Instead of making isolated decisions for each keyword, the AI adjusts bids to achieve the best overall performance for the campaign. For example:

• A keyword like “healthy eating” might receive a higher bid if it’s projected to drive more conversions, even if its CPA is slightly above the target.
• On the other hand, a keyword like “regular journaling” with a lower CPA might see reduced bids if reallocating the budget elsewhere is expected to generate more events and improve overall CPA. 
• The AI continues to adjust bids across the entire portfolio, ensuring your campaign meets the goal of maximizing conversions at target CPA.

This approach not only saves time but keeps your campaigns optimized.

Advantages

AI Bid Optimization is suitable for managing large-scale campaigns. Here’s why it stands out:

• Getting started is quick. With just a few steps, you can automate complex processes and focus on high-level strategies instead.
• Forget spending hours on manual bidding. AI Bid Optimization can handle thousands of keywords at the same time. 
• It selects the best date range and adjustment step to gradually optimize bids within your set limits.
• The system constantly analyzes performance, trends, and historical data to make near real-time bid changes. Your campaigns are optimized at all times.
• It’s designed to meet specific business goals. The AI makes decisions based on data, ensuring every adjustment supports your objectives.
• AI Bid Optimization targets your KPIs and maximizes key in-app events at the same time.
• It reduces guesswork and ensures consistent performance, giving you greater confidence in meeting your objectives.

Whether you’re managing a few campaigns or a massive portfolio, the system adapts to handle the workload without sacrificing quality or efficiency.

Limitations

AI Bid Optimization targets CPA goals, which may not align with other business objectives like maximizing impressions. It also offers less control over individual bid adjustments, making it less suitable for advertisers who prefer hands-on management or require highly customized strategies.

What Is SplitMetrics Acquire?

SplitMetrics Acquire is a powerful platform designed to optimize Apple Search Ads campaigns with AI-driven tools and automation. It simplifies ad management through bulk handling of bids, keywords, and account structures, while offering advanced features like Keyword Gap analysis, and predictive bidding algorithms. 

With real-time optimization, data transparency, and agile reporting, it enables app marketers to outsmart competitors, achieve scalable growth, and dominate the market.

The Bottom Line

The job of a UA manager can be demanding, but it can become simpler thanks to automation.

By using the automation solutions in SplitMetrics Acquire, you can save time, control spending, and focus on strategy and planning without the constant pressure of micromanaging every detail of your campaigns.

Choose the option that fits your needs best — and gain not only better results but also extra time to spark your creativity.