How to Start Apple Ads with the free SplitMetrics Acquire Starter Plan

SplitMetrics Acquire is a platform for managing and optimizing Apple Ads campaigns. Its AI-driven automation, optimization, analytical, and market intelligence features create an entire data-driven app growth ecosystem for the App Store.

SplitMetrics Acquire expands the advertising channel’s core functionality with its unique graphical user interface, automation features, and full-funnel performance analytics. The platform also offers insights into the mobile app market that may contribute to a profitable app growth strategy.

SplitMetrics Acquire has an entirely free version: the free SplitMetrics Acquire Starter Plan. We’d recommend beginning your journey with our platform as soon as possible, even on Day 1 of using Apple Ads, to unlock faster and more profitable app growth on the App Store.

Why does SplitMetrics Acquire unlock faster app growth?

There are many reasons to start your journey from an Apple Ads beginner to an expert with the free SplitMetrics Acquire Starter Plan beginning Day 0:

• It provides  full-funnel analytics thanks to mobile measurement partner (MMP) integration;
• It has an accessible and highly customizable interface for Apple Ads;
• It can automate Apple Ads management activities almost wholly;
• It is and will be 100% free, no strings attached.

Continue reading to understand how all these features combined will help you succeed with Apple Ads.

Apple Ads Campaign Management: Workflow, Tasks & Best Practices

Apple Ads campaign management involves creating, analyzing, and optimizing campaigns on the App Store. Find out how our platform streamlines it!

How does SplitMetrics Acquire work?

SplitMetrics Acquire is an entire ecosystem that drives profitable app growth on the App Store. Naturally, as a management and automation platform for Apple Ads, it gives you access to all of its features, including:

• Management of all four ad placements on the App Store;
• Creation of ad variations leading to custom product pages;
• Access to Attribution API, which will allow you to connect campaign data with in-app events
• All Apple Ads metrics & reporting capabilities

SplitMetrics Acquire uses the Apple Ads Management API to connect with the advertising platform and allow full access to its functionality. Our AI-driven tech powers all additional features, allowing you to see more metrics and insights or customize your experience.

Here’s a brief and simplified overview of what’s available in the free and enterprise plans, just to give you an idea of how we expand on the default Apple Ads Advanced management and optimization.

The free SplitMetrics Acquire Starter Plan

The free SplitMetrics Acquire Starter Plan offers:

• Overview Dashboard: A consolidated view of key performance indicators. It provides a 360-degree, dynamic view of campaign performance. Access it to check the “hot points” for improvement and discover market trends. 
• Ads Manager: A highly customizable tool to manage ads, built to boost productivity with Apple Ads. Perform bulk actions, create ads, preview product page creatives, and customize displayed columns in any way you like.
• Keyword Discovery: This feature lets you research and evaluate keywords by providing extensive paid and organic metrics to create a synergy between app store optimization (ASO) and Apple Ads.
• Automation: The go-to place to configure rules, settings, and notifications. It offers easy templates to create rules for any aspect of Apple Ads management and optimization.
• Smart Suggestions: Check them for easy fixes and optimizations! Gain insight into your campaigns’ performance and take action. Smart Suggestions will give you simple, immediately actionable recommendations for optimizing your performance.
• Easy MMP integration: We allow easy, no-code integration with ten popular mobile measurement partners, allowing you to track custom conversions easily and optimize and automate your campaigns for them.
• Additional Apple Ads metrics: Brand Protection is a feature that will help you run effective brand and competitor campaigns by spotting new user acquisition opportunities or protecting your keywords.
• Additional ASO-related metrics: You’ll find metrics such as Organic Rank and Organic Results for keywords better to align your ASO and Apple Ads campaigns. 

SplitMetrics Acquire Enterprise

The enterprise version of SplitMetrics Acquire goes even further, granting you access to artificial intelligence (AI) and customer support with an award-winning team. It provides extensive Market Intelligence features, automation, and ROAS-related analysis, allowing precise ROI evaluation. It offers all that’s available in the free Starter Plan, but more:

• SplitMetrics AI: AI Bid Optimization is powered by Samba, our first set of AI models for marketing performance optimization will let you manage and optimize bids at scale, ensuring campaigns effectively meet their business goals.
• Additional Apple Ads metrics: Share of Voice identifies the share of actual impressions (in %) per keyword compared to the total impressions volume. Relevance Score helps you find the most relevant keywords for your app;
• Extended Apple Ads analytics: Access granular data for different markets and regions for easy analysis and optimization. Use cohort analysis to gain valuable insights, optimize budgets, and refine marketing strategies;
• Advanced ROAS tracking and revenue analysis: Unlock Ad Revenue tracking to align your Apple Ads with all monetization strategies;
• CPP Intelligence: Gain valuable insights into how your competitors present their apps, what design and captions they utilize, and how they engage users through custom product pages and promotions.
• Keyword Gap: Run a complete semantic comparison of your apps with competitors’ apps. This feature allows users to compare their app keywords with several competitors simultaneously.
• Custom MMP & BI integrations: Connect any mobile measurement partner or a business intelligence service with our platform.
• Advanced automation: Create any automation rule with a flexible system offering 200+ configurations. Use them to build your perfect growth engine.

All these features are meant to help you make Apple Ads work and be profitable, and there’s much more to be discovered.

What do you need before you start?

Getting started with the free SplitMetrics Acquire Starter Plan is easy. The goal requires only three items on your checklist, one optional.

A live or pre-order app on the App Store

You need a live app or one available for pre-order on the App Store. Either way, you need a functioning product page setup in App Store Connect.  Don’t worry too much about this step; many apps are reviewed within 48 hours.

An Apple Ads Advanced account

To start the free SplitMetrics Acquire Starter Plan, a working Apple Ads Account means:

• You’re signed in with your Apple ID linked to your App Store Connect account. Ensure the app you want to promote is live on the App Store or eligible for pre-order. It must also be associated with this account.
• Account Preferences are set up, which means customizing the language and date/time format. Account details such as account name, country/region, currency, time zone, legal entity name, and primary contact are also filled in.
• Business Details are provided: your company’s information, including tax ID and address.
• A Payment Method is added: Set up a valid payment method to enable ad campaigns.

With these steps done, the basic configuration of our platform is as easy as it can be. There’s only one step that is optional but highly recommended.

A connected mobile measurement partner

A mobile measurement partner (MMP), sometimes called a mobile measurement provider, is a service that collects, organizes, and analyzes campaign data from multiple sources and connects them with in-app events, most likely those leading to revenue, like in-app purchases, subscriptions, demo signups, or simply related to desirable engagement of any kind.

Apple Ads Advanced uses the Attribution API to connect campaign data to  enable campaign data integration with mobile measurement partner systems.. This integration is necessary to track and optimize the performance for custom conversions or goals.

Connecting a Mobile Measurement Partner & Apple Ads in SplitMetrics Acquire

Everything you need to know to gain a full-funnel view of your Apple Ads campaigns! A must-read for beginners.

How quickly can you start?

The free SplitMetrics Acquire Starter Plan setup is straightforward and shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes. Should you decide to connect an MMP, you’ll proceed to define your goals or how much a single custom conversion should cost. We have enabled a friendly Quick Start checklist.

What should you do after you finish setup?

Now, you can start creating your Apple Ads campaign structure, launch your first ads, and optimize your campaigns.

Research App Store keywords

Research App Store keywords for search results ads with our Keyword Discovery feature to quickly build a starting pool of keywords and create a campaign structure. Apple Ads discovery campaigns are essential for building a healthy keyword pool, but manual expansion, in the beginning, can enable a more impactful start.

We provide multiple angles for researching keywords and expanded metrics so you can start your campaigns with popular keywords that are also financially within your reach.

Apple Ads Keywords: Basics, Research & Best Practices

Apple Ads campaigns need strong keyword pools that are systematically optimized. Find out how our platform helps you run keyword research.

Create an Apple Ads campaign structure

An account structure for search results ads in Apple Ads defines how campaigns, ad groups, keywords, and ads are organized. It’s a step taken immediately after assembling your first keyword pool through our Keyword Discovery feature or performed simultaneously.

Out Ads Manager and Keyword Discovery features will help you create a robust, expansive structure from scratch in minutes, efficiently creating new ads, ad groups, and campaigns in whichever way suits you.

Set up Apple Ads automation

With rule templates, you can easily set up automation to cover almost all activities related to Apple Ads Advanced management and optimization. This involves optimizing bids, moving keywords between campaigns, pausing and unpausing ads, and many more. These are only basic examples, as automation rules can be a clever way to establish a data-driven growth engine operating almost entirely on its own.

Preparing some automation rules should be one of the first things to do because configuring an automation rule encourages a measured, data-driven optimization approach, and you’re guaranteed the platform won’t miss a second to perform a necessary activity.

Setting up automation rules is simplified through templates but is a pretty straightforward process anyway, requiring you to define the following:

• Target: What keywords, campaigns, ad groups, or ads does a rule cover?
• Trigger conditions: What starts a rule (Spend level reached, CPA value, etc.)
• Desired action: What the system is supposed to do (raise bids, pause keywords, etc.)

SplitMetrics’ Starter Apple Ads Automation Guide

Automating Apple Ads Advanced can be easy with our rules and templates! Find out how to do it in this comprehensive guide.

Start optimizing your campaigns!

Analyze your performance on our main Dashboard or the Ads Manager on any level you wish. We encourage you to visit Smart Suggestions for easy tips for tweaks, bid optimizations, keyword management, etc.

Apple Ads Optimization Checklist & Troubleshooting

Apple Ads campaigns need strong keyword pools that are systematically optimized. Find out how our platform helps you run keyword research.

Unlock faster app growth now!

Taking advantage of our additional features may help reduce the learning curve of Apple Ads and help you make better decisions regarding performance optimization.

We focus on lmaking management as easy as possible, so you can shift your attention to what truly matters: making data-driven decisions for optimization and maximizing your profitability. The free SplitMetrics Acquire Starter Plan gives you an extra layer of functionality on top of Apple Ads while costing you nothing.