3. The Main Difference Between Custom Product Pages and Product Page Optimization
Before exploring strategies, it’s important to understand the difference between custom product pages and product page optimization.
Product page optimization is focused on improving the default product page experience. It allows you to test different icons, screenshots, or app previews and automatically applies the best-performing variation. Product page optimization helps increase conversion for all incoming traffic — including both organic and paid — by optimizing the first impression users get of your app.
Custom product pages let you create multiple versions of your product page, each with different screenshots, app previews, and promotional messaging. These pages can be used across Apple Ads campaigns, as well as in organic placements and external marketing efforts like social media, email campaigns, or influencer promotions. Now, they’ve expanded to include organic keyword-level targeting — meaning you can tailor a user’s experience based on the search term they used to discover your app.
Here’s a side-by-side comparison:
Comparison criteria
Product page optimization
Custom product pages
Main use
Improve the performance of your default product page for all users
Deliver tailored messaging and visuals for different audiences, features, campaigns, or keyword-level organic search
Number of variants
3 app page variations vs. your product page
70 custom product pages with unique URLs
Customizable elements
Screenshots, app previews, icons
Screenshots, app preview, promotional text
Duration
90 days for a test
Any date range
Ad management & testing workflow
You run A/B tests by creating up to three alternate versions of your default product page.
Traffic is split among test groups, and each user sees the same version throughout the test.
Once results reach statistical significance, you can apply the best-performing version as your default product page.
You can create and manage ad variations for search results campaigns in your Apple Ads account using custom product pages set up in App Store Connect.
For Today tab campaigns, you select a custom product page in Apple Ads, but the ad creative itself is automatically generated based on assets from App Store Connect
You can optimize your ads continuously to reduce costs and get the maximum ROAS with a full- funnel view and historical data in SplitMetrics Acquire.
There are also several ways of testing custom product pages that we cover in a separate chapter of the playbook.
Targeting
Affects all traffic (organic, paid, referral)
Ability to target different audiences and segments
Metrics
You can track the conversion rate and unique impressions, and also monitor conversion rate trends, percentage of improvement, and the confidence level
Metrics in SplitMetrics Acquire: Apple Ads metrics (Taps, Installs, TTR, CR) + post-install metrics (custom conversions, CR, ROAS, CPA)
In short, custom product pages and product page optimization serve different purposes, but together they form a powerful duo. Custom product pages give you control over what users see in both paid and organic channels, while product page optimization ensures the page’s default experience is always improving.
