Since others in the thread are discussing a lack of "targeting" and such, see also "Search Ads Advanced" [0], which allows you to "refine your audience" -- "by gender, age, and show your ads only to devices located in specific geographic areas."<p>[0]: <a href="https://searchads.apple.com/advanced/" rel="nofollow">https://searchads.apple.com/advanced/</a>
How long before we see a post that people are being fooled into installing some copycat apps which are nearly identical to original apps but are getting promoted by Search Ad Basics?
The App Store ads are a disgrace. 100% of my older relatives get fooled and install the first app that comes up in App Store when searching for something.<p>The only thing that gives Apple an edge over Google/Amazon is that they are not an ads company or retail shop.<p>Such a pity seeing them to want to move into that space.
I hate to whine but I hope ads are clearly labeled as ads, and also that this doesn't replace their efforts to make the app store and app discovery more friendly.
Related:<p>I think many companies can run their ads as pay for performance. eBay's ads are a fixed cost of the product sale - the higher you set it, the more often your ad shows but you only pay if it leads to a sale.<p>Platforms simply have so much data and scale they can do a much better job of targeting than their customers can. It's not efficient for lots of marketers to test out lots of ads, carefully track conversions, and decide what to spend on. Just let the platform maximize ads given a certain amount per sale, and the platform will naturally target based on what converts best (and since this is Amazon scale or Facebook scale, they can do these tests automatically for every campaign and get statistically significant results very quickly).<p>I wish Amazon would roll out eBay style ads. They have all the data and could do a much better job than sellers, and could capture a significant portion of the added value it would provide.
Advertisers love segmenting and targeting their audience. With Apple's stance on privacy, how effective will these days be?<p>In other words - I thought it was widely understood that Apple made excellent products and was poor in services that required personalization.
The better question is what is the purpose?<p>Don't apps sell themselves?<p>This seems incredibly similar to pay per click.<p>Just because someone downloads and an app doesn't mean that they're going to use it.<p>If only there was some sort of retention statistic on how often an app is downloaded and deleted.<p>I just hope that quality does not suffer. I'm genuinely curious to see if this will drive user engagement/retention
> No expertise needed.
>
> Setting up your account is easy. Simply tell us your app
> and monthly budget. Our intelligent automation creates your
> ad and matches it to interested users.<p>Wow -- you don't have to have any marketing competence whatsoever. Just pay Apple per install and they'll magic it up.
To me this looks like an indirect way for Apple to extract more money from developers.<p>Since it's so easy to set up a campaign that does not lose money (it's pay per install), imagine _every_ developer setting up a campaign with their app's price as maximum bid (ignoring revenue shares to simplify). Lots of installs, but zero revenue for developers.
> Available in U.S. storefront only.<p>Wait, what? Why is it only in U.S. storefronts? Does this mean I have to walk into an Apple store to get the Ads?
[off-topic] Is the MacBook Pro 15 available in gold now? <a href="https://searchads.apple.com/v/basic/a/images/overview/hero_medium_2x.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://searchads.apple.com/v/basic/a/images/overview/hero_m...</a>