Practitioner pattern · Dilip Reddy (Founder of Search Ads Optimization, a platform for managing and scaling Apple Search Ads)
Judge search ads on when they pay back, not first-week return
40-50% first-week return is fine for subscription apps
Unknownapple-search-adsanalytics-attribution
What they did
ASA doesn't report revenue, so link keywords and ad groups to revenue via an MMP or RevenueCat. Don't set a hard revenue target and kill the channel if missed; the e-commerce 400% ROAS rule doesn't fit subscriptions. Track time to break even: 40-50% ROAS in the first week is fine while you add keywords and tune, since a one-time install cost keeps earning renewals. Optimize for revenue and ROAS together: a competitor spending twice as much at lower ROAS may grow bigger and outbid you. Get install-to-trial and trial-to-paid conversion right first.
- Stage
- Scale (scaling)
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · Marketing Your App More Efficiently with Apple Search Ads — Dilip Reddy, Search Ads Optimization“But app, there is a important metric called time to break even. What it means is, it's fine even if we don't get 100% ROAS in the first week.”
“And one more thing about ROAS is ROAS should not be the primary metric. Um, it should be combination of revenue and ROAS.”
“RevenueCat does a great job like linking up keywords and um ad groups, and you can use that information to analyze.”
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