Hey everyone, Ivan here!

It's been almost a month since I released my Apple Ads guide. Time to get back to work.

For those of you here for the first time, here's what you can expect going forward:

weekly newsletters on mobile app business and marketing – market overviews, news, marketing case studies, my experience.

How the Apple Ads course launch went

Better than expected:

Pretty good overall.

A few people reached out asking about consulting/mastermind sessions on Apple Ads.

If you're interested in something like that – just reply to this email so I know there's demand, and we'll figure something out.

Latest Apple Ads news, or why understanding this channel just became even more important

Two key Apple Ads updates dropped in December and January:

  1. a new ad placement in search results

  2. a redesigned ad format

Takeaways on the new placement:

  • The second ad placement will likely appear in the third position, which is very aggressive.

  • apps relying solely on organic traffic will struggle. ASO was never the most reliable or stable thing, and now it's getting worse. Apple really wants your money, and they're essentially making search results "pay-to-play". You need to start preparing now.

  • you can't intentionally target the new placement. The system will work like any PPC (similar to Google Ads) – the higher your ad relevance, the higher your position. With equal relevance, the advertiser with the higher bid wins

  • the new placement will allow you to get traffic at lower cost. Impressions will basically be taken from organic. So in theory, ads should become more effective.

  • apps that know how to work with Apple Ads will benefit from these changes. Everyone else – it's going to be harder.

Takeaways on the second change:

  • Apple is getting more aggressive about selling ads. Maybe they calculated the margins on this part of the business and were pleasantly surprised.

  • TTR (Tap-Through Rate) will increase, CPT (Cost per Tap) will decrease, more traffic overall. This is positive for those working with Apple Ads.

  • Organic will shrink even more.

Remember, Google Ads used to have just 1–3 ads per page. Now that number can reach 10. There's no reason Apple Ads won't go the same route.

The only difference is that the search depth in Apple Ads is much lower than in Google Ads (my assumption), which means these changes will have an even bigger impact on developers.

So now's the time to start learning Apple Ads.

That's it for today. I just got back from vacations and work trips, so we're starting on easy mode.

Next week I'll send a breakdown of a new industry that's already generating $1B+.

Stay tuned!