Is the “services” category Apple’s savior? – Search Ads launched bid insights last week

Nov 13, 2018, Apple Search Ads sent a newsletter titled “New feature: Bid insights now available” to all developers. The stock quote for Apple has kept falling for the past few weeks, and rumors have appeared about Apple going put more weight on its “services”, one of which we are discussing today --Search Ads.

So, what is Bid insights?

AppBi did some research about Bid insights – the very nature of it would be that Search Ads would offer a suggested bid range to marketers based on the
relevance of the bidding keywords and apps, the current bid, keyword competitiveness and popularity.

Here comes what it would be like about the new features:

Suggested bid range appears alongside each existing keyword and indicates our suggestion for where your maximum cost-per-tap (max CPT) bid should fall to incrementally increase the likelihood of your ad showing. The suggested range is based on our assessment of multiple factors, including how customers have responded to your ad and other advertisers’ ads on this same keyword, your bid history for this keyword, and other advertisers’ bid histories for it.

Bid strength is displayed as a red, yellow, or green bar associated with each keyword. It indicates our assessment of the competitiveness of your bid. Bids at the stronger end can help your ads reach a greater portion of your target audience than those at the weaker end.
• Weak (red) bid strength means your bid is not competitive in relation to other advertisers’ bids. Your ad has a relatively low likelihood of being shown.
• Moderate (yellow) bid strength indicates an opportunity to improve your bid’s competitiveness and increase the likelihood of your ad being shown.
• Strong (green) bid strength means your bid is well positioned among other advertisers in the marketplace.
• No indicator will be shown when there is insufficient data for us to suggest a bid range or measure bid strength, when the keyword has been paused, the ad group or campaign is on hold, or when your current bid is already aligned with our recommendation.

The suggested bid range and bid strength offered by Apple Search Ads would possibly help the marketers gain more ads display steadily. However, it’s not a suggestion for bidding, neither the upper limit. The indicator differs from time to time, so as when it comes to different advertisers.

Moreover, the advertisers couldn’t produce a more precise bidding price based on Search Ads’ Bid insights, meaning there isn’t a real bid with high cost-effectiveness. Search Ads is only available to offer a range for suggested bids, as well as the competitiveness for the current bid. An accurate advertisement could not be completed. It’s crucial for a developer or an advertiser to deliver their ads more accurately, especially when they have a very large amount of ads needing to be delivered. AppBi’s data analyzing platform offers analysis in all aspects: how many apps are bidding for the same keywords, the impression shares of the same keyword for different app, etc…so that the advertisers can figure out how to improve the impression shares via more accurate bidding.

（AppBi Backend）

To conclude, the new features of Search Ads indeed offer some suggestions for bid range to the advertisers. However, when it comes to the better accuracy, AppBi’s intelligent Bidding and Data Analyzing Platform is what you might look for.

About AppBi
AppBi is a leading data analytics consulting firm specializing in Apple Search Ads and industry insight analysis. We help developers and marketers with effective BI platforms powered by AI technologies and advanced algorithms.