Feature Focus: Skai’s First-to-Market Bid Optimization for Apple Search Ads

Apple Search Ads bid optimization is now available at Skai. As this channel matures, marketers need to squeeze the most performance out of their campaigns. It can be hard to continue investing and scaling a marketing program while keeping KPIs efficient. 

Last year, we announced General Availability (GA) support for Apple Search Ads in Skai’s App Marketing solution, Skai Apps. Today, we announce an exciting major upgrade for this integration which will help app marketers take their campaigns to new heights.

Apple Search Ads are changing the game

Advertiser interest in the channel was evident based on the number of clients that volunteered for the beta, but even we had no idea just how big this opportunity was going to become. As reported in our Q1 2019 Quarterly Trends Report, spending on Apple Search Ads almost doubled between Q3 2018 and Q1 of this year.

Apple Search Ads are part of a new category of marketing that we here at Skai call Ecommerce Channel Ads or ECA. Like Amazon Advertising, ECAs are unique compared to other advertising because they appear inside a store.

“Reaching shoppers with ECA just makes a lot of sense for retailers,” says Skai’s Senior Director of Marketing Research, Chris ‘Coz’ Costello. “While other modes of advertising act with varying degrees of success to influence consumers while they are doing something else—socializing, reading news, watching videos, surfing the internet—getting in front of them during the final stages of online shopping with ads relevant to what they’re already shopping for is a no-brainer.”

With over 2 million apps on the App Store, Apple Search Ads is a key way to drive installs. In fact, 65% of App Store downloads are made as a result of a search. That should absolutely underscore just how important this new channel is for app marketers.

Skai’s first-to-market Apple Search Ads bid optimization 

“Our point-of-view on marketing technology has always been that practitioners should turn over tasks which intelligent machines are best to handle,” says Elias Sandler, VP of Skai Apps. “This frees up our clients’ talented teams to tackle the strategic and creative things that can expand their programs and truly impact the bottom line. In essence, we feel that tech should be treated almost like a member of the team.”

Skai is a global leader in marketing technology with a 12+ year history driving performance, increasing productivity, and providing valuable data & insights to advertisers on their campaigns. We’ve done this for Search, Social, Ecommerce, and Apps while integrating with some of the biggest publishers in the world including Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Snap, Pinterest, Amazon, and others—and winning some awards along the way.

We are excited today to be the first approved vendor with Apple Search Ads bid optimization solution. This is totally within our wheelhouse and this new feature sits on a foundation of proven, market-tested performance optimization developed across channels for over a decade and used by some of the biggest advertisers in the world.

Skai App’s bid optimization solution for Apple Search Ads enables marketers to set Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA) goals which the system uses multiple factors to automate keyword bid decisions 24/7.

The feedback from our beta clients has been amazing.

“Skai’s Apple Search Ads bid optimization has allowed us to increase our results,” says Or Reznitsky, VP User Acquisition at Playtika. “And as important as the performance gains have been the fact that our team can stop managing bids all day and focus on growing our program. We are excited to see just how far we can go with our investment in this channel which has already proven to be a great channel for us.”

What’s next for Apple Search Ads + Skai?

There is so much more on the horizon. As this new advertising opportunity expands and marketers grow their investment, we are too.

Certainly, Skai App clients can expect more and more features to maximize their growth in this channel. One of the key areas of need that we see is in market competitiveness such as some of the innovative features we’ve built for Skai Search, Skai Social, and Skai Ecommerce. These tools will help Apple Search Marketers expand their market analysis and better understand the keyword landscape of their competitors and others on the App Store.

Want to learn more about Skai’s Apple Search Ads bid optimization?

Skai clients should reach out to their reps for more information. If you are an app marketer that isn’t a Skai Apps client, please contact us today to schedule a quick and easy demo.

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