Apple Ads adds more search placements and brand defense gets harder

Apple said in December that it would add ads further down App Store search results, not only in the top slot, and has since put the start in March 2026. For most of the platform's history a search query had one ad position. Now there is more than one, you cannot bid on a specific position, and your existing search results campaigns are eligible without any change on your side. That sounds like free reach. It is also a new way for a competitor to sit directly under your brand name.

What Apple has said, and what it has not

Based on Apple's announcement as reported by MacRumors and PPC Land, the facts are these:

• Additional ads appear across search queries, at the top of results and further down the page.
• Search results campaigns are automatically eligible for all positions. Advertisers cannot select or bid on a particular position.
• The ad format does not change. It still points to your default product page or a custom product page, with an optional deep link.
• Billing stays on the existing models. Advanced campaigns pay per tap, and Apple Ads Basic pays per install.
• Placement depends on bid and on how relevant the app is to the query, and Apple says it will not show an app that is not relevant to the search however much the advertiser would pay.
• The new placements appear on devices running iOS or iPadOS 26.2 or later.

What we could not find in Apple's documentation is any benchmark for how the lower positions convert, or any separate tap and install reporting by position. Until that exists, assume that the lower positions are a different traffic source with their own conversion rate, and treat the blended numbers accordingly.

Read impression share by position

Apple's reporting help defines two impression share metrics: Impression Share (First Ad Position), which counts only appearances in the first position, and Impression Share (All Ad Positions), which counts appearances in any position. Rank compares your app with others on either measure and runs from 1 to 5, or "more than 5". Per Apple, these metrics appear in the predefined Impression Share reports and on the Recommendations page.

The gap between the two numbers is the useful part. If your all-positions share is well above your first-position share on a keyword, a meaningful part of your delivery there is coming from lower positions. If the two are nearly equal, the new inventory is not doing much for you on that term, and a bid increase is the only lever that might change it. Pull the report for your top 20 terms by spend now, before the change settles, so you have a baseline.

Defend brand terms differently

Under a single-position model, owning the top slot on your own name meant no one else appeared. With more positions, a competitor can appear below you on your brand query even when you hold the first slot. Three decisions follow.

1. Keep brand campaigns running. Pausing them to save budget on people who would install anyway was already a bet. Now it also hands both positions to someone else. If efficiency is the concern, lower the bid before you pause.
2. Check who appears next to you. Search your own brand terms on a current device and note which advertisers show up. It will vary by query and by user, so use it as a spot check, not a measurement.
3. Decide in advance what a competitor appearing under you costs. If your brand terms convert at a high rate, the cost of losing a few percent of taps to a lower ad is small. If you are a smaller brand with many generic searches, it may be larger. Set a threshold for when you would raise bids, and write it down.

Judge the new inventory as its own test

Because you cannot target a position, the only handle you have is time. Mark March 2026 on every Apple Ads chart and compare the same keywords, budgets and match types before and after. Hold other changes still for a few weeks. If you are about to launch new keywords or product pages, stagger them so that you can tell what moved performance.

Suppose a campaign pays $5 per install, and 10 percent of its taps now come from lower positions, at the same cost per tap but converting at half the rate. Blended cost per install rises to about $5.26 even though nothing in your setup changed. These are round numbers for illustration, not a prediction, but they show how a blended number can drift without any obvious cause. Compare installs against a downstream event, like trial starts or purchases from your measurement partner, not just install cost.

It is also worth testing creative relevance. Apple says relevance, not just bid, drives who shows. Custom product pages that match the query intent are the best control you have over how well your ad fits, particularly on generic keywords where you may now be competing for a lower slot.

What to do this week

• Export impression share and rank for your highest-spend keywords.
• Confirm your brand campaigns are active and have a bid you are comfortable with.
• Annotate March in your reporting and agree on a review date in early April.
• Check how your bid adjustments or automated rules react to changes in cost per tap, since new inventory can move that number without any change in your account.

The takeaway: treat the new placements as an inventory change you cannot control, measure it by position where Apple lets you, and keep brand defense switched on.

Sources

• MacRumors: App Store Search Results to Show More Ads Next Year, Says Apple
• PPC Land: Apple expands App Store search ads with multiple placements arriving in 2026
• Apple Ads Help: Reporting options and definitions
• MacDailyNews: Apple to roll out more ads in App Store search results starting March 2026