The Effects of Another Ad in iOS App Store Search ⇥ blog.thinktapwork.com

Jeremy Provost of development firm Think Tap Work:

It’s been 64 days since we first noticed Apple’s second ad position in search results for iPhone and iPad. Our update after two weeks showed consistently less search ad impressions for our apps, unless we invested heavily in paying for Search Ads.

Here are some updated numbers. Just like last time, these numbers only include App Store Search impressions from iOS devices. As you’ll see, these numbers get harder and harder to compare over time.

Chris Lindsay, developer of Nihongo, a Japanese dictionary app:

Before the rollout, my organic and paid downloads had remained pretty steady for most of the last year. After the rollout, my my organic installs dropped, and my paid installs rose. My overall downloads actually stayed roughly flat, but a large chunk of what used to be organic downloads appears to have shifted into paid downloads instead:

The ads themselves still work well. The problem is that many of these paid downloads seem to be users I previously would have acquired organically.

These ads are effectively another surcharge Apple has foisted upon developers for the privilege of distributing software to my iPhone and yours. Far from being premium “curated” experience, the App Store is this way because Apple has every incentive to steadily make it a little bit worse for users and developers — because where else are you going to go for your iPhone apps?