Any effective keyword bid optimization strategy starts with deep analysis. With Search Popularity, Impression Share (Position 1), SOV 5d (Current and Top Apps) 1st, and SOV 5d (Current and Top Apps) 2nd added as columns to your dashboards, it becomes easier to keep your strategy focused on the areas that require attention. It's possible to check how frequently users search for a particular keyword, what your current SOV and Impression Share are for this keyword, and learn what apps are displayed the most when users enter the search term.
With these metrics, you can:
- Understand the growth potential of the keywords. For this, you can look for the keywords with high Search Popularity and room for expansion by Share of Voice.
- Scale on the most prospective keywords. You can find keywords with growth potential and low acquisition costs, and increase the bids to get more market share.
- Understand your main competitors on a particular keyword to plan your strategy. Once you have these insights, you can rethink the strategy for your Competitor campaigns and mine new keywords with the help of our Keyword Discovery.
⚙️ To get started, navigate to the Keywords dashboard and add the Search Popularity, SOV 5d (Current) 1st, SOV 5d Top Apps (Current) 1st, SOV 5d (Current) 2nd, SOV 5d Top Apps (Current) 2nd, and Impression Share (Position 1) columns to your presets.
💡 If you're interested in accessing the current SOV 24h (current) 1st metric, reach out to your Customer Success Manager for more details.
This metric indicates the popularity of the particular keyword or search term for a specific storefront. Numbers on a scale represent it from 1 to 100 — the higher the number is, the more searches are done for this keyword or search term.
🔹 On the SplitMetrics Acquire dashboard, we display the Search Popularity value taken from Apple Ads for the last 24 hours.
🔹 Colours show the relative grade of the keyword search volume:
🟥 red: low 0-25
🟨 yellow: medium 26-50
🟩 green: high 51-100
The Share of Voice (SOV) metric shows the estimated share of ad impressions for the particular keyword or search term in the specific storefront.
The SOV 5d (current) 1st shows data from the past 5 days, excluding today, and updates daily for more accurate results.
When examining SOV data, keep the following in mind:
🔹 Targeting limitations are not considered, so it is your share among various audiences.
🔹 Share of Voice displays the share for the exact keyword text. For example, if there's the keyword "games," SOV 5d (current) 1st shows your ads share for this specific search query "games," without variations.
🔹 To open the full list of SOV 5d Top Apps (current) 1st, hover over the "?" icon.
❗Note. In some cases, the sum of SOV 5d 1st for the Top 10 Apps may exceed 100%, reaching values like 101% or 102%, which is due to rounding.
🔹 SOV 5d (current) 1st is not available for a keyword if:
Search Popularity for this keyword is < 20 and Spend < $100 for the last 30 days.
There's too little information from the previous five days to provide reliable data.
SOV's value is close to zero (the shares are spread among competitors).
SOV and Search Popularity are currently available in all Apple Ads storefronts except for Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Iceland, Slovenia, Iraq, Bahrain, Armenia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Kenya, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panamá, and Paraguay.
SOV 5d (current) 1st for an ad group
SOV 5d (current) 1st is also available on the Ad Group level, meaning you can monitor an average SOV for separate ad groups for the last 5 days, excluding today.
Evaluate the effectiveness of each ad group.
Set up automated rules to increase the bid when the ad group's SOV 5d (current) 1st falls below a certain value.
Or receive notifications when the ad group's SOV 5d (current) 1st drops.
SOV 5d (current) 1st is calculated based on the keywords' SOV and Impressions regardless of the keywords' status.
If SOV 5d (current) 1st was never calculated for the keywords in the ad group, no SOV (–) will be shown.
SOV 5d for 2nd placement
Following Apple’s introduction of an additional sponsored ad placement, SOV metrics have been expanded to provide visibility into both placements. In addition to the first placement, it is now possible to track Share of Voice for the second placement and view the top 10 competitors.
How to add SOV 5d (current) 2nd to the dashboard
Go to Ads Manager
Switch to the Keywords or Search Terms level
Navigate to Columns → Edit Columns → Insights
Enable:
SOV 5d (current) 2nd
SOV 5d Top Apps (current) 2nd
Click Save
Once enabled, the dashboard displays the share of ad impressions for the second placement within a specific storefront, along with the top 10 competitors for the placement.
💡Note. SOV displays values for the exact keyword text only.
How do we calculate SOV?
Our mechanism performs a number of App Store searches needed to conclude the impression share value between the apps for each keyword.
The Impression Share metric represents the percentage of impressions your ad receives for a specific search term or keyword in a particular storefront. You can use this metric in Automated Rules for Search Terms and Keywords.
🔹 Impression Share is displayed as a percentage range, such as 0-10%, 11-20%, and so on.
🔹 We pull Impression Share value from Apple Ads three times a day.
🔹 Impression Share displays data for the full day (00:00-24:00). Therefore, at the beginning of the day, Impression Share might show zero for "today".
💡 Tip: When using the Impression Share metric as a condition in Automated Rules, consider setting the rule to run later in the day (6-7 pm UTC / 12-1 pm EST). This timing ensures that you are working with the most precise and final value provided by Apple Ads, as due to the nature of data updates performed by Apple, earlier values may differ.
🔹 When the date range > 1 day is selected for Impression Share, it shows data as an average for the chosen date range, while SOV 5d (current) displays the estimated average share for the past 5 days, excluding today.
🔹 Unlike SOV 5d (current) 1st, Impression Share takes into account New User or Returning User targeting.
🔹 You can include and analyze Impression Share in the Current Report or in reports segmented by day, week, or month. In contrast, SOV 5d (current) is exclusively available in the Current Report.
🔹 Impression Share displays "0" for search terms with low impressions.
Note: When comparing SOV 5d (current) 1st and Impression Share values, a 10% difference is considered normal. For larger discrepancies, consider factors such as targeting, data collection period, and differences in calculation methods.
To evaluate how your app performs in terms of Impression Share compared to other apps in the same countries and regions, you can use the Rank metric. Rank is represented as numbers from 1 to 5 or >5, with 1 indicating the highest rank. This metric is exclusively available on the Search Terms dashboard at the moment.
Impression Share is a valuable metric that allows you to evaluate your campaign performance from different angles. By combining Impression Share with Share of Voice metric, you can gain a comprehensive understanding of your market position. This helps you make informed decisions to optimize your campaigns and achieve maximum advertising impact.