TL;DR: We analyzed the Apple Search Ads footprint of every advertiser our crawlers caught in the sponsored slots of US App Store search — 26,670 apps across 1.65 million app-keyword pairs in the last 90 days. The findings cut against most ASO folklore: the median advertiser bids on just 5 keywords while the top 1% of advertisers hold 40% of all ad placements; on 78% of the terms they buy, advertisers don't rank in the organic top 250 at all; and the famous "defend your brand keyword" play is rare in practice — on only about 6% of popular keywords does the organic #1 also hold the ad slot.
The data: every time our SERP crawlers see a sponsored result on a US App Store search, we record which app held the slot on which keyword — the same pipeline behind our App Store API and MCP server. This is the advertiser's-eye view you can't get from Apple, who publishes nothing about who runs Search Ads or where.
The shape of the market: a few whales, a sea of minnows
Half of all advertisers we observed appeared on 5 or fewer keywords. The distribution from there is brutally top-heavy:
| Advertisers (US, last 90 days) | Keywords bid on |
|---|---|
| Median advertiser | 5 |
| Top 10% | 99+ |
| Top 1% | 981+ |
| Apps on 1,000+ keywords | 261 apps |
| The single widest footprint | 34,845 keywords |
Put differently: the top 1% of advertisers account for 40.3% of every ad placement we saw, and the top 10% account for 82%. The sponsored slot on any given search is overwhelmingly likely to belong to a professional running keyword coverage at industrial scale — not to a rival indie bidding on your niche.
Who carpet-bombs the App Store
The widest Apple Search Ads footprints in the US store right now:
| App | Keywords with detected ads |
|---|---|
| Polymarket | 34,845 |
| Google Gemini | 12,596 |
| Kalshi: Trade Events & Sports | 10,774 |
| Cider Casino - Real Money | 10,650 |
| NewsBreak: Local News & Alerts | 9,920 |
| Lavish Luck Casino | 9,499 |
| Zocdoc - Find and book doctors | 9,168 |
| DuckDuckGo | 8,889 |
| Gossip Harbor®: Merge & Story | 8,597 |
| Rocket Money - Bills & Budgets | 6,126 |
Polymarket alone runs nearly three times the keyword breadth of the #2 advertiser, Google Gemini. The list is a snapshot of who is buying growth aggressively right now: prediction markets, AI assistants, sweepstakes casinos, and consumer fintech. When your users search for almost anything, one of these apps is plausibly in the ad slot above the results.
The finding that breaks the folklore: ads go where organic can't
For every active ad placement, we checked where that advertiser ranks organically on the same keyword:
| Advertiser's organic rank on the term it buys | Share of ad placements |
|---|---|
| Top 3 | 4.9% |
| 4–10 | 5.7% |
| 11–50 | 7.0% |
| 51–250 | 3.9% |
| Not in the top 250 at all | 78.4% |
This is the clearest picture we've seen of what Apple Search Ads is actually for. The standard ASO-guide framing — "run ads on terms where you already rank, to double-dip on high-intent traffic" — describes about one placement in ten. In practice, advertisers overwhelmingly use the ad slot to appear on searches their metadata could never win: the ad is a bridge over organic ranking, not a reinforcement of it.
That also explains why ads and rankings interact the way they do in our case studies: when Keiki exploded onto dozens of long-tail SERPs, it had been running Search Ads on 3,827 terms for months — buying its way onto SERPs first, and building the download history that organic ranking later fed on.
Is anyone actually defending their brand?
"Bid on your own brand keyword or a competitor will" is the oldest advice in Apple Search Ads. The data says almost nobody follows it. Across the 5,000 most popular US search terms, 52% carried at least one ad in the last 30 days — but on only 278 of 5,000 (5.6%) was the app ranked organic #1 also the one holding the ad slot.
Two readings, both probably true: most #1 apps consider their organic slot defense enough and keep their budget for reach, and conquesting — showing up in the ad slot above someone else's #1 ranking — faces a lot less brand resistance than the folklore suggests. If a competitor's brand term matters to you, the slot above their #1 ranking is, statistically, almost always for sale.
What this means for your Apple Search Ads strategy
- Breadth is the professional pattern. The serious money runs hundreds to tens of thousands of keywords, then lets performance data prune. Five hand-picked keywords is the hobbyist median.
- Use ads to go where your metadata can't. That's what the market does: 78% of placements are on terms the advertiser doesn't organically rank for. Ads buy you SERPs years before your organic rankings could get you there.
- The download halo is the real product. Installs bought on a term build exactly the engagement history that organic ranking rewards — paid and organic aren't parallel channels, they're a sequence.
- Conquesting is wide open. With only ~6% of popular terms defended by their organic #1, the ad slot above almost any competitor is available to whoever will pay for it.
- Watch who's bidding near you. A new advertiser appearing across your category's keywords is the earliest public signal of a funded competitor push.
AppSigma tracks who holds the sponsored slot on your keywords — alongside your organic positions and your competitors' — every day.
Method notes: figures cover the US storefront. An advertiser-keyword pair means our crawlers observed that app in a sponsored slot on that search at least once in the window (90 days for market-structure stats, 30 days for the organic-overlap and brand-defense stats). We observe placements, not budgets — a keyword bought but never shown to our sessions is invisible to us, so footprints are lower bounds. Organic ranks are current top-250 positions from our SERP crawls.
Frequently asked questions
How many keywords do Apple Search Ads advertisers bid on?
The median US advertiser appears on just 5 keywords, but the distribution is extreme: the top 10% run 99 or more, 261 apps run over 1,000, and the widest footprint we detected — Polymarket — covers 34,845 keywords.
Do apps run Search Ads on keywords they already rank for?
Mostly no. On 78.4% of bought terms the advertiser is not in the organic top 250 at all, and only 10.6% of placements sit on terms where the advertiser ranks in the organic top 10. Apple Search Ads is used to reach searches organic rankings can't win.
Should you bid on your own brand keyword?
The classic advice says yes, but almost nobody does it: on only 5.6% of the 5,000 most popular US search terms does the organic #1 app also hold the ad slot. That means the slot above your #1 ranking — and above your competitors' — is usually available.
Who are the biggest Apple Search Ads advertisers?
By keyword breadth in the US store right now: Polymarket (34,845 keywords), Google Gemini (12,596), Kalshi (10,774), Cider Casino (10,650), and NewsBreak (9,920) — prediction markets, AI assistants, sweepstakes casinos, and consumer fintech dominate.