Ariel Michaeli
Founder of Appfigures and author of a weekly app-trends newsletter. His channel walks through ASO, Apple Ads setup and competitor teardowns using Appfigures data (downloads/revenue estimates, keyword ranks, Apple Ads share of impressions, custom product pages, SDKs).
Bias to keep in mind: every walkthrough is done in his own product; download/revenue figures are Appfigures estimates. His Apple Ads advice is from running ads for the Appfigures app (a B2B analytics app), which favours narrow, cautious targeting.
Sources: sources/youtube/ariel-from-appfigures/.
Notes citing Ariel Michaeli
- Apple Ads account structure — the two starter campaignsThe two-campaign Apple Ads setup (Max Conversion discovery + single-keyword exact campaigns) App Masters runs at $7K–$85K/month, and how they work together.
- Apple Ads audience settings — customer types, demographics, location and ad schedulingWhat Apple Ads audience options actually do — "new users" vs the ambiguous "returning users", why age/gender targeting reaches only users with personalised ads on (Thomas Petit estimated ~5% effective reach in 2023), when location targeting and ad scheduling to fill organic-rank dips make sense, and where practitioners disagree.
- Apple Ads match types, search match and negative keywords — check your search termsWhy Apple Ads broad match and search match spend on irrelevant queries (Shazam → a TV guide; "diet app" → DIY and digit apps; "fitness" → Apple Fitness+), why new keywords default to broad, the hours-long delay when pausing, and the exact-match + negative-keyword + search-terms-report routine to prevent it.
- Checking keyword difficulty by reading the actual search resultsHow to verify an ASO tool's difficulty score by searching the App Store yourself — count ratings of top results and check whether they carry the keyword in their title.
- Custom product pages for organic search (iOS 26 keyword-linked CPPs)Since iOS 26 a custom product page can be shown to organic searchers for chosen keywords — but only keywords from the keyword field; Ariel Michaeli's setup steps, the long-tail and "test in Apple Ads first" strategies, the Audible example, and the 30-minute screenshot-shuffle version.
- Google Play ASO specifics — listings, quality signals and data quirksHow Google Play differs from the App Store for ASO — description indexing and higher ratings bars, custom store listings (up to 50, Google Ads targeting), technical quality thresholds (ANR/crash) that cut browse traffic, app size, the Data safety form, and why Play "organic" and "search" numbers are mixed.
- How the Apple Ads auction behaves — bid probing, bidding down and avoiding a competitor's "crown"Practical Apple Ads bidding lessons — the auction is not a clean second-price auction (raising bids can add cost but no impressions), high tap-through rate lets you cut bids up to 90% and hold position, probing bids reveals a competitor's ceiling, and keywords where one rival owns ~33% share of impressions are best avoided by small budgets.
- How to pick ASO keywords (search score, difficulty, relevance)Steve P. Young's thresholds for choosing ASO keywords — 6–10 relevant terms around search score 30 with low difficulty, no competitor brand terms — plus what search popularity scores actually mean.
- How to set up an Apple Ads Max Conversion campaignStep-by-step settings for the Apple Ads Max Conversion (target CPA) discovery campaign — CPA goal, daily budget, extra ad group, audience, CPP.
- Mining competitors' keywords and listing history (ASOMobile workflow)Step-by-step competitor keyword research in ASOMobile — App Keywords, New Indexation, App Report comparison, Keyword Suggest and Update Timeline — with the Cal AI / Calorie AI example.
- Tearing down a competitor app's growth strategy with store-intelligence dataAriel Michaeli's step-by-step competitor teardown in Appfigures (Jan 2026, PicsArt example) — size and trend (downloads vs revenue), audience by age×gender and country, co-used apps, rating drops, organic and Apple Ads keywords (avoid the keywords they dominate), custom product pages, metadata change history and SDKs (MMPs, engagement tools) — and how to turn it into a plan.
- Using extra localizations to add keywords on the US App StoreThe US App Store indexes several localizations (incl. Spanish Mexico), so English keywords placed in those localizations' title/subtitle also rank in the US.
- Where to put keywords in App Store and Google Play metadataWhich metadata fields carry ranking weight on iOS and Google Play, why target keywords belong in title and subtitle, and the one-title-change case that turned a dead app into an exit.
- Which factors actually move App Store rankings (2026)Steve P. Young's 2026 ranking of ASO factors — metadata and download volume first, ratings next; conversion, sales, retention secondary; updates, installs and backlinks least.