How to set up an Apple Ads Max Conversion campaign

TL;DR

• Search Results placement, one country (US first), bid strategy Max Conversion with a CPA goal of $3–4 if you don’t know your numbers yet.¹²
• Daily budget: Apple recommends ~30× the target CPA; $50/day also works despite Apple’s warning.³
• Keep Apple’s automated ad group, and add your own ad group with search match on + a handful of top-traffic keywords.⁴
• Audience: new users only; leave age/gender empty — demographic targeting throttles impressions.⁵
• Attach a custom product page (CPP) to your ad group so its revenue is trackable.⁶

Details

Demo from June 2026 (Steve’s “green noise” sleep-sound app):¹

1. Create campaign → choose app → Search results → country United States.
2. Name e.g. maxcon_US_2026-06 (type, country, launch month).
3. Bid strategy: Max Conversion. Enter the CPA goal — your break-even cost per install. Starting point $3–4; Steve used $3.50 because his app earns ~$5–6 revenue per install and clients break even around $3.²
4. Daily budget: Apple suggests ~30× target CPA and shows a warning below that (he typed $100). Apple told App Masters you can start as low as $50/day; match Apple’s suggestion if you have budget.³
5. Automated ad group: Apple’s proprietary group — you can’t edit it; leave it.⁴
6. Add an ad group (e.g. named after the app) with search match on and only the highest-traffic niche keywords — for green noise: “green noise”, “green noise free”, “green noise for better sleep”, “free green noise”. Deliberately excluded broader “white noise”.⁴
7. Audience → Customer type: New users (choose all users only for branding).⁵
8. Demographics: leave blank. Any age/gender targeting sharply limits impressions because of Apple’s privacy constraints.⁵
9. Devices: split iPhone vs iPad only for education apps or if iPad numbers look different.⁵
10. Ad: select a submitted CPP (e.g. named “ASA US”) so this ad group’s revenue can be attributed.⁶
11. Create.

This campaign is the “discovery” half of the structure — broad, search-match-driven — paired with exact-match SKAG campaigns.⁷

Disagreements / caveats

• The automated ad group can’t use a CPP, so roughly half the revenue is unattributable without an MMP (see Measuring Apple Ads revenue without an MMP).⁶
• $3–4 is a starting heuristic, not a universal CPA; Steve’s own view is that an app that can’t survive a ~$3 CPI may not be ready for paid ads.²

See also

• Apple Ads account structure — the two starter campaigns
• Apple Ads single keyword ad groups (SKAG)
• Break-even CPI, revenue per install and LTV per install

Footnotes

1. Copy Our $85,000/Month Apple Ads Strategy @ 08:11 — Steve P. Young ↩ ↩²

2. Copy Our $85,000/Month Apple Ads Strategy @ 09:06 — Steve P. Young ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. Copy Our $85,000/Month Apple Ads Strategy @ 09:06 — Steve P. Young ↩ ↩²

4. Copy Our $85,000/Month Apple Ads Strategy @ 10:15 — Steve P. Young ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Copy Our $85,000/Month Apple Ads Strategy @ 11:12 — Steve P. Young ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

6. Copy Our $85,000/Month Apple Ads Strategy @ 12:20 — Steve P. Young ↩ ↩² ↩³

7. Copy Our $85,000/Month Apple Ads Strategy @ 15:42 — Steve P. Young ↩