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Competitor Paid Keywords

Knowing which keywords your competitors are bidding on in Apple Search Ads gives you a serious edge. Instead of guessing which keywords to target, you can see exactly where other apps are spending money — and use that to build better campaigns.


The Competitor Paid Keywords report shows you every keyword we've detected one or more apps advertising on in Apple Search Ads. Select the apps you want to analyze, and the report breaks down each keyword's popularity, share of impressions, organic rank, and more — so you can see both their paid and organic strategy in one place.


This is the flip side of the Keyword Advertisers report. While Keyword Advertisers shows all the apps bidding on a specific keyword, Competitor Paid Keywords shows all the keywords a specific set of apps is bidding on.


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Getting Started


To get to the report, go to Apple Ads → Competitor Paid Keywords in the left sidebar.


The report requires at least one app selected. You can add up to 8 apps to compare their paid keyword strategies side by side. Here are the controls you'll use to set up the report:


  • Apps — Use the app search bar at the top to add apps. Each app appears as a pill with a three-dot menu that lets you remove the app, remove all apps to its left, remove all apps to its right, or remove all apps including/excluding it.
  • Country — Select a country to see Apple Ads data for that market. Paid keyword strategies often vary by country.
  • Time Period — Choose a date range for the data. Options include Last 7 Days, Last 14 Days, Last 30 Days, Last 90 Days, Last 180 Days (default), and Last 365 Days.
  • Device — Toggle between iPhone and iPad. Advertisers can target each device separately, so results may differ.


Once your apps are selected, the report loads a keyword table showing every keyword we've detected those apps advertising on.


This report is App Store only. Apple Search Ads are exclusive to the App Store, so there's no Google Play equivalent.


Filters


Above the table, several filters let you narrow down the results to find exactly what you're looking for:


  • Popularity — Filter keywords by their popularity score range.
  • Organic Rank — Filter by the organic rank range. This filters out keywords where none of the selected apps have a rank within the specified range — useful for focusing on keywords where you or your competitors are already ranking.
  • Share of Impressions — Filter by the share of impressions range.
  • Overlap — When you have multiple apps selected, the Overlap filter shows only keywords where all selected apps are advertising. This is a great way to find the most contested keywords in your competitive landscape.
  • Not Advertising — Select one or more of your apps, and this filter shows only keywords those apps are not bidding on but the other selected apps are. This is powerful for discovering keyword gaps — opportunities your competitors are investing in that you're missing.



Use the search bar in the table header to filter keywords by name.


Translate


The Translate feature lets you translate all keywords in the table into any language. This is especially useful when analyzing competitors in foreign markets — you can see exactly what their keywords mean without leaving the report.


Column Reference


The table is organized into shared columns plus per-app columns for each selected app.


Shared Columns


  • Keyword — The keyword being advertised on. Click any keyword to open it in Keyword Inspector for deeper analysis.
  • Popularity — A score from 0 to 100 indicating how often the keyword is searched in the App Store. Higher means more search volume.
  • Top Apps — A visual preview of the top organically ranked apps for this keyword.


Insights Column


  • Total — The total number of advertisers we detected for this keyword. This tells you how crowded the keyword is from a paid perspective — a high number means lots of apps are competing for ad placement on that term.


Per-App Columns


For each app you've selected, the table shows:


  • Share — The app's share of impressions for this keyword — the percentage of time we saw this app's ad versus all other advertisers. The cell is highlighted when the app has the highest share of impressions among the selected apps, making it easy to spot who's dominating each keyword.
  • Rank — The app's organic search rank for this keyword. This lets you see whether the app relies on paid placement alone or also has strong organic positioning.


Export


The Export button gives you several options for getting data out of the report:


  • CSV — Download the full table as a CSV file.
  • JSON — Download the full table as a JSON file.
  • Keywords (Comma) — Copy just the keywords, separated by commas.
  • Keywords (New Line) — Copy just the keywords, one per line. This format is designed for pasting directly into tools that accept keyword lists, like Apple Search Ads campaign setup.


What You Can Do With It


  • Find keyword gaps — Use the Not Advertising filter to see which keywords competitors bid on that you don't. These are ready-made opportunities for your campaigns.
  • Identify the most contested keywords — Use the Overlap filter to find keywords where all selected apps are advertising. These are the battleground keywords in your category.
  • Benchmark your paid strategy — Compare your Share of Impressions against competitors to see where you're winning and where you're falling behind.
  • Discover new keyword ideas — Competitors may be bidding on keywords you've never considered. Their paid strategy is essentially a keyword research shortcut.
  • Combine paid and organic insights — Use the Share and Rank columns together. A competitor with high Share but no organic Rank is entirely dependent on ads — a vulnerability you can exploit by ranking organically.
  • Research international strategies — Change the country filter and use Translate to understand competitor strategies in other markets.


💡 Ariel's Top Tip


🔍 Start with your main competitor and use the Not Advertising filter with your own app selected. This instantly shows you every keyword they're paying for that you're not — it's the fastest way to find new campaign keywords that are already proven to be worth bidding on.


How to Get There


In Appfigures, go to Apple Ads → Competitor Paid Keywords in the left sidebar, or go directly to appfigures.com/reports/competitor-search-ads.

Updated on: 17/02/2026