Articles on: Reports & Tools

Keyword Advertisers

Overview


When you search for a keyword in the App Store, some of the results you see are paid. Apps that run Apple Search Ads can bid on keywords to appear at the top of search results, and understanding who's bidding — and how aggressively — gives you a significant competitive advantage.


The Keyword Advertisers report shows you exactly which apps are paying for visibility on any keyword in the App Store. Enter a keyword, pick a country, and see every advertiser we've detected along with how often they show up, how long they've been running ads, and what their broader paid strategy looks like.


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


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Getting Started


Keyword Advertisers is one of the tools inside Keyword Inspector. To get there, go to Apple Ads → Keyword Advertisers in the left sidebar.


The report is built around a few simple controls:


  • Keyword — Type any keyword into the search bar. Suggested keywords are shown when the field is empty to help you get started.
  • Country — Select a country to see advertisers in that specific market. Apple Ads data varies by country, so results may differ significantly between markets.
  • Device — Toggle between iPhone and iPad. Advertisers can target each device separately, so the results may differ.


Once you enter a keyword, the report loads two main sections — a keyword intelligence summary at the top and a detailed advertiser table below.


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


Keyword Intelligence


At the top of the report, you'll see a summary of the keyword's characteristics. This is the same intelligence section shared across Keyword Inspector's tools, and it gives you quick context before diving into advertiser data.


Insights


  • Popularity — A score from 0 to 100 indicating how often the keyword is searched in the App Store. Higher means more search volume. This score is based on Apple Search Ads data combined with other signals we collect. See Understanding ASO Metrics for details on how this is calculated.
  • Competitiveness — A score from 1 to 100 that tells you how hard it would be to break into the top results for this keyword. A higher score means stronger competition. Learn more about how Competitiveness is calculated.


Both scores refresh periodically and display when they were last updated.


Top 10 Performance


This section aggregates data for the top 10 organically ranked apps for the keyword over the last 30 days:


  • Est. Downloads — Combined estimated downloads for the top 10 apps, with a per-app average. This tells you how much traffic the keyword drives.
  • Est. Revenue — Combined estimated revenue for the top 10, with a per-app average.
  • DPR (Downloads per Rating) — The number of downloads an app needs to generate one new rating. Shown as Best, Average, and Worst across the top 10. Lower DPR means the app converts downloads into ratings more efficiently. Learn more about DPR.
  • Compare — Opens the Competitor Comparison report with all 10 apps preloaded for deeper analysis.


Top Advertisers Preview


On the right side of the intelligence section, you'll see a visual list of the top 6 advertisers for this keyword. Clicking View All scrolls down to the full advertiser table.


The Advertiser Table


This is the core of the report — a detailed table of every app we've detected running Apple Search Ads on the keyword you searched. The table tells you who is advertising, how much they're showing up, and what their broader strategy looks like.


The results counter above the table shows how many advertisers were found (e.g., "Found 10 top advertisers for the keyword 'chatgpt'").


Time Period


Use the time period selector above the table to control the date range for the data. Available options:


  • Last 7 Days
  • Last 14 Days
  • Last 30 Days
  • Last 90 Days
  • Last 180 Days (default)
  • Last 365 Days


Changing the time period affects the Share, # Days, First Seen, and Last Seen columns.


Column Reference


The table is organized into four column groups:


Top Results


  • App — The app's icon, name, and publisher. Clicking the app name opens a detail panel with more information.


Keyword Performance


These columns describe the advertiser's activity on this specific keyword:


  • Share — The share of impressions, meaning the percentage of time we saw this app's ad when searching for the keyword versus all other advertisers. A higher share means the advertiser is bidding more aggressively or has a higher relevance score.
  • # Days — The number of days (not necessarily consecutive) we observed this app's ad during the selected time period.
  • First Seen — When we first detected this app advertising on the keyword within the selected time period.
  • Last Seen — The most recent date we detected the ad within the selected time period.


Apple Ads Strategy


These columns give you a broader view of the advertiser's overall Apple Search Ads strategy:


  • Keywords — The total number of keywords we've seen this app bidding on in the selected country. The country flag in the column header indicates which country this number applies to. A high number suggests an aggressive paid strategy.
  • Countries — The countries where this advertiser runs Apple Search Ads. Shown as flag icons — up to 6 flags are displayed, with a "+N" badge if there are more.


Organic Performance


These columns show how the advertiser performs organically for the keyword you searched:


  • Rank — The app's organic search rank for this keyword in the selected country. A ★ star icon appears next to the rank if the app is in the top 5, which Appfigures considers a top organic position. Apps not appearing in organic results show "Not Ranked."
  • In Name — Whether the searched keyword appears in the app's name. If it does, this shows how many times and in how many languages (e.g., "9 times, 9 languages"). "Not used" means the keyword doesn't appear in the name in any language. Note that multi-word keywords broken up across the name won't trigger a match — the keyword must appear as a contiguous phrase.
  • In Subtitle — Same as In Name, but for the app's App Store subtitle.


Sorting


All columns are sortable by clicking the column header, except for Countries, In Name, and In Subtitle. The default sort is by Share (descending), showing the most visible advertisers first.


Pagination


The table supports pagination with configurable page sizes: 10, 25, 50, or 100 results per page.


Comparing Advertisers


You can select specific apps using the checkboxes in the leftmost column, then use the Compare button to jump into a detailed comparison. If no apps are selected, the top 5 are compared automatically.


The Compare button offers three options:


  • Compare App Intelligence — Opens the Competitor Comparison report to compare downloads, revenue, ratings, and other performance metrics for the selected apps.
  • Compare Organic Keywords — Opens the Competitor Keywords report to see which keywords the selected apps rank for organically.
  • Compare Paid Keywords — Opens the Competitor Paid Keywords report to compare the paid keyword strategies of the selected apps side by side.


This makes it easy to go from discovering who's advertising on a keyword to deeply analyzing their full strategy — both paid and organic.


What You Can Do With It


  • Research competitor ad strategies — See which competitors are paying for visibility on keywords that matter to you, and how consistently they're doing it.
  • Identify aggressive advertisers — High Share and high # Days indicate a sustained, well-funded paid campaign. Low Share with few days might mean they're testing.
  • Spot opportunities — If a high-traffic keyword has few advertisers, that's an opportunity. If a keyword is crowded with advertisers, you'll need a strong bid to compete.
  • Audit organic vs. paid positioning — Compare the Rank column with Share to see if advertisers are supplementing strong organic positions with ads, or relying entirely on paid placement.
  • Understand market breadth — The Keywords and Countries columns reveal whether a competitor is running a broad, multi-market campaign or focused on specific keywords and regions.


💡 Ariel's Top Tip


🔍 Use the checkboxes to select the top advertisers for a keyword and compare their paid keywords. This shows you not just that they're advertising on your keyword, but every other keyword they're targeting — giving you a map of their entire Apple Ads strategy that you can learn from or compete against.


How to Get There


In Appfigures, go to Apple Ads → Keyword Advertisers in the left sidebar, or go directly to appfigures.com/reports/keyword-inspector?view=apple-search-ads.

Updated on: 17/02/2026