Paid Keyword Analysis of Photo & Video Apps

While photo and video apps are getting more popular every day, in this article, we are going to be digging how they determine their keyword strategies on Apple Search Ads.

Gizem Bugdayci
March 29, 2021

Social media has become an important part of our lives. All of us are using it whether we are super willing to use it as it is fun or just trying to keep up with the trends. If you are promoting such an app, choosing the right Apple Search Ads keywords can give you the edge in the competition!

By means of photo & video edit and photoshop apps, people have become more comfortable with sharing their memories and selfies on social media platforms and even started to decide what phone to buy by considering how their cameras are performing. 

While these apps are getting more popular day by day, we wanted to give you a closer look at their paid keyword strategies using our keyword analysis tools in MobileAction & SearchAds.com. 

In this article, we are going to be digging how they determine their keyword strategies on Apple Search Ads:

1. Lightricks Facetune 2 Editor

apple search ads visibility

First of all, let us clarify the meanings of the important terms in the dashboard:

Active Countries: In what countries they are actively running ads on Apple Search Ads.

Total Paid Keywords: Total number of the keywords they are bidding on in the selected country.

Search Ads Visibility Score: It is calculated by using impression shares of an app on each keyword with their popularity score. It’s calculated weekly and scaled with the highest score of the week. (out of 100)

Visibility Score: How visible the app is according to organic impressions.

Organic Keyword Rank: App’s organic ranking for the keyword.

Popularity: The amount of times a keyword is searched for in the App Store.

Total Apps: Total number of apps ranking organically with the keyword.

As it can be seen in the screenshot above, Facetune2 is actively running Apple Search Ads in 44 countries and has almost 8k paid keywords even only in the US. 

Once we set the impression share between 53 and 100 to track the keywords bringing quite good impressions, we can see that “soda” and “perfect365” are the brand keywords of other apps. And the interesting part is Facetune gets more impressions than they get. The reason Facetune2 gets the most impressions is that they are leveraging the absence of soda as soda is not running ads in the US.

facetune2

Let’s see what’s happening for Perfect365. Facetune2 is getting more impressions again but this time the reason is a bit different than the previous one. Even though they are both actively running Apple Search Ads in the US, Perfect 365 is not bidding on their brand keyword. Whether they are thinking that their brand name is strong enough or they would be cannibalizing if they would bid on their brand keywords. This is the most common mistake among the Apple Search Ads advertisers.

Let us clarify what we’re trying to say, ASO and ASA go hand in hand, and they are highly related to each other. According to Apple’s algorithm, if you are not ranking in the top 10 organically for any keyword, it would be too optimistic to be found relevant for the same keyword. So giving the highest amount of bid wouldn’t be the only metric for you to rank at the top, ASO strength for that keyword is another crucial factor. 

2. Canva: Graphic Design & Video

Once we take a look at one of the generic keywords for Photo & Video apps,the “photo edit” keyword brings impressions to the apps below. Starts from Facetune and followed by Photoleap and Photo Editor . Canva is located at the bottom of the list even though it has the greatest amount of paid keywords. The relevancy plays an important role rather than only ranking with the largest amount of keywords. 

keyword analysis

Once we checked the metadata of Canva, we came across the keyword “logo maker”. Then we wanted to see the other apps ranking paid with this keyword. Let’s take a look at it:

marketing campaign

There are 5 apps that include “logo maker” as their brand keywords and are behind Canva in terms of impressions. They are getting 6.4%, 2.7%,1.8%, 1.8%, and 0.9% impressions respectively while Canva gets 6.4% and has an organic ranking of 5. It might mean that these apps’ app store optimization strategies are not as strong as Canva’s.

3. PicsArt Photo & Video Editor

Picsart is active in 2 countries: the US and Japan. For their brand keywords such as “picsart animator”, “picsart photo”, and “picsart photo studio” and “picsart video” they have an organic ranking as 1st and 2nd. However, when the potential users search for those keywords, they see the ads of VSCO: Photo & Video Editor. This could end up in users downloading VSCO rather than Picsart.

apple search ads photo apps

Let’s see what other apps are bidding on their brand keywords and how their impression shares look like. For the keyword “picsart”, the search popularity score is 79 and considered as high as it’s out of 100. The chance of ranking in the top 10 on the App Store is 43% (which is quite good as it’s usually 5) and 1,321 apps are ranking with this keyword organically and only 24 of them are bidding on PicsArt. Their competitors like Facetune and Canva get impressions from their brand keywords.

apple search ads keywords

How Can You Use the Keyword Auction Insights Feature of SearchAds.com

  1. In the Search by Keyword section, you can directly search for any keyword that is relevant to you, then you will be finding the apps running ads on that keyword.
  2. In the Search by App section, you can find any of your competitors’ paid keywords and start immediately running ads on them by clicking on the run ads button on the right-hand side. 
apple search ads keywords

3. Once you add those keywords to the related ad group you selected, the system warns you in the 3rd step whether you already have these keywords in the ad groups or negate them. So you will be avoiding duplicate issues and budget eating activities.

4. In the Top Advertisers section, you can find the top Apple Search Ads advertisers and find other competitors so you can follow their strategies if their keywords are relevant for you as well.

Don’t forget to schedule a demo with our Apple Search Ads experts to discover your competitors’ keyword strategies! 

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