apple-search-ads

apple-search-ads is a skill for Claude Code from rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills. It costs 46 tokens per session (4,574 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A strategy guide for Apple Search Ads, the paid advertising system that promotes apps in Apple’s App Store. It covers choosing keywords, setting bids, planning budgets, and evaluating advertising results.

In plain words
What is it for?
Planning and launching app-install campaigns, choosing keywords and bids, allocating an advertising budget, and assessing paid user acquisition and return on ad spend.
Why use it?
It helps developers decide whether their App Store page is ready for paid traffic and avoid spending money on a listing that converts poorly. It also provides a structure for improving campaigns over time.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter. Also seen: names the AskUserQuestion tool; positional $N argument.

Part of the apple-skills plugin — 147 skills shipped together , and of apple-skills

Good fit Planning and launching app-install campaigns, choosing keywords and bids, allocating an advertising budget, and assessing paid user acquisition and return on ad spend.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills/apple-search-ads
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills --skill apple-search-ads
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install apple-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 147 skills.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for apple-search-ads

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills/apple-search-ads/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills/apple-search-ads)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills/apple-search-ads"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills/apple-search-ads/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for apple-search-ads

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills/apple-search-ads"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills/apple-search-ads.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 46 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 4,574 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector pass 7 Sept 2026
How audits are shown
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00046 $0.04574
Opus 5 $0.00023 $0.02287
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00915
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00457

Measured 11d ago against content hash e8df02a21a00, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

apple-search-ads scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 11d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/app-store/apple-search-ads/SKILL.md · 489 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 489 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Apple Search Ads for Indie Developers

Plan, launch, and optimize Apple Search Ads campaigns that deliver profitable user acquisition for indie apps.

When This Skill Activates

Use this skill when the user:

  • Asks about paid user acquisition or running ads for their app
  • Mentions "Apple Search Ads", "Search Ads", or "ASA"
  • Wants to set up ad campaigns in the App Store
  • Asks about keyword bidding, CPT, or CPA optimization
  • Needs help with campaign structure or budget allocation
  • Wants to understand if paid acquisition makes sense for their app
  • Asks how to complement ASO with paid promotion

Pre-Requisite Check: Are You Ready for Ads?

Before recommending any campaign setup, verify these minimum thresholds. Running ads on an unoptimized listing burns money.

Minimum Thresholds

Requirement Threshold Why
Organic downloads 100+/month Proves baseline demand exists
App Store page CVR > 20% Ads amplify your listing — a bad listing wastes spend
Screenshots 5+ optimized Paid traffic sees your product page first
Ratings 3.5+ stars (or none) Low ratings kill conversion from ads
Crash-free rate > 99% Crashes destroy ROAS through refunds and bad reviews
Monetization Active No point acquiring users you can't monetize

If thresholds are not met:

  • Focus on organic ASO first (use keyword-optimizer skill)
  • Fix product page conversion (use screenshot-planner and app-description-writer skills)
  • Improve app quality and ratings before spending on acquisition

Readiness Decision

Have 100+ organic downloads/month?
├── NO → Stop. Fix organic first.
└── YES → Is your product page CVR > 20%?
    ├── NO → Optimize listing first, then run ads.
    └── YES → Ready for Apple Search Ads.

Campaign Types

Apple Search Ads offers four placement types. Not all are useful for indie developers. All placements price as cost-per-tap on a second-price auction — you pay just above the next-highest bid, never your max — with no minimum spend, and daily budgets are adjustable anytime.

Read the full file on GitHub · 489 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 11d ago First seen · 489 lines · 46 tokens per session scan A e8df02a21a00

Subscribe to this mod's changes

apple-search-ads is a skill published in the GitHub repository rshankras/claude-code-apple-skills (719 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 46 tokens to every session and 4,574 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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