Documentation

What AdsBuddy is

AdsBuddy is a daily copilot for indie iOS developers running their own Apple Search Ads. It reads your campaigns and your real subscription revenue, then each day hands you a short, prioritized list of changes worth making — each one explained.

AdsBuddy recommends, you approve, and it applies the approved changes to your Apple Search Ads for you — never silently, always after you’ve seen exactly what will change. The goal is a clear answer to “what should I do today?” instead of staring at dashboards.

Connecting your data

AdsBuddy connects to three sources with API keys you paste once in onboarding (and can manage later in Settings → Integrations). App Store Connect and RevenueCat are read-only; Apple Search Ads uses a role that can manage campaigns so AdsBuddy can apply the changes you approve:

• Apple Search Ads — your campaigns, ad groups, keywords, bids, spend and performance.
• App Store Connect — the install → purchase funnel and per-country App Store analytics (Growth plan).
• RevenueCat — subscription revenue and attribution, so recommendations are based on money, not just installs.

Each connection card includes a step-by-step guide for the parts Apple’s docs gloss over (creating an API user, generating and uploading a key pair, finding your Vendor Number). AdsBuddy never asks for your Apple ID password — only the official scoped keys Apple and RevenueCat issue.

Your daily brief

Every day AdsBuddy reviews the latest data and produces a brief: a short summary of how your portfolio is doing and the handful of actions that actually matter today — sorted so the most impactful (or most urgent) come first.

You choose when it arrives and your timezone in Settings. Everything also stays in the dashboard; email and Slack delivery are optional.

Ads plans & the validation gate

For each app, AdsBuddy builds an ads plan: the structure (campaigns per geo, Generic vs Discovery ad groups), starting bids, keyword groups and a budget band — grounded in your app’s economics.

New tests run against a 14-day validation gate. AdsBuddy measures from the day the test baseline was captured, so it doesn’t judge a test before there’s enough signal. When the gate is reached it tells you whether the lift justifies scaling, optimizing, or pausing.

Reviewing campaigns you already run

If you already have live Apple Search Ads campaigns when you connect, AdsBuddy reads them, audits them against best practice, and offers three paths:

• Build a fresh plan — design the ideal structure from scratch.
• Adapt what I have — keep your live campaigns and improve them in place (bids, Search Match, negatives, missing ad groups).
• Just monitor — change nothing; AdsBuddy watches and alerts you when something drifts.

It recommends one path and explains why, but you decide.

Applying changes & auto-pilot

AdsBuddy never changes your campaigns or spends your budget silently. Each change waits for you to approve it — and when you do, AdsBuddy applies it straight to your Apple Ads account. Approving the plan’s full changeset can create live campaigns and increase spend (real costs Apple bills to your account); the review that shows you the exact set of actions first is your consent, and everything stays within the daily and monthly limits you set.

There is an optional auto-pilot for a few low-risk, tightly-bounded action types (small bid nudges within limits, obvious negative keywords, pausing clearly draining keywords). It is off until you switch it on, you pick exactly which actions it may take, and every action is logged so you can review or roll it back.

Drift & getting back on track

If your live setup drifts from the approved plan — a Search Match toggle flipped off, a default bid below the plan’s floor — AdsBuddy flags it and offers one-click fixes that it applies for you, so you don’t have to dig through Apple Ads.

After applying, “Re-verify” re-checks your account live and returns the plan to On track when everything matches.

Budgets & caps

You set a monthly budget and a daily cap per app in onboarding. AdsBuddy sizes new campaigns to stay within them and never recommends pushing past your limits. When it sees room to scale a winner profitably it proposes raising the cap — but that’s your call.

Roadmap & feature requests

Every signed-in user can see the public roadmap, upvote ideas, and suggest their own. It’s the fastest way to tell us what to build next.

Your data, privacy & security

Each customer’s data lives in its own isolated tenant, enforced at the database level — one account can never see another’s. The API keys you connect are encrypted before they’re stored and used only on your own accounts — to read your data, and (for Apple Search Ads) to apply the changes you approve.

Read our full Privacy Policy for what we collect, sub-processors, retention and your rights.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account at any time from Settings → Danger zone. It permanently removes your workspace, every app, all stored credentials, history and recommendations, and signs you out. This can’t be undone.