Connect Apple Search Ads

The full key ceremony — API user, EC key pair, public-key upload — explained command by command, with the exact pages to open.

Apple Search Ads is the connection that lets AdsBuddy read your campaigns and apply the changes you approve. Apple's API setup is the most ceremonial of the three — you can't just download a key — but it's a one-time, ~5-minute job. The onboarding wizard also includes a copy-paste prompt that lets an AI agent (Claude, etc.) fetch these credentials for you.

What you need at the end

• clientId, teamId, keyId — Apple shows these after you upload a public key.
• The EC private key (PEM) you generated — it never leaves your machine except into AdsBuddy, encrypted.

Step by step

1. Create an API userIn Apple Search Ads → Account Settings → User Management, invite a user (it can be yourself) with the API checkbox and a role that can manage campaigns (e.g. Campaign Manager). AdsBuddy applies only changes you approve, within your limits.
2. Generate an EC key pair locallyOn your machine:

   openssl ecparam -genkey -name prime256v1 -noout -out private-key.pem
   openssl ec -in private-key.pem -pubout -out public-key.pem

3. Upload the PUBLIC keyIn Apple Search Ads → Account Settings → API, paste the contents of public-key.pem. Apple then displays your clientId, teamId and keyId.
4. Paste everything in AdsBuddyOnboarding step 2 or Settings → Integrations → Apple Search Ads: the three IDs plus the private key PEM (there's a file picker so you don't have to open the file). Or paste one JSON blob with all four.
5. Test the connectionThe wizard's Test connection button validates the credentials against Apple right there — a bad key fails in seconds, not four steps later.

Organizations

One credential can reach several Apple Ads organizations. AdsBuddy reads campaigns from all of them (matched to each app), and new campaigns it creates go to the org you pick per app — set it on the app's page under Connection & management. When a credential reaches exactly one org, new apps link automatically.

Troubleshooting

• 401 / invalid client — the API user usually isn't fully provisioned yet; Apple can take a few minutes after the public-key upload. Re-test after 5 minutes.
• Key mismatch — make sure you uploaded the public key to Apple and pasted the private key into AdsBuddy, not the other way around.
• No campaigns visible — check the API user's role reaches the right organization.