Frequently asked questions

What is AdsBuddy?

AdsBuddy is a daily copilot for indie iOS developers and small studios running their own Apple Search Ads. It reads your campaigns and your App Store revenue, then each day hands you a short, prioritized list of changes worth making — each one explained, with the expected impact.

You stay in control: AdsBuddy recommends, you approve, and it applies the approved changes to your Apple Search Ads for you. It is built for people who run their own ads and want a clear answer to 'what should I do today?' instead of staring at dashboards.

Does AdsBuddy spend my money or change my campaigns automatically?

Never silently. AdsBuddy doesn't move money or edit your Apple Search Ads on its own — but it can apply changes for you once you approve them. Before anything happens, it shows you the complete, exact set of actions it will take (creating campaigns, adjusting bids and budgets, adding negative keywords, promoting keywords to exact match). When you approve that set, AdsBuddy writes it to your account — which can create live campaigns and spend real budget — always within the daily and monthly limits you configure. If a plan would exceed those limits, it tells you and leaves the decision to you.

There is also an optional background auto-pilot you can switch on for a few low-risk, tightly-bounded action types (like adding obvious negative keywords or small bid nudges within limits you set). It is off until you explicitly enable it, and you choose exactly which actions it may take.

What data does AdsBuddy need, and how do I connect it?

AdsBuddy reads from Apple Search Ads (your campaigns, keywords, spend and performance), App Store Connect analytics, and RevenueCat (for subscription revenue and attribution). You connect each one in Settings using the official API keys Apple and RevenueCat provide.

App Store Connect and RevenueCat are read-only — AdsBuddy only reads revenue and analytics from them. For Apple Search Ads, AdsBuddy needs an API role that can manage campaigns, so it can apply the changes you approve; it only ever writes what you've explicitly approved, and never touches App Store Connect or RevenueCat.

How does AdsBuddy know which Apple Search Ads keywords drive revenue?

Apple does not report revenue per keyword. AdsBuddy reconstructs it from the install-to-purchase chain: Apple's AdServices attribution token tags an install with the campaign, ad group and keyword that drove it, and RevenueCat ties that install to the subscription revenue it later generates.

Joining those together lets AdsBuddy estimate real return on ad spend at the campaign and keyword level, so its recommendations are based on revenue, not just installs.

Is my data and are my credentials secure?

Yes. Every customer's data is isolated in its own tenant, enforced at the database level so one account can never see another's data. The API keys you connect are encrypted before they are stored and are only used to read your own accounts.

AdsBuddy never asks for your Apple ID password or account login — only the official, scoped API keys that Apple and RevenueCat issue for this purpose.

Do I need a big ad budget to use AdsBuddy?

No. AdsBuddy is built for indie-scale budgets. A lot of its value is helping small spenders avoid waste — catching a draining keyword early, knowing when a campaign has proven itself, and only scaling what is already profitable.

If you are just starting Apple Search Ads, it helps you launch sensibly; if you already spend, it helps you spend better.

How much does AdsBuddy cost?

AdsBuddy is launching soon and pricing will be announced before launch. Join the waitlist and you'll be the first to know, along with any early-access offer.

How is AdsBuddy different from managing Apple Search Ads myself?

You can absolutely run Apple Search Ads yourself — AdsBuddy just removes the daily guesswork. Instead of you exporting reports, joining ad data to revenue and deciding what matters, AdsBuddy does that analysis continuously and surfaces only the handful of changes that actually move your results.

Think of it as a focused daily briefing for your ads, where every suggestion is explained and you make the final call.