If you’re running ads through the App Store, the auction you’ve been optimising for no longer works the same way. For years, Apple Search Ads ran on a simple premise – one query, one ad. Whoever won the auction owned the top of the results page. Everyone else got nothing.
That changed on 3 March 2026. Apple began rolling out a second ad position within Search Results, starting with the UK and Japan before expanding globally later that month. Up to two ads can now appear for a single search query. The second slot sits inside the organic listings typically sitting in position three.
This sounds like good news for advertisers. More inventory, more chances to appear. But the implications are more complicated, and worth unpacking properly.
What actually changed
Before the update, Apple’s Search Results placement worked like a premium slot – one winner per auction, one ad per search. Advertisers competed for top position, and the rest of the App Store results page stayed organic.
The new format changes three things at once.
- Supply has increased. More ad impressions are available for every keyword you’re bidding on.
- The same campaign that was built for the top position will now automatically enter the running for position two as well, with no changes needed on your end.
- A sponsored result can now appear within what users previously understood as organic territory.
What Apple hasn’t changed is equally important. You cannot bid on a specific position. There is no “top slot” or “second slot” option. Apple’s algorithm allocates placements, and relevance is the mandatory entry ticket. If your app doesn’t match what a user is searching for, no bid will get you in, regardless of how much you’re willing to pay.
The relevance filter matters more than it used to
Apple’s position on relevance has always been stricter than Google’s. The platform has a hard quality filter where irrelevant apps simply don’t enter the auction.
That mechanism becomes more consequential with two ad slots in play. With one slot, the relevance bar determined whether you were in the auction at all. With two slots, it also determines whether you capture incremental volume from a competitor’s overflow, or whether a competitor captures yours.
In practice, this makes keyword strategy load-bearing in a way it wasn’t before. Broad, loosely matched keyword sets that scraped into auctions on the fringes of relevance are likely to see erratic position outcomes. Tightly curated keyword sets, with clear alignment between keyword intent, app category, and creative, will have more predictable reach.
This is one of the areas where we invested ahead of the rollout. Before the expansion went live, we completed a full keyword coverage audit across client accounts and markets, specifically looking at where query coverage was thin and where relevance signals were weak. The timing was deliberate. Entering a more competitive, two-slot auction with poor keyword hygiene is a recipe for wasted spend.
What happens to cost
The short-term intuition is that more supply should lower cost per tap. The auction expands, more impressions become available, the average CPT comes down.
That may be true at the margin, and early signals suggest the second position carries a lower CPT than the top slot. But the directional trend on CPT across Apple Search Ads has been upward for years regardless. The platform averaged $2.50 CPT in 2025, up from $1.59 in 2023. More inventory doesn’t reverse a trend driven by more advertisers competing for a limited, high-intent audience.
The more useful question is not “will costs go down?” but “will the same budget deliver more installs?” For well-structured campaigns with strong relevance signals, probably yes, at least initially. You’re getting access to impression volume that previously didn’t exist. For campaigns that were already struggling to win auctions, the picture is less clear.
There’s another dynamic worth watching: organic displacement. A user searching for a category keyword used to see one ad at the top, followed by organic results. Now they might see two ads, with the second appearing mid-list. Organic install rates for popular keywords could fall as a result. If you’re an app that relies on organic search volume to complement a paid strategy, that equation has shifted.
Three things to prioritise right now
Audit your keyword relevance before you adjust your bids. The second slot won’t reward overbidding on loosely matched terms. Review your keyword list against your app’s category, metadata, and creative. Tighten where relevance is weak. This is the foundational work, and it needs doing before anything else.
Segment new users from returning users. Apple has offered audience segmentation by new and returning users for some time, and with more impressions available, the cost of undifferentiated targeting goes up. In our experience running campaigns across multiple markets, returning users can routinely absorb upwards of 15-20% of spend while contributing a small fraction of that in primary in-app actions. Bundling both audiences into a single campaign means your bids are being pulled by a blended signal that flatters neither cohort. Running separate campaigns lets you downweight returning users explicitly and redirect that budget where it actually converts.
Build out competitor campaigns if you haven’t already. A second ad slot means more opportunities for competitors to appear on your brand terms – and more opportunities for you to appear on theirs. Competitor campaigns that were previously deprioritised because winning top position felt out of reach become more viable with an additional slot in play. Build them out, structure them carefully, and set clear CPT thresholds before you scale.
The bottom line
Apple Search Ads has always punched above its weight for high-intent, bottom-of-funnel acquisition. The second ad slot makes that true for more advertisers and more budgets simultaneously.
The catch is that the platform rewards preparation. Relevance gates the auction, not just money. Keyword quality, audience segmentation, and creative alignment are the inputs that determine whether you benefit from the expanded inventory or lose share to competitors who prepared better.
The second slot has been live for weeks. The advertisers who started auditing keyword coverage and structuring audience segments before the rollout are already seeing the clearest returns. For everyone else, there’s a short window to catch up before the second slot becomes fully priced in.
