Apple Search Ads revenue connector
Use Grometrics as the connector between Apple Search Ads spend, AdServices install attribution, and RevenueCat purchases so campaign reporting is judged by paid customers.
APPLE SEARCH ADS
Apple Search Ads attribution for paying customers.
Connect Apple Search Ads spend to RevenueCat revenue. See real CAC, real ROAS, and keyword-level revenue attribution instead of Apple's install estimates.
No credit card. Works alongside RevenueCat and your existing SDK.
Apple Search Ads is the primary paid acquisition channel for iOS apps. The audience is high-intent: they are already in the store, already searching for competitor names or category terms. For mobile-first creators running RevenueCat, it is often the first or only paid channel.
Apple Search Ads tells you 24 people installed your app from the keyword [competitor-name] at $24.33 CPA. RevenueCat tells you 12 people converted to paid this week. Neither tells you whether those 12 paying customers came from that keyword or a completely different one.
You're bidding on keywords with no feedback loop. You're scaling spend based on Apple's install CPA, a number that treats a user who opens the app once and uninstalls the same as a user who subscribes for a year.
The real question isn't "how much do installs cost?" It's "how much do paying customers cost, and which keywords bring them?"
READY TO SEE YOUR REAL NUMBERS?
Connect your payment provider and see which channels actually drive revenue.
Start tracking for free →How It Works
| Step | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Connect Apple Search Ads | Copy the Grometrics public key into Apple Ads, then paste the three IDs Apple gives you. We import spend, keywords, and campaign structure with read-only access. We never touch your bids. See the full setup → |
| 2 | We already have the revenue | If you're using the Grometrics SDK and RevenueCat, purchases are already attributed to install sources. Apple Search Ads spend is the missing piece. |
| 3 | See keyword-level ROAS | Every keyword with real revenue, real CAC, and real ROAS. See actual paying customers traced back to the keyword that brought them, not install estimates. |
What Grometrics gives you
Keyword-level revenue attribution
See which keywords drive paying customers, not just installs. [competitor-app] might drive 3x ROAS while [category term] barely breaks even. Apple can't tell you this; we can, because we know who actually paid.
Territory tier comparison
Split campaigns by country and compare real ROAS across tiers. Tier 3 might deliver better margins than Tier 1, but you won't know unless spend and revenue are in the same view.
Platform comparison
Apple reported 24 installs while Grometrics tracked 18 paying customers. The gap is the difference between downloading an app and paying for it.
Full funnel visibility
A keyword drives an install. The user goes through onboarding. Grometrics shows the entire journey so you can tell whether a bad keyword is attracting the wrong users or onboarding is losing the right ones.
Data lag transparency
Apple Search Ads data lags 24–48 hours. We surface this explicitly so you don't panic when today's ROAS looks off. Revenue is real-time from RevenueCat; spend catches up from Apple.
Automatic campaign import
Campaigns and keywords import automatically. No manual campaign creation, no spend entry. Spend stays in sync as Apple updates its reporting data.
The Comparison That Matters
Apple's number and your real number are different, and the difference matters for budget decisions.
| Metric | Apple Reports | Grometrics Tracks |
|---|---|---|
| Metric | Installs | Paying customers |
| Count | 24 | 18 |
| Cost basis | $24.33 per install | $32.44 per paying customer |
| Missing info | Which installs paid? | Not available |
Use the keyword attribution guide to read this gap without treating installs as revenue.
Apple Search Ads connector or raw export?
If you searched for Apple Search Ads connector or export tools, first decide whether you need raw ad export or revenue attribution.
Grometrics is not a generic export tool. It is for Apple Search Ads revenue attribution: campaign and keyword spend connected to RevenueCat revenue, CAC, ROAS, trials, refunds, and onboarding behavior.
- Use raw export tools when you only need Apple Ads rows in another database or report.
- Use Grometrics when you need to know which campaigns and keywords created paying customers.
- Judge Apple Search Ads by revenue, not install estimates.
Questions to answer before deciding
Can't I just track this in Apple's dashboard?
Apple tracks installs, not revenue. It knows 24 people downloaded your app from the keyword [competitor-app]. It doesn't know that 8 of them paid and 16 didn't. Without connecting payment data, your CPA is an install cost pretending to be a customer cost.
RevenueCat has attribution built in, right?
RevenueCat can show you that a subscriber came from Apple Search Ads. It can even show the campaign. But RevenueCat's attribution doesn't show you the onboarding journey, including which screen they dropped off on, how long they spent on the paywall, or whether they saw your competitor's app page first. Grometrics combines the revenue data from RevenueCat with screen-level journey tracking from the SDK, then matches it against keyword-level spend from Apple.
Find out which keywords pay for themselves.
Connect Apple Search Ads and RevenueCat. Keyword-level ROAS in your first sync.
No credit card. Live data in your first session.