What Search Match does
Search Match is an Apple Search Ads setting at the ad group level. When enabled, Apple can show your ad for searches you did not explicitly target—similar to broad match at the ad-group scope.
It is powerful for keyword discovery and dangerous when left on in brand or category campaigns.
When to use Search Match
- Dedicated discovery campaign with a small daily budget
- Early keyword research before you know category winners
- Harvesting query ideas for exact-match negatives elsewhere
Pair with weekly search term exports. Graduate high-performing queries to exact keywords in your category campaign; add losers as account-level negatives.
When to turn it off
- Brand campaigns — you should not pay discovery prices for your own name
- Any ad group mixing brand and generic keywords
- When CPA spikes without RevenueCat trial lift
- After you have a stable exact-match keyword set and tight negatives
Budget and bid rules
Discovery should be the smallest budget slice (~5–10% of total ASA spend). Bids must still respect your LTV profit cap—Search Match does not excuse overbidding.
If Apple throttles delivery, check that max CPT does not exceed the campaign daily budget (a common API error on tight budgets).
Search Match vs broad match
Broad match applies to individual keywords you add. Search Match applies to the whole ad group. Use both only in controlled discovery contexts—not stacked in the same scaling campaign.
Full context: match types explained.
Bottom line
Search Match is a prospecting tool. Run it in isolation, cap spend, feed negatives back to the account, and never let it run where brand efficiency matters.