What if a user does not need to tap the first sponsored ads in search results to become your customer?
Users may not always install the first sponsored app they see. Some continue browsing, compare relevant options, and convert after encountering another app in an additional placement.
Apple Ads now allows search results ads to appear either at the top of search results or further down the page. Advertisers cannot select or bid for a specific position; where an ad appears depends on factors including relevance to the search query and the keyword bid.
Early data from Newton’s account team, based on a one-week analysis of ad placement performance for a lending fintech app, offers a first look at how the expanded search results ads placement may influence app acquisition.
The initial signals suggest that placement and conversion do not always move together and that the individual search term itself may be an important part of the story.
Does the first placement capture attention?
In the week analyzed, the first placement generated a 12.9%* tap-through rate, compared with 5.2% for the additional placement.
The additional placement nevertheless generated:
● 26.7K incremental impressions*
● 1.4K taps*
● 936 tap-through installs*
The additional placement therefore contributed meaningful reach and attributed acquisition volume, even with a lower TTR.
The early signal is less about one placement outperforming the other and more about the two placements potentially playing different roles within the same search journey.
Source: *Data from Newton internal campaigns.
Conversion tells a more nuanced story
The first placement generated stronger performance across both engagement and conversion. However, the additional placement still delivered meaningful incremental acquisition.
That distinction matters. The additional placement may have lower engagement and conversion rates than the first, but it still generated 1.4K taps and 936 installs from an expanded pool of search-result inventory.
From Newton’s experience, when users interact with multiple placements before converting, attributing the install solely to the last placement can overlook the broader conversion journey. We observed that looking at collective campaign performance provides a more complete view of how different placements contribute to conversion. From an acquisition perspective, the additional ad placement adds another opportunity to reach and convert users who may not have engaged with the first ad.
Does Individual Search-Term Performance Change the Picture?
In the same one-week dataset from the lending fintech app, the most interesting signal appears at the search-term level. While the additional placement converted at a lower rate overall, it performed comparably or better for several individual searches.
The same pattern appeared in tap-through conversion rates:
These results should be treated as directional. They are based on one week of data from one finance app and may reflect differences in intent, relevance, competition, audience mix, or search volume.
But they highlight an important distinction:
A lower placement does not automatically mean lower conversion in every search context.
The average tells us what happens across the inventory. The search term can tell us why.
Search intent: Competitor and Category Searches
Several of the stronger examples came from competitor and category-related searches, including:
● “branch personal loan”
● “buddy loan”
● “olyv personal loan”
● “dhani personal loan”
● “money view loan”
● “true balance”
● “personal loan app”
These searches may indicate that users are considering multiple solutions rather than looking for one specific app. In that context, the first sponsored result may capture the initial interaction, while another relevant app further down the results can enter the consideration set.
It is too early to establish a causal relationship, but the pattern raises a useful question:
Does placement influence conversion, or does search intent influence how valuable each placement becomes?
That distinction becomes increasingly important as more data accumulates across categories, markets, and search terms.
Where do custom product pages fit in?
Use custom product pages aligned with keyword themes in search-results ad variations. Apple Ads’ published examples that shows improvement in TTR, conversion rate, and CPI from tailored ad variations.
● HelloFresh: +42% TTR, +9% conversion, -24% CPI
● Facetune: +45% TTR, +8% conversion, -15% CPI
Although these examples are not specific to the additional placement or to Newton’s one-week lending fintech analysis, they raise a useful question: could stronger search-term-to-custom product page alignment also influence the value of an exposure further down the search results?
What could this mean for CPA and ROAS?
The commercial value of the additional placement cannot be determined solely from this one-week observed install dataset. CPA, ROAS and downstream conversion quality will help establish whether the additional attributed acquisition translates into sustainable business value.
The most useful comparisons will be:
● CPA and ROAS by placement and search intent
● Seven- and 30-day cohort outcomes
● Subscription or revenue quality after acquisition
The aim is to understand whether the expanded inventory is contributing valuable acquisition, rather than evaluating the placement through TTR or installs alone.
How should advertisers read the change?
The additional placement expands the conversion journey beyond a single
search-result interaction. A user can encounter multiple relevant exposures before deciding which app to install.
The old mental model is relatively simple:
Search intent→ ad appears → user taps → install
But with another sponsored result embedded further down the results, the journey can become:
Search intent→ first exposure → continued browsing → second exposure → consideration → conversion
● Search intent: Do competitor, category and branded searches behave differently across placements?
● Relevance: Does alignment between search term, ad creative and custom product pages affect conversion quality?
● Commercial value: Do additional-placement users contribute sustainable CPA, ROAS and downstream revenue?
The early data suggests that placement alone does not explain every conversion outcome.
Takeaway: In this one-week lending-app dataset, the first placement drove stronger engagement (12.9% vs. 5.2% TTR), while the additional placement still generated 26.7K impressions and 936 installs. More importantly, competitor and category searches showed stronger tap-through conversion in several cases, including 84.5% for “true balance” and 92.3% for “instamoney” in the additional placement. The early signal: placement performance can vary meaningfully by search intent.
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