Shopify App Store ads put your app at the top of search results, category pages or the App Store homepage, marked as sponsored. They are the only paid channel that reaches merchants at the moment they are looking for an app. They are also easy to overspend on, because Shopify's own report stops at a 30-day window and counts gross revenue.
This guide covers how the ads work, what you pay, how to set up a first campaign, and how to tell whether a keyword pays back. Facts about the ads come from Shopify's developer documentation, linked inline. Costs from other developers and agencies are labeled as anecdotes.
How Shopify App Store ads work
Only apps published on the Shopify App Store can advertise, and only Shopify Partners in good standing can buy ads. Each ad promotes one app, and you can run several ads for the same app (source).
There are three placements:
| Placement | Ad slots (desktop / mobile) | How it is targeted |
|---|---|---|
| Search results | 4 / 3 | Keywords you choose |
| Category and subcategory pages | 4 / 2 | Only your app's own categories |
| Homepage | 4 / 4 | No keywords, open to all apps |
Sources: overview, create ads.
You don't write ad copy. "The appearance of your ad is based on information in the associated app listing, and can't be customized" (source). Your icon, name, subtitle and rating are the ad, and every ad links to your listing. To change what the ad says, you edit the listing, and listing edits go through Shopify's review.
Merchants who already have your app installed don't see its ad. Merchants who uninstalled it see it again (source).
The auction and what you pay
Every App Store ad is cost per click, sold in a first-price auction: "the price you pay for a click on your ad is the same as the bid amount that you entered" (source).
The bid is not the only factor. Shopify says "Keywords cost less for highly relevant apps, and their ads rank higher than others for the same auction". In its own example, the highest bidder doesn't show at all because its relevance is too low (source). In practice: you pay your bid, and relevance decides whether your ad shows and where.
That has two consequences:
- Bidding on keywords your listing doesn't match costs more and wins less. If Shopify shows no suggested bid for a keyword, "your app's relevance score is too low" to compete (source). Fix the listing before you raise the bid.
- A listing that converts makes each click cheaper over time. Relevance improves as merchants click and install.
Suggested bids come from auction data refreshed once a day. When nobody else bids on a keyword, or there isn't enough data, Shopify suggests $1 (source). Shopify enforces a minimum bid but does not publish it.
Budgets are daily, in US dollars, with a minimum of $5 a day (source). As spend nears the cap, bidding slows and then stops, and the ad shows as "Limited by budget". There is no scheduling: an ad bids in every relevant auction while it has budget left (source).
What clicks cost in practice
Shopify publishes no average cost per click. Two public reports give a sense of the range, and both are anecdotes:
- The agency Modo25 reports recommended bids of $7 to $35 for typical terms and $25 to $60 for highly relevant ones (source).
- The App Collective describes a niche B2B app with a $30 a month entry plan that found a $19 cost per install profitable, at low volume (source).
Your own numbers will depend on the keyword, your relevance and how many competitors bid.
Targeting: keywords, match types, devices and countries
Search ads take up to 100 keywords per ad (source).
- Broad match is the default. It covers synonyms, related terms and misspellings, and treats plural and singular as the same.
- Exact match is written in
[brackets]. It is case-insensitive and does not match plurals or reordered words. - Negative keywords stop your ad from showing for a search term.
You can also target by device (mobile, desktop or both, with separate bids) and by country. Shopify suggests one ad per country when you want to tune each market separately. Built for Shopify apps can also target by the merchant's Shopify plan; once added, plan targeting can be edited but not removed (source).
Some settings can't change after launch: the app, the placement and plan targeting. To change them you stop the ad and create a new one. A stopped ad can't be reactivated (source).
Billing
You're charged per click, at your bid, in US dollars. Shopify bills every 30 days, or sooner once your balance passes $100, to a Visa, Mastercard or Amex card. Prepaid cards are not accepted, and ads go "On hold" if a charge fails. Clicks Shopify identifies as bots are removed and credited back. Invoices are under Partner Dashboard > Settings > Ad billing (source).
What Shopify reports, and what it leaves out
The ad report in the Partner Dashboard shows impressions, clicks, CTR, CPC, average position, visibility, installs, install rate, cost per install, conversion rate, customers, customer acquisition cost, revenue and return on ad spend (source).
Read it with its rules in mind:
- Installs use a 30-day post-click window. A merchant who clicks your ad and installs on day 31 counts as organic.
- Conversion rate is paying installs divided by installs. Customers are installs that went on to pay.
- Revenue is gross, before Shopify's revenue share and refunds, and is credited to the impression date.
- It takes time. Conversion can take up to 64 days plus any free trial (30 days to install, a 29-day billing cycle and 5 days of reconciliation). Shopify recommends judging results about 60 days after the impression (source).
What the report doesn't tell you:
- Whether you would have got the install anyway. If you already rank #1 organically for a keyword, the ad may take clicks that would have reached your organic listing for free.
- Revenue after churn. A merchant who pays once and uninstalls counts the same as one who stays for a year.
- How ads change your organic rank. Ads push organic results down the page, yours and your competitors'.
How ads interact with organic rank
Ads and organic results share the same page, so each affects the other.
In Ranksy's data for mid-strength results pages, apps that entered a keyword's results reached the organic top 10 about 44% of the time when the page had no ads, and about 10% when it had three or more ad slots. On a keyword where rivals buy several slots, organic work alone may not get you seen.