• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, October 12, 2017

Apple will expand the option for marketers to purchase search ads in its App Store in Canada, Mexico and Switzerland. The offering goes live October 17.

Today search ads are offered in Australia, the U.S., the UK and New Zealand. The company rolled out the ad initially in June 2016.

Apple says 65% of downloads come direct from a search on the App Store.

So the company is offering $100 credit to use toward the first campaigns. Eligible developers who sign up for Search Ads will receive a promo code via email to apply to their account. It must be used by October 31, 2017. The amount can only be applied to the purchase of Search Ads products and services on the App Store.

The move aims to drive app discovery in the App Stores in specific regions from a mobile device. 

Earlier this year, Apple redesigned the App Store, focusing consumer attention on in-app purchases.

The Search Ads are priced as a cost-per-tap (CPT) model, so marketers or developers only pay when a user taps on the ad. "The actual cost of a tap is a result of a second price auction, which calculates the CPT you pay based on what your nearest competitor is willing to pay for a tap on their ad, up to your maximum CPT bid," explains Apple.

The ad platform has a feature that matches keywords, called Search Match, which automatically matches ads to search terms without marketers figuring out all keyword possibilities and actively bidding on them.

Search Match uses multiple sources such as the metadata in the App Store listing, information about similar apps in the same genre, and other search data.

Marketers also can focus the campaign on device type and location, keywords, and broad match, similar to Google AdWords and Bing Ads in the search engines.