Apple Search Ads · Guide
Apple Search Ads Management: In-House vs Agency vs Software
What each option really costs, where each one breaks down, and how to pick based on your spend and your time.
You can manage Apple Search Ads three ways: in-house, with an agency, or with software. In-house gives you control but eats founder time and rarely gets watched closely enough. An agency buys expertise but costs a retainer plus often a share of spend, and still cannot watch your account continuously. Software, especially an AI agent tied to your real revenue, does the ongoing work for the price of a tool and never looks away. The right pick comes down to your spend and how much of your own time you want back.
Option 1: In-house
Running it yourself, or handing it to someone on your team, keeps full control and all the context. There is no extra bill and no one between you and your account.
The problem is that good Apple Search Ads management is a daily job, and in-house it is almost always a daily job done weekly. Founders mean to check it and then ship product instead. The auction moves every day, bids drift, new search terms appear, and a budget that was right last week quietly leaks this week. The cost is not on an invoice, it is in the winners you never scaled and the losers you kept paying for.
Option 2: An agency
An agency brings people who do this for a living and takes the work off your plate. For a larger account with real complexity, that expertise is worth something.
Two things to watch. First, the cost: a monthly retainer, often with a percentage of your ad spend on top, which means the more you spend the more they earn whether or not it pays back. Their incentive is spend, yours is profit. Second, even a great agency cannot sit on your account every hour. You are one of many clients, changes happen on their schedule, and the same delay that hurts in-house management hurts here too, just for more money.
Option 3: Software
Software runs the account continuously, costs a fraction of an agency, and does not get bored or distracted. This is where most of the market is heading. The question is what the software is actually optimizing for.
Older tools are rules engines: simple if-then bid changes that do not understand your funnel and cannot tell a valuable competitor term from a money pit. Worse, most automation optimizes to installs, because that is what it can see, so it scales keywords that never turn into subscribers. Good software reads your real subscription revenue, judges every keyword on true ROAS, and reasons about each decision instead of firing a blunt rule.
How to choose
- Small spend, little time. Software is usually the best value. It does the work you would skip, without a retainer.
- Growing spend. The choice is agency or software. Software wins on cost and on always-on attention, as long as it can see your revenue.
- Large, complex account. Some teams want a human partner. Even then, the deciding question is the same one that matters at every size.
That question: does whatever runs your account judge keywords on real subscription revenue, or on installs? Get that right and any of the three can work. Get it wrong and you will lose money efficiently no matter who is at the wheel.
Why Magentic
Magentic is the software option done right: agency-quality decisions at software cost.
- It runs your bids, keywords, and budgets for you, always on, judged on real subscription revenue, not installs.
- You only get in if it pays. We check your numbers first and bring you on only if Apple Search Ads can be profitable for your app.
- You keep control. Your account, hard spend caps, and override any decision in plain language anytime.
One founder at a time.