Apple will begin showing more ads in the App Store in 2026. The company says the ads will “increase opportunity” in the search results.
As first spotted by MacRumors, Apple’s Ads website says we’ll start seeing more ads appear across search queries in the very near future. The ads will appear at the top as well as further down in results. Existing campaigns won’t need to do anything to be eligible.
Search is the way most people find and download apps on the App Store, with nearly 65 percent of downloads happening directly after a search. To help give advertisers more opportunities to drive downloads from search results, Apple Ads will introduce additional ads across search queries. You don’t need to change your campaign in order to be eligible for any new positions. Your ad will run in either the existing position — at the top of search results — or further down in search results. If you have a search results campaign running, your ad will be automatically eligible for all available positions, but you can’t select or bid for a particular one.
Apple says the ad format will remain unchanged. The ads will consist of a default or custom product page, and an optional deep link. There will be no change in billing for advertisers and developers, which will remain based on Apple’s cost-per-tap model, so developers only pay when a user taps on an ad.
The new App Store ads will begin appearing on devices running iOS 26.2 and later at the beginning of 2026. More details are available on Apple’s Ads website.
