App Store Ads
The App Store Ads tab sits inside the Traffic hub and is the home for everything related to your Shopify App Store ad
campaigns. It connects three data sources — your BigQuery keyword rankings, your uploaded Shopify Ad Performance CSV
reports, and your Partner API revenue — to give you a clearer picture of ad ROI than the Shopify dashboard alone can
provide.
Prerequisites
- BigQuery connected — keyword rankings and organic positions come from GA4 BigQuery data. Without this, the Organic
vs Paid and Wasters tabs show no data.
- At least one Ad Performance Report uploaded — raw impressions, clicks, and spend come from the search term CSV you
export from your Shopify Partners ad dashboard (see Exporting your report from Shopify below). Ranksy does not pull
this automatically.
Revenue metrics (True ROAS, ad revenue) additionally require your Partner API to be connected.
Exporting your report from Shopify
Ranksy reads the By search terms export from your Shopify App Store ad campaigns. You export it yourself from the
Shopify Partner Dashboard — Ranksy can't pull it automatically. Do this once per campaign.
1. Sign in to your Shopify Partner Dashboard.
2. In the left sidebar, go to Apps, then open App ads.
3. Open the campaign you want to report on (for example, Exact Match Campaign).
4. Set the date range using the date selector at the top of the campaign (for example, Last 7 days). If you plan to
upload several reports over time, pick non-overlapping ranges — for example one file per month. Ranksy keeps each
period distinct for the Trends and Compare tabs and will reject a report whose dates overlap one you've already
uploaded.
5. Click Export in the top-right of the campaign.
6. In the Export report dialog, change the dropdown from By keywords to By search terms. This is the view Ranksy needs
— the other options won't import.
7. Tick Include breakdown by country/region, shop plan, and device type. These columns power Ranksy's Geography tab.
8. Click the green Export button. Shopify doesn't download the file directly — it emails the report to you.
9. Open that email and download the CSV.
Repeat for each campaign you're running. Each export already includes the app name, campaign name, and date range, so
Ranksy automatically matches the file to the right app when you upload it.
Uploading a report
Click Upload Report in the top-right. Select one or more Shopify Ad Performance CSV files downloaded from your Partners
dashboard. Ranksy processes each file in the background and shows upload progress in real time. Once processing is
complete, all tabs update automatically.
You can upload multiple non-overlapping reports — for example, separate files for January and February — and Ranksy will
keep them distinct for the Trends and Compare tabs.
Tabs
Overview metrics
At the top of every tab, a metric row shows totals across all uploaded reports in the current period:
| Metric | What it means | | --- | --- | | Impressions | Total times your ad appeared | | Clicks | Total clicks on your
ad | | Installs | Installs attributed to ad clicks in the report | | Spend | Total ad spend | | Avg CPC | Average cost
per click | | Avg CPI | Average cost per install |
Organic vs Paid
This is the flagship tab. It joins your BigQuery organic keyword rankings with the ad data from your uploaded reports
and shows a side-by-side view for every keyword you're bidding on.
Each keyword row shows:
- Your organic rank (from BigQuery scraped rankings)
- Your sponsored rank (from the ad report)
- Ad impressions, clicks, installs, spend
- A verdict classifying the keyword into one of four buckets:
| Verdict | Meaning | | --- | --- | | Cannibalized | You rank organically in top 1–2 and your ad has less than 50% share
— you're paying for clicks you'd likely get for free | | Essential | You don't rank organically (or rank below
position 5) — the ad is the only way you appear for this keyword | | Additive | You rank organically but not in the top
positions — the ad adds incremental reach | | Irrelevant | The ad ran but drove zero impressions or installs |
The summary bar at the top shows counts for each bucket plus key aggregates: True ROAS, total spend, ad revenue, ad
installs, paying shops, conversion to paid, cost per paying customer.
True ROAS is not estimated — it traces the full chain from BigQuery ad-click events to Partner API transactions for
those specific shops, so it reflects real revenue attributed to ads rather than a modelled proxy.
Keywords
A full paginated table of every keyword in your uploaded reports. You can search and sort by any column: impressions,
clicks, CTR, installs, spend, CPC, CPI. Expanding a row shows the individual search terms that triggered that keyword.
Wasters
Keywords and search terms that are consuming budget without converting. Ranksy classifies a keyword as a waster when it
has ad spend but no installs, or when your organic rank is already strong enough that the ad is redundant.
Use this tab to find exact-match negatives to add to your campaigns.
Insights
The Insights tab surfaces four types of actionable recommendations:
AI Performance Report — generates a written analysis of your campaign health. Click Generate, wait a few seconds, and
download the PDF. The report draws on all your uploaded data plus organic ranking context.
Install Attribution — shows what share of installs came from ads versus organic search versus other channels, reconciled
to your Partner API install count.
Reduce Bid — keywords where you're paying for sponsored placement but your organic rank is already strong (rank ≤ 8 with
organic installs outpacing ad installs). Consider lowering your bid or pausing these.
Stop Bidding — keywords where organic presence is dominant (rank ≤ 4 with several organic installs, or organic rank ≤ 6)
and the ad is adding negligible value.
New Opportunities — keywords with impressions and clicks but zero installs. Worth investigating your listing relevance
for these terms before deciding whether to keep or pause them.
Keep Bidding — keywords where organic rank is weak but the ad is converting. These are the ads earning their spend.
Negative Keyword Suggestions — search terms burning budget with no conversions, grouped into themes (category-level
broad/phrase negatives) and spend wasters (exact-match negatives).
Geography
Breaks down ad performance by country and device type. The map and table show impressions, clicks, installs, CPI, and
install rate per market. Hero cards compare your app average install rate and CPI to the app-wide benchmark for each
geo.
Use this to find markets where your ads are converting unusually well (double down) or unusually poorly (review pricing,
listing localisation, or add geo-exclusions).
Campaign Trends
Select a specific campaign to see its performance across multiple uploaded reports over time. Each row is one report
period with delta indicators showing period-over-period changes for impressions, clicks, installs, and spend.
Requires at least two non-overlapping reports for the same campaign to show trends.
Compare Periods
Select any two uploaded reports to compare keyword-level changes between them. The summary row shows aggregate deltas
for impressions, clicks, installs, and spend. The table lists every keyword with both periods' numbers and percentage
changes. Keywords that appeared in only one period are marked New or Removed.
Imported Reports history
At the bottom of the page, a table lists every report you've uploaded with its status (completed / processing / failed),
date range, total impressions, and spend. You can delete individual reports if you uploaded the wrong file.
FAQ
Q: Why does my True ROAS differ from Shopify's reported ROAS? A: Shopify's ROAS uses last-click attribution from the ad
click. Ranksy's True ROAS traces BigQuery search_ad surface events to Partner API transactions for those shops, which
means it only counts revenue from shops that both clicked an ad and eventually completed a transaction — a stricter and
more accurate measure.
Q: My keywords show as Cannibalized — should I pause those ads? A: Not automatically. Cannibalized keywords are ones
where you rank organically in top 1–2 with low ad share. Whether to pause depends on your keyword's competitiveness. If
a strong competitor is bidding on the same keyword, pausing might let them take the sponsored slot and erode your
install share even if your organic rank is strong.
Q: Why is my spend showing but the organic vs paid comparison is empty? A: The Organic vs Paid tab requires BigQuery
data to supply organic keyword ranks. If BigQuery is not connected, or if no organic ranking data exists for those
keywords yet, the verdict column will be empty.
Q: Can I upload multiple reports at once? A: Yes. You can select multiple CSV files in the upload dialog and Ranksy
processes them in parallel, showing progress for each file.
Q: The geography tab is empty. Why? A: Geographic data is a deferred prop loaded after the main page. If it shows a
loading spinner for more than a minute, check that your BigQuery connection is active and that your GA4 export includes
the country dimension.
Next steps
- Traffic Sources — organic traffic by channel and session breakdown
- Attribution — multi-model attribution for installs across all channels (Traffic hub → Attribution tab)
- Keyword Rankings (ASO) — track your organic rank on the keywords you care about
