Guide · Attribution
Attributing revenue to keywords with RevenueCat
Apple Ads shows what each keyword costs. RevenueCat shows what customers pay. Bring those numbers together to review acquisition performance, and check whether the revenue you are reading is attributed or estimated.
What RevenueCat can attribute
RevenueCat's Apple AdServices integration collects attribution tokens from your app and retrieves the corresponding data from Apple. Once configured, supported revenue charts can be filtered by campaign, ad group, or keyword. Follow the official RevenueCat setup guide for the integration and SDK steps.
Connecting accounts is only part of that setup: your app also needs to send the attribution token. Missing attribution details can leave revenue grouped as unspecified rather than under a named keyword.
How Veldo estimates keyword revenue
Veldo reads your app's daily revenue and assigns a share to each keyword based on its share of ad spend that day. If a keyword accounts for 20% of today's spend, it receives 20% of today's revenue in this estimate. Veldo then adds those daily amounts across the reporting window.
This does not identify the keyword that brought in each paying customer. Revenue may include organic customers and renewals from earlier installs. Use the estimate as context for investigation; use customer attribution and cohort data when you need to measure acquisition payback.
What to compare before changing a bid
- Spend and installs. Start with the same app, storefront, and reporting window.
- The revenue source. Check whether it is attributed customer revenue or an allocation of app revenue.
- Time to conversion. A new trial may not have produced its first payment yet.
- Organic rank. A strong organic position can make a pause test worth considering. Rank alone does not prove an ad is redundant.
Change one thing at a time, record the date, and review total installs and conversions as well as the paid metrics. That gives your next decision a clearer starting point.
Common questions
Can RevenueCat attribute subscription revenue to Apple Search Ads keywords?
Yes. With its Apple AdServices integration configured and attribution tokens collected in your app, RevenueCat can segment supported charts by Apple Ads keyword. Veldo currently uses app-level daily revenue to estimate keyword revenue by share of spend.
Do I need RevenueCat to use Apple Search Ads data?
No. Veldo tracks rank, spend, installs, and cost per install without RevenueCat. Connect a revenue source to add revenue estimates to your review.
Why not just use cost per install?
Cost per install shows acquisition cost. It does not show whether those users subscribe or renew. Review cost alongside revenue, conversion timing, and organic rank.
Does this work for apps without subscriptions?
The same join applies to any revenue source you can attribute per user. Subscriptions are simply the common case, and the one where the delay between install and revenue makes the guesswork worst.
Bring the review onto your Mac
Connect Apple Ads and RevenueCat in Veldo to see rankings, spend, installs, and estimated keyword revenue together. Credentials stay in Keychain and your business data stays on your Mac. Without RevenueCat, you can still review rank, popularity, spend, and installs.