What is the best way to spend a $100 Apple Ads credit?

Confirm the credit and the financial guardrail.

Apple currently describes the $100 U.S. credit as a one-time offer for eligible new accounts linked at the top level to App Store Connect. Confirm it on the Billing page after adding a payment method and monitor invoices. The campaign can continue spending beyond the credit, so set daily budgets and calendar reminders instead of assuming the promotion is a hard account cap.

Choose Advanced when the purpose is to learn.

Basic minimizes setup, but Advanced Manage Bids exposes countries, keywords, match types, search terms, bids, and ad groups. Those controls make a small experiment explainable. Maximize Conversions generally needs more conversion volume and time than a $100 first test can reliably provide.

Test one market and one intent cluster.

Choose the country that matches your product, language, monetization, and target customer value—not simply the cheapest CPI. Start with roughly three to five exact keywords that describe the same high-intent job. Turn Search Match off for the controlled ad group and avoid generic or competitor terms unless they are the explicit hypothesis.

Derive the bid from what an install is worth.

Estimate the maximum affordable CPA, then multiply it by the expected tap-to-install conversion rate to obtain a starting max CPT. If an install is worth at most $5 and the page converts 30% of taps, the starting ceiling is about $1.50 per tap. Bid recommendations show auction opportunity, but your economics define the limit.

• Starting max CPT = maximum CPA × expected tap-to-install conversion rate
• $5 maximum CPA × 30% conversion = $1.50 max CPT
• Recalculate with actual conversion after a meaningful set of taps

Use staged stop rules, not a ten-day autopilot.

Review search terms and TTR after the first taps, product-page conversion after enough qualified taps, and retention or payment when those users mature. Pause immediately for irrelevant queries or a broken listing. Do not spend the remainder merely because it is promotional credit; preserving bad data is more valuable than exhausting the balance.