US streaming App Store search is not one market, it’s a pile of intents (ConsultMyApp)

ConsultMyApp published a fun, very practical breakdown of how people actually search for “streaming” in the US App Store, using search-score / estimated impressions plus Apple Search Ads auction stacks (P1-P5).

• Source: ConsultMyApp, “The US Streaming App Search Wars…”
• Read: https://www.consultmyapp.com/blog/us-app-store-streaming-apple-ads-search-wars
• Data source (per the article): APPlyzer Apple Search Ads auction data

The one-line lesson

Stop treating “streaming” as a category, treat it as a set of intent clusters (and build separate keywords, ads, and CPP creative for each cluster).

What stood out

• “TV streaming” is the clean front door. It’s one of the biggest true streaming terms in their set, and the paid stack is relatively coherent (real streaming brands show up).
• Generic “streaming” terms are where budgets go to get lost. The broader the term, the more the auctions drift into adjacent utilities and unrelated apps.
• Sports intent gets hijacked. Their examples show “sports streaming” auctions repeatedly invaded by betting/prediction apps, not just streamers.
• Anime is unusually clean. Compared to sports/free/movie searches, anime searches are more consistent and dominated by the obvious leader.
• Device and remote-control intent is massive. A meaningful slice of “streaming” search volume is actually “how do I control/cast the thing on my wall?” not “what do I watch?”

Why this matters (practically)

If you lump everything into one campaign + one generic listing message, you end up:

• paying for the wrong job-to-be-done
• reading noisy search terms as “creative fatigue”
• shipping CPPs that are too broad to confirm intent in 3 seconds

Tiny win (45 minutes)

1. Pull your top-spend queries across streaming keywords.
2. Label each query as one intent: content, sports, kids, anime, free/value, device/remote, casting/mirroring.
3. For the biggest 1-2 clusters, build one CPP where screenshot #1 matches that intent explicitly.

You’ll usually find at least one cluster where the right move is not “bid harder”, it’s “stop being vague.”