TL;DR. App Analytics in App Store Connect splits your downloads into source types: App Store Search, App Store Browse, App Referrer, Web Referrer, App Clip, and Institutional Purchase. The one most developers misread is App Store Search — Apple’s own documentation confirms it includes downloads and views from Apple Ads that appear in App Store search results, not just organic search. There’s no toggle to separate the two inside App Analytics itself. And every metric here is a snapshot of the most recent download: if a user redownloads your app, their source type resets to whatever brought them back this time, overwriting how they originally found you.
If you’ve ever watched App Store Search climb in App Analytics right after launching an Apple Ads campaign and assumed it meant your organic ranking improved, you read the chart wrong — and it’s an easy mistake, because nothing in the UI flags that the number is blended.
What do the source types in App Analytics actually mean?
App Store Connect attributes every download to one of six source types, and Apple documents each one specifically. App Store Search covers views or downloads that started from a search on the App Store. App Store Browse covers users who found you while browsing — category lists, the Today tab, Games or Apps sections — without searching. App Referrer covers a tap on a link inside another app that opened your product page, including apps using StoreKit to embed it, and Apple’s own apps like Messages, but explicitly not Safari. Web Referrer covers a tap from a website. App Clip covers a link opened inside an App Clip. Institutional Purchase covers downloads through Apple Business Manager or Apple School Manager.
You can filter Impressions, Product Page Views, and Downloads by any of these source types inside App Analytics, and break each one down further by territory or device.
Does the App Store Search number include Apple Ads downloads?
Yes. Apple’s own App Analytics documentation states that App Store Search includes views and downloads from ads that appear in App Store search results — the same source type that counts a user typing your name and downloading also counts a user tapping your Apple Ads placement above the search results. There’s no built-in split between the two inside App Analytics.
That matters because App Store Search is the number most developers treat as their organic-search health check. A rising Apple Ads budget will lift that number on its own, with zero change to your actual keyword ranking. If you’re running an Apple Ads campaign at the same time you’re testing a subtitle or keyword field change, the App Store Search trend line alone can’t tell you which one moved the number.
How do I actually separate organic from paid App Store Search downloads?
App Analytics doesn’t do this natively, so you have to cross-reference. Apple Ads’ own campaign reporting (in the Apple Ads platform, not App Store Connect) gives you taps and installs attributed specifically to your paid campaigns. Subtract that volume from your total App Store Search figure in App Analytics and what’s left is a reasonable approximation of organic search performance for that period.
The more reliable independent check is tracking keyword rank directly instead of inferring it from a download count — rank position doesn’t move just because ad spend went up, so it isolates what your metadata is actually doing in organic search regardless of what your Apple Ads campaigns are doing in parallel.
What happens to source attribution when someone redownloads my app?
It resets. Apple’s documentation is explicit that all sales, usage, and subscription data are attributed to the source recorded at the most recent download — every manual redownload overwrites the prior attribution with whatever brought the user back this time. A user who first found you through a Web Referrer link a year ago, then redownloaded after searching for you by name last week, now shows up as an App Store Search attribution. Your Sources breakdown is a snapshot of recent acquisition behavior, not a permanent record of how each install originated — useful to know before you present a Sources chart as a definitive picture of a campaign’s total lifetime impact.