Custom product pages vs product page optimization (A/B testing)

How the two features differ

Based strictly on what Apple’s documentation states:

• Custom product pages (CPP): additional product pages alongside your default one. Each gets its own URL, and can be shown to people who follow that URL or search the keywords you assign to it.
• Product page optimization (PPO): alternate versions (“treatments”) of your default product page’s icon, screenshots and app previews, shown to a random share of App Store users so you can compare results.

So CPP is for showing a dedicated page to a specific audience or search term, and PPO is for comparing which presentation performs better. App Store Connect Help also states that product page optimization tests aren’t available for custom product pages — you can’t run a PPO test on a CPP.

Custom product pages: limits and what can vary

• Count: App Store Connect Help says you can create up to 70 custom product pages per app.
• What can vary: screenshots, previews, promotional text and keywords. Each page is localizable and shareable through a unique URL.
• Eligibility: you can create one if your app has the Ready for Distribution status in at least one country or region. Apple’s product page adds that apps available for pre-order can use them too.
• OS support: available on the App Store on iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, or later.
• Review: the metadata must be submitted for review, independent of an app update. A page isn’t visible to users until approved, and changes publish automatically on approval.
• Deep links: optionally add an app deep link. On iOS 18 / iPadOS 18 or later it takes people who tap Open to specific content in your app, and it must be approved before it works.

Product page optimization: limits and what can vary

• Treatments: up to three per test. Apple notes that the more treatments you add, the longer a test may take to reach a conclusive result.
• What can be tested: app icons, screenshots and app previews. Promotional text and keywords are not listed as testable elements. A treatment includes your original icon, screenshots and previews unless you provide alternates.
• Concurrency and duration: you can create one test at a time, and a test runs for up to 90 days or until you stop it manually within that time.
• Traffic split: you choose the percentage of people randomly shown a treatment. Apple’s example: allocate 40% of traffic with two treatments, and each treatment gets 20% while the original page keeps the remaining 60%.
• Localizations: choose which to include (all supported ones are selected by default). A user whose localization is excluded from the test isn’t included in it.
• Requirements: the app must be in the Ready for Distribution state. Alternate icons require all icon variants to be in the published app’s binary; tests without alternate icons can be submitted for review independent of a new app version. New metadata must be approved by App Review.
• Changing a running test: Apple states you cannot change a test once it has started.
• Required role: Account Holder, Admin, App Manager, or Marketing.

How people reach each one

CPP is only shown to people who arrive through a link or a keyword. App Store Connect Help: custom product pages are only visible if people follow a link, or if you choose to make them visible in search by adding keywords; otherwise everyone sees your default product page. Apple’s product page lists these routes:

• Sharing the unique URL in your own channels, such as social media ads or promotions.
• Apple Ads campaigns (Today tab, Search tab, search results) that lead to a particular page.
• Advertising networks passing the CPP ID through StoreKit (customProductPageIdentifier with SKOverlay, or SKStoreProductParameterCustomProductPageIdentifier with SKStoreProductViewController).
• Editorially curated stories and collections on the Today, Games, and Apps tabs.
• Search results for keywords you assign, in place of your default page. Assigned keywords come from your latest approved app version, and the page is searchable only after it’s approved and set to visible.

On keywords, Apple asks that they match the intent of the page and that each keyword combination is unique to a single product page. Someone opening the URL of a disabled CPP is redirected to your default product page.

PPO isn’t a route people choose. Apple says treatments are shown to a percentage of randomly selected people on the App Store in iOS and iPadOS 15 or later, who see the same treatment every time they visit throughout the test.

How results are measured in App Store Connect

For CPP

Apple’s product page says the Acquisition tab shows product page impressions, downloads, redownloads and conversion rates for each page, and lets you compare against your default page. It also describes retention and average proceeds per paying user for each page. Per App Store Connect Help, these metrics are available only after a custom product page receives at least five first-time downloads.

For PPO

In App Analytics, open the Acquisition section’s Product Pages. The table lists:

• Unique Impressions: unique devices that viewed each variant.
• Conversion Rate: the percentage of viewers who downloaded (or pre-ordered) the app.
• Improvement: the relative lift compared with your baseline (conversion lift).
• Confidence: the statistical confidence in the result.

The baseline defaults to your original product page and can be changed to any treatment at any time. Apple says a treatment is labeled Performing Better or Performing Worse only at 90% confidence or higher. Other statuses include Collecting Data and Likely to be Inconclusive. A test appears in Analytics once at least five first-time downloads are attributed to it.

When creating a test you can pick a desired conversion-rate improvement and see an estimated duration and number of impressions based on your app’s existing data. That estimate doesn’t affect the test, and Apple cautions it may not be possible to reach your desired improvement within 90 days.

You can apply one treatment per test, and that can’t be undone. Only screenshots and app previews carry over — to change the icon, set it as the default in your next app version. Applying a treatment while a test is running stops the test.

Which to use when

Only the following follows from what Apple documents:

• “Which presentation of my default page works better?” PPO is the provided tool, for icons, screenshots and app previews. Because PPO tests aren’t available for custom product pages, you can’t use it to compare CPPs or to test promotional text.
• “Show a dedicated page to people from a specific ad, link, or search keyword.” CPP is the provided tool — the unique URL, Apple Ads use and keyword assignment exist only for CPPs.
• Changing promotional text: Apple lists only icons, screenshots and app previews as testable, so promotional text can only vary on the CPP side.

Apple’s product page also cites an aggregate figure: developers see a 2.5 percentage point increase on average when referring people to a custom product page, a 156% increase over the 1.6% average conversion rate on default product pages. That’s Apple’s average across developers, not a guarantee for any one app.

Before comparing any of these numbers, make sure the denominators match — see the conversion rate guide. For screenshot specs and how they appear in search, see the screenshots guide.

How ASO Lens handles this

ASO Lens does not read CPP or PPO data and does not run tests. The only place its code touches PPO is the diagnosis signal acq_creative_test_ready (src/core/diagnosis/signals/creativeTesting.ts), which names PPO as the mechanism for testing.

The conditions for that signal are ASO Lens’s own thresholds (src/core/diagnosis/thresholds.ts), not Apple’s:

• Page Download Rate (Total Downloads ÷ Unique Product Page Views) must be below 30%. At or above 30% the signal doesn’t fire.
• With 1,000 or more Unique Product Page Views it fires at normal confidence; from 250 up to 1,000 it fires with low confidence.
• From 60 up to 250 views it only reports how many more product page views would reach the low-confidence band (acq_creative_test_more_data_needed). Below 60, nothing fires.

These aren’t the number of views a test needs to be valid. Apple doesn’t publish a fixed required impression count (see the next section); ASO Lens’s thresholds only decide whether to show the diagnosis.

What Apple’s documentation doesn’t say

Plenty of unsourced claims circulate about CPP and PPO. In the pages I checked (2026-10-15), these are not documented:

• A minimum number of impressions or duration for a PPO test to be valid (Apple gives only a per-app duration estimate and the 90% confidence labeling threshold).
• The maximum number of keywords per CPP, or how the page shown for a keyword is chosen or ranked.
• Whether using CPPs improves keyword search rankings.
• How running CPPs and PPO tests at the same time affects each other (only that PPO isn’t available for CPPs).
• Any “winning formula” for what to put on a custom product page.

Summary

CPP: up to 70 pages, varying screenshots, previews, promotional text and keywords, reached through a unique URL, Apple Ads and assigned keywords. PPO: up to three treatments testing icons, screenshots and app previews, one test at a time for up to 90 days, shown randomly to a share of App Store users. Both are measured in App Store Connect, and PPO labels results at 90% confidence or higher. ASO Lens doesn’t read either — it only diagnoses, from product page views and Page Download Rate, whether a creative test is worth considering.