Prequel has kept a single App Store ad running for 325 days, nearly eleven months on the same creative. In the same category, Facetune has logged 4,377 ad records across the year and not one of its creatives has stayed live past 39 days. Two apps, two opposite bets. One found copy it trusts and rode it; the other spends heavily and rotates fast.
We pulled every App Store ad these apps ran across major European markets from Apple's public Ad Repository, the transparency dataset the EU Digital Services Act requires. Here is the survivor board, sorted by how long each app's longest creative has stayed live. Data window ends 9 July 2026.
The survivor board
| App | Distinct creatives | Longest-running creative | Total ad records tracked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prequel: Photo & Video Editor | 17 | 325 days ("Aesthetic Effects & Pic Editor", NL) | 400 |
| Airbrush: Face Photo Editor | 8 | 154 days ("Retusche selfie mit Filtern", DE) | 76 |
| Photoroom: AI Photo Editor | 14 | 143 days ("Rimuovi sfondo, modifica foto", IT) | 877 |
| Picsart AI Photo Editor, Video | 8 | 138 days ("Editar Foto, Video y Collage", ES) | 1,361 |
| Remini - AI Photo Enhancer | 14 | 114 days ("Enhance, unblur and restore!", multi) | 1,550 |
| Facetune: Photo & Video Editor | 12 | 39 days ("App per modificare foto, video", IT) | 4,377 |
A few readings of this table:
- Facetune buys the most and holds the least. 4,377 ad records is more than the other five apps on this board combined, and its longest creative still tops out at 39 days. That is enormous spend paired with constant rotation. Facetune keeps flooding the auction with fresh creative rather than settling on a winner.
- Prequel does the reverse. 400 records, the smallest volume in the high-longevity group, and its top ad has run 325 days ("Aesthetic Effects & Pic Editor" in the Dutch market, live since August 2025). An ad that survives almost a year is paying for itself. Prequel found what converts and kept funding it on a fraction of Facetune's budget.
- The middle is high volume with held winners. Picsart (1,361 records) and Remini (1,550) both spend near Facetune's scale but hold their best creative for roughly four months, 138 and 114 days. They test broadly and let the survivors run.
Volume and longevity pull in opposite directions here. The apps spending the most are not the apps with the oldest ads.
Where these apps buy
Almost every ad on this board ran in App Store search results, the placement you see after typing a query. That fits a category people go looking for: someone types "remove background" or "photo editor" with intent already formed.
Photoroom is the exception. Alongside its search ads it bought App Store product-page placement, 50 records, the only app on this board paying for a browse surface. That is a bet on discovery as well as intent, reaching people before they name what they want.
What the winning copy says
The angle that keeps paying in this category is a plain statement of the feature, written in the local language. Not a brand line, not a mood.
Look at the survivors. Photoroom's 143-day ad reads "Rimuovi sfondo, modifica foto" (remove background, edit photo). Remini's 114-day runner reads "Enhance, unblur and restore!". Prequel's near-year ad names its effects: "Aesthetic Effects & Pic Editor". Each one says what the app does to your photo, and each is translated per market rather than reinvented. If you are writing your first App Store ad for a photo or video editor, the tested starting point is the feature stated flatly in your market's language.
How to read this for your own category
Longevity is the cheapest performance signal you can get for free. Nobody keeps funding an ad that loses money, so a creative still live after months is one that converts. Pull your own category the same way: list your three closest rivals, sort their ads by how long each has run, and write your first creatives against the survivors. Watch the spread between volume and longevity too, because an app running thousands of records with no old ad is telling you it has not found its winner yet, and an app holding one ad for months is telling you exactly what works. Then check monthly, because a new long-runner appearing is a rival finding a new winner.
You can pull any advertiser at recao.app, free, no account, in about a minute.
Method note: figures are computed from Apple's public Ad Repository (DSA Article 39), across major EU storefronts, data window ending 9 July 2026. "Days running" is the span from a creative's first to last recorded impression across those markets. Longevity is a proxy for performance, not a measured conversion rate. Refreshed monthly.