ReelShort has kept a single App Store ad running for 319 days, the longest of any short-drama app in Apple's public EU data. That one creative was still live at the close of our window. Short-drama apps (the vertical, minute-long serials that now crowd the top of the Entertainment chart) buy App Store ads hard, and almost nobody has looked at how. So we did.
We pulled every App Store ad these apps ran across five European storefronts (Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Great Britain) 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 10 July 2026.
The survivor board
| App | Distinct creatives | Longest-running creative |
|---|---|---|
| ReelShort | 8 | 319 days |
| DramaWave | 12 | 249 days |
| DramaBox | 8 | 172 days |
| NetShort | 19 | 151 days |
| GoodShort | (highest ad volume in the set) | 99 days |
| ShortMax | 7 records total | 10 days |
A few readings of this table:
- ReelShort runs the longest. Eight distinct creatives, and its top one at 319 days leads the category. An ad that survives more than ten months is paying for itself. ReelShort found what converts and kept funding it.
- DramaWave tests the widest among the veterans. Twelve creatives and a 249-day top runner, so it keeps a broad set alive while holding onto a proven winner.
- NetShort runs the most variants. Nineteen distinct creatives, the most variant testing in the category, with its longest at 151 days. This is an account that treats creative as a numbers game and still keeps a durable survivor.
- GoodShort buys the most. It has the highest ad volume in the set across these storefronts, though its longest creative tops out at 99 days. High spend, shorter survivor.
Where these apps buy
Every short-drama app in this set runs its ads in one placement: App Store search results, the slot you see after typing a query. Not one of them bought browse or Today-tab placements. That is a clean, category-wide pattern, and it says these apps are paying for intent, not discovery. They want the person who already typed "short drama" or a rival app's name, not the person scrolling the Today tab.
For contrast, secondhand-shopping apps in this same repository do buy browse placements. Short-drama apps concentrate purely on search. If you run an app in this category, that is the placement your rivals have already voted for with their budgets.
What the winning copy says
Every app in this set localizes the headline per market rather than translating one line across all five. The copy is written for each storefront, not run through a translator.
ReelShort is the clearest example. Its search-results headline by market:
- Germany: "Kurzserien nonstop genießen"
- France: "Mini-séries à tout moment !"
- Spain: "Shorts Sin Límites"
- Italy: "Unlimited Shorts on the Go"
Four markets, four different headlines, none a literal translation of another. If you are writing your first App Store ad for a short-drama app, the tested starting point is a native headline per market, not one English line pushed everywhere.
The one just getting started
ShortMax is the new entrant. Its longest creative is only 10 days old, and it has just 7 records total across a full-year window, which means it started buying App Store ads only in the last couple of weeks. That is the live signal of a rising advertiser: a small count, a young top creative, and no long-runners yet. Watch this one next month. If ShortMax is serious, some of these creatives will start to age into the survivor board.
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 an ad still live after months is one that converts. Pull your own category the same way: list your closest rivals, sort their ads by how long each has run, and write your first creatives against the survivors. Note which placement they buy, because that choice tells you whether they are paying for intent or discovery. Then check monthly, because a brand-new advertiser with a 10-day top creative today can be a real competitor by the next pull.
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 EU storefronts (Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain), data window ending 10 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.