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app-ads.txt for an iOS app: the App Store field AdMob reads

Which App Store Connect field the crawler follows, why the Support URL is not it, and how to read AdMob's status for an iOS app.

For an iOS app, AdMob reads the developer website from the Marketing URL field of your App Store listing, not the Support URL. Put your site's address there, serve /app-ads.txt at the root of that host, and allow up to 24 hours. When the file is right, AdMob's app-ads.txt tab shows it as found and verified.

Do this in a few minutes instead

AppFoyer hosts the pages this guide is about — privacy policy, terms, support, account deletion and app-ads.txt — on their own subdomain, with no domain or server of your own. One app is free, and nothing a store requires is ever behind a paywall.

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Checked 12 October 2026. Store policies change, sometimes without notice. Everything below links to the official documentation, and that page — not this one — is the authority. If the two disagree, the store is right.

For an iOS app, AdMob reads the developer website from the Marketing URL field of your App Store listing — not the Support URL. AdMob’s setup guide says it in one line: “Add your developer website in the marketing URL field of your app store listing.” Put your site’s address there, serve /app-ads.txt at the root of that host, and allow up to 24 hours.

Why iOS apps miss this more often than Android ones

App Store Connect has two URL fields, and they do different jobs:

  • Support URL — required. Apple will not take the submission without it, so every app has one.
  • Marketing URL — optional. Plenty of apps leave it empty.

The crawler follows the optional one. An app can have a perfect app-ads.txt on its support site and still show as not found, because the Marketing URL is blank and the crawler has nowhere to start. The two fields may name the same host; that is often the simplest arrangement.

On Google Play the equivalent field is the Website under Store listing contact details.

Setting it

  1. In App Store Connect, open the app and the version’s page.
  2. Fill in Marketing URL with the full address, including https:// — for example the same host as your Support URL.
  3. Save. Whether a live version lets you change it straight away depends on its state in App Store Connect; if the field is locked, it goes in with your next version.

The Marketing URL can be localised. If you set it per language, keep every localisation on the same host, so it does not matter which one a crawler reads.

One file for both stores

The file lists sellers, not apps: one line per ad network account. If the same publisher account runs ads in your iOS and Android builds, both listings can name the same host and the same app-ads.txt covers both. Each app still appears on its own row in AdMob, with its own status.

Reading AdMob’s status

In AdMob, go to Apps → View all apps → app-ads.txt. AdMob documents three states:

StatusMeaning
Found and verifiedAdMob crawled the file and your publisher id is in it.
Not foundNo file was found for this app.
IssueThe file was found but has a problem — AdMob warns revenue is at risk.

Expanding a row shows the URL AdMob crawled and when it last crawled. That URL is the fastest diagnosis there is: if it is not the host you meant, the Marketing URL is the thing to fix, not the file.

Common iOS mistakes

  • Marketing URL left empty. The most common one. Nothing to crawl.
  • Marketing URL set to the App Store page itself (apps.apple.com/…). You cannot put a file at the root of Apple’s domain.
  • A redirect on the declared host — http to https, apex to www, an old domain to a new one. Declare the address that answers 200 directly.
  • Checking too early. “It can take up to 24 hours for AdMob to crawl and verify your app-ads.txt files.” Changes to the listing take time to be detected too.

What AppFoyer does here

Each app gets a subdomain that serves app-ads.txt as plain text, 200, no redirect, next to the support and privacy pages App Store Connect asks for — so the Support URL and the Marketing URL can name the same address. AdMob reports “app-ads.txt file found and verified” for an iOS app whose Marketing URL is an AppFoyer address (checked October 2026). We have no crawl result of our own from other ad networks yet.

The authoritative sources