Trick or treat with winning Halloween strategies for 2026

The keyword “halloween” reached a popularity score of 55 on the US App Store on October 21, 2026, ten days before the holiday. Currently 249 apps rank for the term, and 22 of them ran search results ads on it between October 9 and October 22.

Halloween is one of the strongest seasonal moments of the year for app marketers, and this year it arrives with more places to show up. Creative assets went live on the App Store on October 5, 2026, and Apple Ads launched an additional placement in search results in March 2026. Both arrived after last year’s Halloween season.

The holiday season is a playground for creativity and engagement, and understanding how apps are using this spooky season right now can provide invaluable insights. Whether you’re in Games, Education, or Lifestyle, there’s a strategy to enhance your app’s Halloween spirit!

In this article, we will cover how apps are using keywords, seasonal metadata updates, in-app events, custom product pages and creative across App Store placements this Halloween, based on the latest MobileAction data for the App Store in the U.S., covering October 9 to October 22, 2026, compared with the same weeks in 2025 where the data allows.

Disclaimer: Keyword popularity scores, app counts and ad impression share figures in this article are estimates generated by MobileAction’s own data collection and modeling. They are not sourced from or verified by Apple Ads, and MobileAction’s impression share estimates are separate from the Impression Share report in Apple Ads. The app examples highlighted in this article were identified through MobileAction’s platform as observed market activity. Unless explicitly stated, inclusion of an app does not indicate a client relationship with MobileAction.

Keyword optimization

The keyword “halloween” consistently holds a modest level of interest throughout the year but experiences a significant surge as October 31 approaches. On October 21, 2026, its popularity score was 55, and it sits inside a wider cluster of seasonal terms that users search in the same weeks.

This increase reflects the heightened user interest in Halloween-related content, making it a prime time for app marketers to capitalize on this trend.

The Halloween keyword cluster on the App Store in the U.S.

Source: MobileAction estimates, App Store in the U.S market. Popularity and app counts as of October 21, 2026; advertiser counts for October 9–22, 2026.

“halloween games” and “scary games” carry the highest popularity scores in the cluster. Lower-popularity terms such as “pumpkin” and “halloween wallpaper” had between 5 and 10 advertisers over the same two weeks, which makes them practical long-tail additions for casual games and personalization apps.

Among the top 50 iPhone apps ranking for “halloween” on October 22, 2026, 29 are Games apps (58%) and 11 are Entertainment apps (22%), followed by Education and Lifestyle with three apps each. Games apps lead the list.

Seven of those 50 apps were released in September or October 2026. Twenty-four of the 50 have not shipped an update since 2024 or earlier. In our view, that leaves room for apps that refresh their seasonal metadata this month.

Halloween Color by Number Game, FrightMaps: Haunt Finder, and Halloween Farm: Family Story are the first three apps in iPhone search results for “halloween”.

Apple Ads on “halloween”

On the Apple Ads side, MobileAction’s Ad Intelligence tool designed for Apple Ads detected 22 apps running search results ads on “halloween” between October 9 and October 22, 2026. Apple Ads launched an additional placement in search results in March 2026, and the first ad position and additional ad positions looked very different on this keyword. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery held an estimated 86% of first ad position impressions, while 18 apps shared the additional ad positions, led by MyScreen – Live Wallpapers with an estimated 24%. Last Halloween, ads on these keywords appeared in the first ad position, and the leading advertiser on “halloween” in MobileAction’s data was Match Villains.

How advertisers split across ad positions

Source: MobileAction estimates of the share of ad impressions within each ad position, US, October 9–22, 2026. Shares are calculated per position and should not be added together.

On four of these five keywords, a single app held at least half of first ad position impressions, while the additional ad positions were spread across more apps. Advertisers can’t choose or bid for a specific position, so the useful step is to give seasonal terms their own ad group and budget, and judge the results on tap-through and conversion rates before you scale.

Strategic app updates

Seasonal updates to your app’s metadata are a strategic move that can significantly boost user engagement and visibility.

During times like Halloween, when user interest in thematic content increases, optimizing your app’s presentation to align with the season can lead to higher downloads and increased interaction.

By refreshing elements such as app icons, screenshots, and descriptions, developers can tap into the festive mood, making their apps more attractive and relevant.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery switched to a Halloween icon with version 7.3.1 on October 3, 2026. The new icon replaces the moonlit castle with a character holding a carved jack-o’-lantern under a full moon, so the brand stays recognizable while the season is obvious at a glance. The app is also the largest advertiser in the first ad position for “halloween” and “halloween games”, so the seasonal icon is what users see when the app appears for those terms. Last year, the app introduced its Halloween content with version 6.8.0 on October 21, 2025, through its release notes and without an icon change. This year the seasonal update came 18 days earlier in October.

Gardenscapes used its release notes. Version 10.0.0, released on October 15, 2026, opens with “The Gardenscapes Halloween Update!” and introduces Fright Park, a new event in which players help four friends finish a scary quest. Last year, the game added a horror quest called Legends of Transylvania to a fall update on October 3, 2025, without naming Halloween in the release notes. This year the release leads with the holiday itself. Release notes cost little to update, and they work well alongside an in-app event that carries the same theme.

Creative assets: seasonal visuals without a new build

Since October 5, 2026, developers can add creative assets to the product page header and to search results for people using iOS 27 or iPadOS 27 or later. Assets are managed in Asset Library in App Store Connect and can be submitted independently of an app version, so a Halloween header can go live in October and be replaced after October 31 without waiting for a build.

Spooky themes need extra care in these assets. Creative assets shown on the App Store must meet a 4+ age rating even when the app itself is rated higher, so horror and action games should rely on atmosphere, costumes, and pumpkins and avoid gore or weapons pointed at a person. Specific prices, discounts, and website URLs are also left out of creative assets.

Leveraging in-app events and promotional content

Halloween provides an exceptional opportunity for apps to drive user engagement through themed in-app events and promotional content.

These events are crucial for re-engaging dormant users and attracting new ones.

Last year, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery announced Hallowe’en activities running all month and two new Hallowe’en adventures in its October 21, 2025 update, and Gardenscapes launched Legends of Transylvania, a horror quest event, on October 3, 2025.

This year the approach also shows up in newly released apps. Halloween: Countdown Live 2026, a countdown and widget app released in June 2026, appears among the first 15 iPhone search results for “halloween”, and Education apps such as Cocobi Halloween Party and Cute Halloween Coloring Book launched in September 2026 with seasonal play built in.

In-app event media uses a 16:9 card and a 9:16 details page, so the artwork you produce for a Halloween event can share a visual language with your product page header.

Submit the event early enough to clear review before interest in “halloween” peaks. An approved event can be shown on your product page ahead of its start date, which gives users a reason to come back on the day it begins.

Custom product pages

Custom product pages are an important opportunity for tapping into user searches during peak seasonal times like Halloween. Between October 9 and October 22, 2026, MobileAction’s CPP Intelligence detected 22 apps advertising on “halloween” in the US. Three of them sent users to a custom product page, and their five pages accounted for an estimated 18% of the keyword’s ad impressions. The other 19 apps used their default product page.

The most active of them treated custom product pages as short-lived assets. MyScreen – Live Wallpapers rotated three different custom product pages on the keyword in October, live from October 8 to 12, on October 14, and from October 21, and together they earned an estimated 12% of the keyword’s ad impressions over the two weeks. The app also relied on custom product pages last Halloween, when it ran four of them on “halloween wallpaper” between October 9 and October 22, 2025.

By tailoring content to the Halloween theme, these apps can capture the attention of users specifically looking for holiday-related content.

For your own app, build a Halloween custom product page with seasonal screenshots and promotional text, assign it to an ad group that holds your seasonal keywords, and retire it on November 1. Custom product pages, long familiar to advertisers as landing pages for search results campaigns, can now appear in organic search results as well.

To refine the message, use ad variations in search results campaigns to compare a seasonal custom product page with your default page, and use product page optimization to test a seasonal icon or screenshots on your default product page. MobileAction’s CPP A/B Testing lets you compare custom product page performance side by side.

Creative ad strategies

The nature of Halloween allows for creating visually appealing and engaging ad creatives.

Apple Ads offers four placements where seasonal creative can reach users: search results ads, Search tab ads, Today tab ads, and product page ads. For Today tab ads and Search tab ads, a Halloween custom product page can serve as the tap destination, so the page users land on matches the season. Ad variations, which show a custom product page’s assets in the ad, are available for search results ads.

Apple Ads has stated that creative assets are coming soon to Today tab ads and search results ads, and that assets approved in App Store Connect can be prepared now. A Halloween header and search results asset approved this month gives your team tested artwork and an approval workflow it can reuse for the year-end holidays.

Halloween 2026 runs on the same seasonal playbook as previous years, with more surfaces to apply it to. Keywords, seasonal metadata, in-app events, custom product pages, and creative assets each give apps a way to meet users while interest in “halloween” peaks, and Asset Library lets teams plan that work around their marketing calendar.

Eager to learn more about how these strategies can be tailored to your app’s needs?

Schedule a demo with MobileAction today, and our team will walk through your seasonal keywords, ad positions, and custom product pages with your own data!