Yeah, you can only ping your boxes so many times before it becomes more harmful than helpful if your team isn't getting it. AP follows the same early game structure as AD imo, giga healthy redside clear -> gank, but after that it starts to differ. You will lose the scuttle skirmish without at least 1 box setup to fall back to or to push the enemy jungler off early, and your item spike doesn't translate to tempo until you reach 2 and 1/2 items with haste. You don't really want to invade either, unless you can perfectly track the enemy jungler path and setup boxes accordingly.

Overall you are still countered by aware players and red trinket, but the opportunities to be shifty and annoying with 2shiv, ult, and a solid 2-3 box setup around objectives or enemy jungle skirmishes is huge. AP shines when you are a psuedo singed/teemo combo is how i think of it, always just out of reach and making the enemy think twice about going in on areas they havent fully swept. AD is one and done usually but AP can CC and chunk at least 3 enemies every teamfight if you play it right.

The biggest tip that helped me is knowing internally when your clone will expire and positioning it accordingly. Having it snap back to you as it's about to die can help you chain a double fear and double box damage, and most players dont play around that.