App Ad Campaigns

App Ad Campaigns are the perfect solution if you’re an app developer or game producer aiming to promote your product to a wider audience. With this campaign type, you can connect with users interested in apps similar to yours across platforms like Google Search, YouTube, Google Play, and more. You can advertise your app across Google’s network and its partner websites with a single campaign. This allows your business to reach and retain users likely to convert, boosting app installations and increasing revenue. In this article, let’s explore App Ad Campaigns and learn how to launch them effectively with Ad Support!

Introduction to App Ad Campaigns

App Ad Campaigns enable businesses to effortlessly promote their apps across Google’s extensive network, including Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, Google Discover, and the Google Display Network. By simply setting up audience targeting, a budget, and ad elements, and specifying desired user actions, the campaign leverages machine learning to attract the most relevant audience.

How App Ad Campaigns Work

Unlike other Google Ads campaigns, App Campaigns eliminate the need to design individual ads. Instead, Google pulls ad text, images, and video content from the app’s listing on the Play Store to automatically create a variety of ad formats tailored for different networks. However, you must still provide critical inputs such as ad text, bid amounts, budget, languages, and ad placements. To optimize performance, ensure that you supply at least: 1 landscape image, 1 portrait video, 1 landscape video, and relevant HTML5 assets. Google’s system will then generate various ad combinations and distribute those that deliver the best results.

Types of App Campaigns

When you set up your campaign and select App Ads as your objective, you can choose from three campaign types: App Installs, App Engagement, and App Pre-Registrations (Android only). Each campaign targets different actions and bid strategies.

App Installs (ACi)

This campaign aims to encourage people to install your app. It will be delivered until a user completes a download or takes an action in the app that the campaign is optimizing for. To get the most value from each download, Google Ads automates targeting and bidding. You can also optimize your targeting to reach valuable users based on the actions you care about.

App Engagement

With App Ads for Engagement (ACe) campaigns, you can re-engage customers who have installed your app by encouraging them to take specific actions in the app (completing a checkout if there are items in their cart). Or re-engage people who have installed your app but haven’t opened or used it.

Ads can also target high-value people who haven’t spent or purchased yet. The goal of this campaign type is to increase in-app purchases, promote live events, or promote sales. Ads will appear across Google’s network, including Google Search, YouTube, Google Play, and other apps on the Display Network. With the ability to increase active users, increase sales, and reduce user churn, app ad campaigns that increase engagement help improve user retention and increase long-term revenue for your app.

App Pre-Registration (Android Only)

Show ads to build interest and awareness for your app or game before it launches on Google Play. Find people who are likely to pre-register for your app or game and engage with it after it launches. To create this campaign, you need to set up pre-registration for your app or game in the Play Console and launch your app within 90 days of opening it for pre-registration. What makes this campaign unique is that users cannot install or purchase the app in the targeted country. Once users click on the ad, they can pre-register for the app or game from the Play Store.

Where your ads appear

When you launch your campaign, your ads will show across Google properties like Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, the Google Display Network, AdMob, Discover on Google Search, and Google search partners.

With the Google Search Network, ads appear on Google Search and Google Search Partners. For Google Play, ads appear on Google Play search results, in the relevant apps section on Google Play, and on the Google Play homepage in the Recommended for You section. On YouTube, ads appear on relevant pages and content. On the Google Display Network, ads appear on Gmail, other apps, and mobile sites including news sites, blogs, and other sites across the Internet. Additionally, ads appear on Discover on Google Search.

How to create an App Ad Campaigns

Create App Ad Campaigns to increase installs

When creating an ACi campaign for an Android app, the system will automatically create a download event on Google Play in case there are no download events for the selected app in the Google Ads account or the relevant manager account. For instructions on how to do this, see the following instructions:

On your Google Ads account, click the Campaign icon and select Campaign in the drop-down menu.

Next, click the (+) sign select New campaign, and select the campaign objective as App advertising.

When selecting the Sub-campaign type, select App Installs. Select the mobile app platform.

In the search field, enter the app name, package name, or publisher and select the app from the list that appears.

Next, name the campaign (you can add the operating system to the name) and click Continue.

On the Campaign Settings page, select your target locations and then select Location Options to determine how you want to target.

You can also set the language that matches your ad and complete campaign details like ad scheduling and then click Next.

In the Budget section in the Budget and Bidding tab, set your average daily budget.

In the Bidding section, select the element you want to target to choose the appropriate bid.

From the conversion settings section, select the install event and in-app event (if any). The download conversion action will help you track the number of app installs after users interact with the ad.

You set the appropriate bid including target cost per install, target cost per action, and target return on ad spend. After selecting the bid, click Next.

On the Ad Sets page under Ad Elements, add at least 2 headline ideas and 1 description idea.

For each element below, add up to 20 elements including images, videos, HTML5, or links in the Advanced Options section to direct people to a specific page in your app after installation.

Then click Next, and check the campaign details, and enter the ad group name, and click Publish campaign.

Create App Ad campaigns that drive engagement

To create this campaign, your app must have at least 50,000 installs. Have a universal link (iOS) and an app link (Android) or a custom scheme. Use an audience list of app users.

The campaign has mobile app conversion tracking set up using Firebase or a supported third party. Correctly set up conversions from Firebase or App Attribution Partners (AAP). Have a privacy policy that fully discloses how you use re-engagement campaigns and complies with Google’s EU User Consent Policy.

Log in to your Google Ads account, go to Campaigns, and click Overview.

Next, click the (+) sign, select New campaign, and select App ads as the campaign objective. Under Campaign Subtype, select App Engagement, and then select your app’s platform. In the search field, enter your app name, package name, or publisher, and then select your app from the list.

Under Select a marketing objective for your app ads campaign to drive engagement, check to see if you want campaign settings to be pre-populated based on your marketing objective.

To automatically set up your campaign based on recommendations for settings like audiences, components, bid strategies, and deep links. You can choose objectives like re-engaging inactive users, and buyers, re-engaging users who haven’t received notifications (set up Firebase SDK and FCM), and re-engaging all users. Alternatively, you can choose to Create a campaign with a different marketing objective without using the automated selections if you want to choose your campaign settings.

Click Continue and then name your campaign in the Campaign Name field.

To deploy an app promotion campaign, you need to set up conversions as follows:

In the Locations section, select the locations you want to target and then select Location Options to let Google know how you want to target. You can also update the language settings that match your ads.

In the Budget section, set your average daily budget, then select the in-app actions you want to optimize your campaign to achieve, then enter your target CPA.

Alternatively, you can set up your ad schedule and click Save and Continue.

Enter an ad group name and complete the ad elements with at least two headlines and one description. Add text, images, and videos.

Under Ad Targeting, select an audience segment to define who can see your ad. Now select the audience you want to target and click Save and Continue.

Create an App Campaign to drive pre-registration

This campaign helps you gauge user interest before they install your app. Once your app is released, the campaign will automatically stop serving ads wherever it is available. Users can only pre-register for apps and games in the Google Play Store on Android devices.

Sign in to Google Ads, and click Campaigns in the left menu bar. Next, click App Promotions, then click Apps for the campaign type. Next, select the campaign subtype by clicking App Pre-Registration (Android only).

Now, check if your app is eligible for pre-registration by searching for the app name, package name, or publisher, then click Continue.

In the Campaign Name field, enter a campaign name, then select the language and location settings for the campaign. For this campaign, it will only be available in countries where the app allows users to pre-register.

In the Budget section, enter the average budget you want to spend per day. Next, enter the Target Cost per Pre-Registration in the Bidding section. Then click Save and Continue.

In the Ad Group Name field, enter the name of the ad group. In the Ad Assets section, enter the information including up to 5 headlines, 5 descriptions, up to 20 images, and 20 videos. Finally, click Save and Continue, then check the campaign settings again and click Continue.

After creating the campaign, check the number of users who pre-registered for the app or game on the Conversion Actions page in Google Ads. By clicking the Tools icon and selecting Conversions.

Tips for creating and optimizing effective App Ad Campaigns

Determine the right objectives

The campaign will optimize bidding and targeting strategies based on the advertising objectives. Some optimization objectives include attracting users to complete in-app actions and driving pre-registrations for the app before launch. However, to choose the right objective, you need to determine the actions you want users to take, such as downloading the app or performing a specific action.

Create diverse ad templates

By providing a diverse combination of high-quality text, image, and video components, the campaign automatically creates optimized ad templates for the best reach and performance across channels. You can provide up to 10 text components, 20 image components, and 20 video components for each ad group.

For text, ensure it’s the right length for the ad placement, is easy to understand, and has a clear call to action. High-resolution images with minimal text overlays. Add compelling 10- to 30-second videos in portrait, landscape, and square aspect ratios to fit multiple channels. Once you’ve created your ad, use Ad Strength to see which elements of your campaign are performing best.

Set up deep links

Brands and websites that provide a smooth, easy-to-engage experience are more likely to be appreciated by users. For users who already have an app installed, provide an optimized experience by adding deep links. Adding these elements helps direct users from your mobile web ad to relevant in-app content, motivating them to convert. However, creating deep links requires technical knowledge, but to keep it simple, use Web to App Connect to track conversions and bidding.

Implement effective measurement

Setting up accurate measurements and tracking events is critical to campaign success. Identify the in-app events that drive the most value and make sure you’re tracking them. Set up conversion tracking to increase your ability to measure campaign effectiveness. Set up the correct conversion settings for in-app actions. Use Google Analytics 4 to explore measurement, engagement on your website and app, and campaign performance optimization.

Optimize based on your campaign performance data by ensuring the right bid-to-budget fit. Increase bids and budgets for constrained campaigns. Make sure the country you’re targeting is a pre-registration country. Avoid making changes while your campaign is in the learning phase.

Contact a Google Ads expert for advice

Creating App Ad Campaigns must follow certain principles. If you have difficulty implementing and optimizing the campaign, contact a Google Ads expert for free advice. Then you can easily create and manage an app campaign to achieve the best performance. Google Ads experts help advise and support you with detailed instructions so that you can have effective campaigns with optimal costs to achieve the highest revenue and profit.

With App Ad Campaigns you can promote your app to many users around the world in the Google network to increase the number of installations, increase interactions, and customer interest. Hopefully, the useful information above will help you understand a type of Google Ads campaign and run effective ads.

Frequently asked questions