Easy Guide to Getting Familiar with Automated App Ads

Facebook introduced app install ads, a system designed to tackle advertising problems on their platform. Quite frankly, this was the beginning of a revolution for business and brand owners who wanted to achieve more through their ads.

Every ad aims to create awareness for products and services, while convincing potential consumers to take action. It, therefore, means that when it comes to ad strategies, every cent and effort counts. Adopting automated ads means you get to save time with streamlined campaigns and creativity.

With that said, if you are going to give automated ads a try, shouldn’t you at least know a thing or two? Well, we are here for you, so let’s dig in.

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What Are Facebook Automated App Ads?
Facts About Automated App Ads
What Are the Pros of Automated App Ads?
Getting Started with Facebook AAA campaigns
How to Set Up Automated App Ads?

What Are Facebook Automated App Ads?

Though they have not been around for too long, Automated App Ads are gaining popularity quite fast. These new tools systematically generate ads believed to be relevant to potential consumers. Invariably, you get to make more sales. In addition to its marketing feature, Automated App Ads optimize towards install, install & app event, and app event.

Facebook even took it a step higher and added Min ROAS to optimize these ads. In terms of optimization, these ads allow only one campaign goal optimization per country. They also target users above the age of 17 in the selected location to achieve their marketing goals. Read on to learn some more about Automated App Ads and best practices.

Facts About Automated App Ads

• Automated App Ads are a great addition to Facebook. They are an advanced marketing strategy, but they also help set benchmarks (with up to 30% investment) for aspects like optimization goals, country targets, CPA, ROI, and CPI vs the BAU campaigns, without replacing them.
• Automated App Ads are also quite expensive when optimized towards app events or value. The algorithm tries to get the ads to users who might need them. The cost of these ads is mostly because they use a 1d conversion window.
• When split tested, these ads outperformed broad targeting in the United States after being optimized towards app events using Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO).
• We found that AAA works well with 15-20 different creatives and it is essential to refresh those assets. It can be scaled more rapidly than the BAU campaigns, which means they can be increased by more than 15-20% without influencing the results too much.

What Are the Advantages of Automated App Ads?

Here are some of the ways these ads improve campaign setup:

• Automated App Ads have an easy campaign set up process consisting of just one ad set, one campaign, and the ad itself.
• Since it uses DCO, automated ads systematically pick out the best-performing texts, headlines, and clips to create your ads.
• Coupled with its efficiency, Automated App Ads simplifies the process of selecting your target audience with info like country, language, and age group.

Getting Started with Facebook AAA campaigns

Facebook’s standard auction buying still exists and can thrive alongside AAA campaigns. Formulating a tandem strategy for AAA and standard “business as usual” campaigns is key, with several important layers to consider.

We found that with a 15-30% share of investment on AAA, set to optimize for app events & values, we were able to increase overall performance.

To determine whether Automated App Ads is the right strategy for you, Facebook recommends that you start by running an A/B test using AAA campaigns and your BAU app install campaigns.

Since our focus was the US, we couldn’t just pause BAU campaigns in order to prevent overlap. Therefore, we used the AAA campaigns alongside the BAU campaigns and added a broad US campaign which targeted the whole country to compare the two.

According to Facebook, if your Automated App Ads campaigns and usual app install campaigns overlap in delivering to the same audience, Facebook’s machine learning may prevent Automated App Ads from achieving the best performance.

However, in our experience, even though AAA had an overlap with BAU, it still performed fairly well and outperformed the regular broad campaign it was up against.

Additionally, if you split AAA into different tiers (Tier 1 & WW), you will find success with different creatives and in different geos.

As always, the two rules of app marketing remain unchanged. Know your product and know your users. Tailor a tandem AAA/standard campaign strategy based on existing user data from live campaigns and chart the unknowns with extensive testing.

The time for thoughtful AAA/human campaign integration is now.

How to Set Up Automated App Ads?

If you plan to give automated app ads a try, you should read this part thoroughly. Here, we will walk you through the processes involved in setting up your ads.

1. 1. Go to the Ads Manager and click on the ‘create‘ button located at the top left.
   2. Choose the app installs objective.
   3. Choose a name for your automated app ads and campaign.
   4. Add information about your ad category.
   5. Choose the app you are trying to promote in App section.
   6. Include details about who you want to see your ads in the Language & Location section.
   7. Define a goal for your ad and how your budget should be spent in the Optimization Controls section. Choose one out of four optimization goals available.
   8. After defining your goal and budget,  choose a schedule, and proceed to the next step.
   9. The identity section requires that you select your Facebook account and include your Instagram page, if available.
   10. In the ad creatives section, include several creative elements, headlines, and primary texts. While we found that 15-20 creatives work best, you can add as many as 50. Facebook will later create different combinations based on what they think consumers will respond to.
   11. After adding your creative element, include a call-to-action button.
   12. For this step, view more variations to preview the text and media options. Take it a step further and add filters to alter how the ad looks.
   13. Yay! You made it to the end. Now click the Publish button, and just like that, your automated app ad is live.

Want more info on Automated App Ads and/or Facebook Advertising in general? Contact us!