August 1, 2019

Google App Campaigns Replaces UAC as the New Kid in Town

Google App Campaigns

Google has made some more moves recently. They have decided to narrow down their app solutions name from Universal App Campaigns to just App Campaigns.

This small name change may seem small, but it represents something much bigger: Google narrowing its targeting down to a more direct audience.

Where do Google app campaigns run?

Google’s App Campaigns are optimized for app installs by helping increase app discoverability.

App campaigns run across the Play Store, YouTube, Google.com, and the millions upon millions of apps that are on the Google Display Network.

Through testing a variety of combinations of ads that perform well, ad channels deliver the most relevant ad to the right user at the right time.

App campaigns have joined the other campaign types in Google Ads:

Google Ads types

Credit: Google Ads Blog

Monetize with Google’s automated bidding

With Google’s target CPA (tCPA), a smart bidding strategy that automatically optimizes your bids through advanced machine-learning, all you have to do is maintain and set your CPA.

Through machine learning and predetermined business goals, bids are automatically optimized and reach users that are the most likely to convert.

Google’s automated bidding algorithm automatically adjusts bids higher to deliver ads to users that are more likely to spend on in-app purchases after they install your app. This feature is known as target ROAS (tROAS). You are also able to focus on more specific users like first-time depositors (FTDs).

A large number of installs for an app happen within the first eight weeks of launch, which means that it is crucial that you get as many users as possible within this timeframe.

Google is making it easier to run pre-registration campaigns to ensure that your app is heavily populated right at the launch.

Less than 4% of users actually spend money on in-app purchases, but you can monetize on non-paying users without bothering the paying ones.

Through smart segmentation and machine-learning, Google targets players and display ads to non-paying users and not to paying users.

For games, providing incentives (such as resources) for viewing ads can help boost revenue for your app.

Google app campaign assets

With “maximum conversion bidding” (currently in beta for whitelisted accounts), all you have to do is let Google know your budget and ad assets, and Google will place the right ad at the right time.

What do YOU need to do to maximize your conversion bidding?

You will just want to make sure that you are maintaining your budgets, and you have the right assortment of assets (texts, videos, images) in every possible format.

You will want to make sure that your assets are well-balanced, providing Google with a mix of images and videos in order to maximize your campaigns.

While videos can be created in landscape, portrait, and square, images can come in a variety of shapes and sizes.

We have provided a list of specs below for your images:

480×320 (Landscape Interstitial) 320×50 (Banner)
1200×628 (Landscape Image) 300×50 (Banner)
320×480 (Portrait Interstitial) 320×100 (Banner)
300×250 (Square) 1024×768 (Tablet)
728×90 (Leaderboard) 768×1024 (Tablet)

You should always keep your next creative in mind. A/B testing is a key factor in optimizing your campaign’s overall success.

Creatives are just a piece of the puzzle. Although they look all pretty, you will also want to make sure that you have a good bid-to-budget ratio.

Optimizing your bid-to-budget ratio

Here are 5 tips to help you optimize your bid-to-budget ratio:

  1. The minimum tCPA multiplier should be set to 10x in-app events (i.e. FTD) to the daily budget
  2. A multiplier of 20x will perform better for your bid-to-budget ratio
  3. In order to maximize your campaign, set your tCPA 20-30% higher than your goal
  4. Let bids greater than 20% run for at least a week or two, unless the campaign is not yielding the results you were expecting
  5. Cap your CPI budgets at 50x your target CPI (e.g. tCPI = $2, daily budget = $100)

Some more Google app campaigns best practices to keep in mind:

  • Don’t forget the saying, “Early bird gets the worm.” Setting your bids early in the day gives you an edge on the competition. But don’t worry – you won’t have to adjust your bids every day. You can sleep in once in a while.
  • Before expanding into other geos, make sure that you conquer your Tier 1 markets. You don’t want to stretch yourself too thin. Focus on achieving a 20x bid-to-budget ratio before expanding further.

Ok, Google – do my bidding

Google seeks to help developers a more exact user audience for their apps. Through their improved machine learning algorithm, they are able to pinpoint their sights on users that not only are more likely to install the app, but also to invest in it.

All you have to do is set your budgets & assets, kick your feet up, and let Google do the rest.

Need some help with your Google Ads? Contact our team!

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