For many mobile app marketers, Google offers the highest volume and quality source of advertising traffic through Mobile App Install Ads. Fully capitalizing on the potential of the Google platform requires heavy testing and, more importantly, continually adapting to changes in Google’s advertising strategies and algorithms. Over the past few years, Google has ramped up the frequency of advertising product changes, and top mobile Mobile App Install Advertisers have followed suit by ramping up the frequency of strategy changes. Looking back historically, the strategy we deploy today is very different than the strategy we deployed six months ago. Interestingly, this statement would hold true for any backward-looking period of time over the past five years. Put simply, our strategy is always changing to keep up with best practices for Google’s Mobile App Install Ads.
If you want more app installs, Google’s Mobile App Install Ads are the way to go. Especially now that Google has given user acquisition managers more tools to target their ideal users. Here is a detailed account of the key features and best practices:
Mobile app install ads allow users to install your app directly from your ad. Based on where your ad appears, any original content may be added to, dropped, or modified during the ad serving process. Google Ads does this to help make sure that users get a great experience from your ad, no matter when and where they see it.
This is one of our favorite features of any advertising platform: In-app actions, which Facebook advertisers may recognize as Campaign Budget optimization, and that we refer to as “value bidding,” can potentially double a campaign’s return on ad spend.
Before Google introduced target return on ad spend (tROAS), advertisers could only optimize campaign bidding for installs. That’s nice, but as you probably know – not all installs are created equal.
Some users will install an app, use it once or twice, and then never use it again, much less spend any money. Other users may spend $20 or more on in-app purchases. Obviously, the big spenders are the users driving revenue. So being able to expressly target big spenders – aka “in-app events” like purchases – can have massive effects on an advertiser’s return on ad spend.
tROAS bidding will be available in June 2019 for Google Mobile App Install Ads on iOS and Android.
Google’s advertising platform has been shifting away from keywords to become more audience-focused for a while. Some advertisers have even said “keywords are dying.”
Google Mobile App Install Ads’ Similar Audiences is just more evidence of that shift. Similar audiences work just like Facebook’s – they let you find more users that are like (or similar to) an audience you define.
It’s the “you define” part that’s where the magic happens. It’s possible to sculpt your audience data in ways that make the similar audiences algorithm work better than it would have if you just used everyone who’s ever downloaded your app as your target audience. For instance, targeting users based on their lifetime value can be a very effective way to generate new audiences and avoid audience fatigue.
This is the same principle that makes in-app optimization so powerful: If you define your “audience” to be the big-spenders of your audience, and then tell Google to find more big spenders, you’ll generate far more ROAS than if you just told Google to find you more people who will install your app.
The big idea behind audiences now is intent. Keywords were the original way Google interpreted intent. Then Facebook showed us that audiences and interest data could sometimes be more effective at determining intent than keywords were.
Well, Google isn’t going to let Facebook just take that lead forever. As Ginny Marvin wrote recently in Search Engine Land,
“Google has quickly moved from keyword-focused targeting to supporting various types of audience targeting that incorporates a slate of interest and behavioral signals it captures from across its properties. Intent is still the core of search, but Google has been stripping away keyword targeting controls (with more to come), and it’s entirely possible to run Search campaigns based on other signals and no keywords at all….machine learning has advanced to be able to attribute intent in different phases of the funnel.”
Have you been structuring your Google Mobile App Install Ads with dozens, maybe even hundreds of campaigns? If so, it’s time to stop. Google will now let you set up multiple ad groups in the same campaign, and will let you vary the creative assets within those ad groups. This lets advertisers customize their messaging for different customers. And, of course, it means you don’t need to manage so many campaigns.
Note that this move echoes what Facebook did last February with their “best practices” update. Before February 2018, we had optimized our clients’ Facebook advertising accounts by running hundreds, sometimes thousands of campaigns. The best practices update changed that. Suddenly campaigns worked better if there were fewer of them within one account, resulting in less overlap between campaigns. Effectively, this meant that humans had to step back and let the machines (aka machine learning) do more of the day-to-day campaign management.
If you’re tired of managing all the creative development required for high-performance campaigns, Google Ads has now partnered with eight trusted agencies, including us. This allows advertisers to outsource all creative development and management “from design to reporting.”
Google’s ads reach into every corner of the globe. And Mobile App Install Ads can now run on:
Target CPA (tCPA) campaigns let you specify what you want to pay per install (your “CPA” or “cost-per-acquisition”). Once the tCPA is set, Google’s AI manages your campaigns for you (bids, placements, and creative) and delivers as many conversions as possible at your set cost-per-acquisition.
Similar to tCPA, a Max Install campaign lets you set a target cost per install. Once set, the platform manages your campaign bids, placements and creative to deliver as many installs as possible for the price you want to pay for them.
This is a hybrid of tCPA and Max Installs campaigns. With Max Installs Advanced campaigns, you’ll specify a target cost per install, and then you’ll also specify a second event that you want to happen (like in-app purchase, for example). Google’s AI will then dutifully go out and find installs for the price you want to pay, but it will only deliver installs that are also likely to complete the second event you asked for. In essence, Max Install let you specify two conversion events.
Google’s Mobile App Install Ads do take some campaign management tasks away from user acquisition managers. But that hardly means you’ll have nothing to do.
Here’s a list of best practices for optimizing Mobile App Install Ads, based on what’s working now for our clients.
For a more in-depth review of Google Mobile App Install Ad best practices, see our Google Mobile App Install Ads Best Practices Guide [Updated for May 2019].
Google Mobile App Install Ads are one of the best tools a user acquisition manager has for growing a user base and monetizing it. If you aren’t squeezing every drop of opportunity out of Mobile App Install Ads, it’s time to up your game.
For Creative Best Practices for Facebook & Google social advertising.
