When it comes to setting up and maintaining your App campaigns, whether they be App campaigns for install (ACi), App campaigns for engagement (ACe), or App campaigns for pre-registration (ACpre), we want to set you up for success. This guide offers an overview of various tips and best practices to help your App campaigns succeed.
Campaign settings
- For ACi tCPI and ACpre, the budget should be at least 50 times the bid.
- For ACi tCPA, the budget should be at least 10 times the bid.
- For ACe tCPA, the budget should be at least 15 times the bid.
For budget-constrained campaigns
Having a low budget may hinder your campaign’s performance as ads don’t regularly show up as often as they could. Check the “Status” column for any campaigns marked “Limited by budget”.
If there are campaigns marked “Limited by budget”, you can raise the budget by clicking on the “Limited by budget” button. The weekly estimates tool will pop up and offer recommendations, but you can also set a custom budget. Learn more about how to Fix “Limited by budget” status.
For bid-constrained campaigns
Your bid should reflect the value of the selected event to your business. It’s important to ensure that it’s competitive so that your ads have a greater chance of showing. If the achieved CPI or CPA is closely tracking or intermittently exceeding the set tCPI or tCPA, or if the tROAS is consistently higher than the achieved ROAS, then the campaign is bid-constrained. In this case, the bids should be raised, or the ROAS should be lowered. Here’s how to check your bid strategy reports to check if your campaign is bid-constrained:
- In your Google Ads account, click the Tools icon
.
- Click the Budgets and bidding drop down in the section menu.
- Click Bid strategies.
- Within the “Bid strategy type” column, click on the link to access your bid strategy report.
- Note: If the “Bid strategy type” column isn't visible, you can add it as a column to the campaigns table.
- Under the “Performance history” section, select the parameters applicable to your bidding strategy.
- For CPI, select Avg. target cost per install and Actual cost / install.
- For CPA, select Avg. target cost per in-app action and Actual cost / in-app action.
- For ROAS, select Avg. target ROAS and Actual ROAS.
Learn more about how to Find your bid strategy reports.
- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
.
- Click the Campaigns drop down in the section menu.
- Click Campaigns.
- On the campaign you want to check, hover over it and click on the Settings icon
beside the campaign name.
- Click the Bidding section.
- Under “What do you want to focus on?”, check if “In-app actions” is selected.
- Under “Which actions are most important to you?”, confirm if only one action is targeted.
- Note: If the actions are considered equivalent in value, 2 or more actions can be targeted.
Make sure that your app is available for pre-registration in the targeted countries in your campaign settings. If your campaign targets countries where your app isn’t available for pre-registration, your campaign won’t show in those countries. You can check where your app is available for pre-registration on Google Play Console.
Conversion tracking
Auto-tagging is a critical requirement for app conversion measurement and attribution coverage. Here’s how to enable auto-tagging:
- In your Google Ads account, click the Admin icon
- Click Account settings.
- Click Auto-tagging to expand the section.
- Check the box next to “Tag the URL that people click through from my ad”.
- Click Save.
Track conversion values for in-app actions
The achieved return on ad spend can only be assessed if we know the value of a completed event. Check the conversion setting for the targeted event to make sure it's tracking value from your analytics provider. Here’s how you can check the conversion value:
- Click the Goals icon
on the left-hand side.
- Click the Conversions drop down in the section menu.
- Click Summary.
- On the top right-hand corner, click View all conversion actions.
- Click on the conversion actions targeted in your tROAS campaign.
- The “Value” section shouldn’t say “Don’t use a value”. If it does, that means the campaign isn’t tracking a conversion value for the in-app action.
Don't set a conversion value for your install event unless it has some inherent economic value
For ACi campaigns, check the “Value” field for the install event to determine whether it is tracking a value. Generally, it is advised that no value is configured, unless app installation has some inherent value. Here’s how you can check the “Value” field:
- In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon
- Click the Conversions drop down in the section menu.
- Click Summary.
- Click the conversion action you'd like to check.
- Under “Settings”, check the “Value” field if it states “Don’t use a value”.
- If you want to edit the value, click Edit settings.
- Expand the Value section.
- Choose “Don’t use a value for this conversion action”.
- Click Save.
Conversion window for in-app actions should be less than or equal to 30 days
For ACi and ACe tROAS campaigns, you should set an appropriate conversion window to balance timely model feedback and sufficient coverage of in-app revenue. The window should reflect enough time to capture around 90% of your conversions. A length of under 30 days is advised for the conversion windows listed below.
Here’s how you can check the conversion window for in-app actions:
- In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon
- Click the Conversions drop down in the section menu.
- Click Summary.
- Click the conversion action you'd like to check.
- Under the “Settings” section, you can check the conversion windows.
| Conversions window | |
|---|---|
| ACi tROAS | Post-install |
| ACe tROAS | Click-through conversion (CTC) |
In-app actions should have a longer conversion window than the install event
For ACi campaigns, the conversion window for in-app events shouldn’t be shorter than the window for the install event since users will complete the download first. Compare the relevant windows for the install event and in-app actions.
Here’s how you can check the conversion window for in-app actions:
- In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon
- Click the Conversions drop down in the section menu.
- Click Summary.
- Click the conversion action you'd like to check.
- Under the “Settings” section, you can check the conversion windows.
| Conversions window | |
|---|---|
| In-app action | Post-install |
| Install event | Click-through conversion (CTC) |
| Engaged-view conversion (EVC) | |
| View-through conversion (VTC) |
Deep links are links that lead to specific parts of your app, and using relevant deep links in your ad can help users get to the right place.
For ACi campaigns, with ad group deferred deep links, you can designate a deep link that’s related to the theme, category, or topic of your ad group. Users will be taken there immediately after they click on your ad and install or open your app. Learn more about how to Set up and edit ad group deferred deep linking.
When creating an engagement campaign, you can choose the option “Set to app homepage” instead of entering a deep link. However, deep links should be included to re-engage users in the appropriate locations in your app.
Deep links aren't automatically set up when you create your app, and they work differently on iOS and Android. Your app development team needs to make changes in the app in order to use a deep link at campaign creation. Learn more About deep links.
The Deep link impact calculator shows web campaign URLs receiving traffic from mobile users, and the conversions you might miss as a result of these not being deep linked. Here’s how you can access this tool:
- In your Google Ads account, click the Tools icon
- Click the Planning drop down in the section menu.
- Click App advertising hub.
- Click the Deeplink impact calculator tab.
- Select your mobile app’s platform in the drop down.
- There should be at least one URL listed in the Fully Deeplinked URLs tab.
- Note: Ideally, all URLs in the non-deeplinked URLs tabs with more than 0 in the “Missed app conv.” column should be deeplinked as well.
Creatives
Check each of your ad groups to make sure the Ad Strength rating is at least “Good”. Ad Strength shows you how well an ad creative follows Google’s best practices for optimal performance. Learn more About Ad Strength.
Asset variety allows App campaigns to create more ads that can resonate with different users. Assets must be in an approved state to ensure they can serve more broadly across ad channels. Go through each of your ad groups and check for an approved text (headline and description), image, and video asset. If you’re having trouble getting your assets approved, make sure your assets adhere to Google Ads policies.
Cannibalization
- Are of the same subtype (ACi, ACe, ACpre)
- Target the same app
- Have overlapping locations or languages
App attribution sharing enables install and non-install campaigns, such as pre-registration, engagement, and app deep linked campaigns, to share attribution for conversions. It also allows you to track how many total conversions were counted between both campaigns. For attribution sharing to work, these campaigns need to run in the same account and promote the same app. Learn more About attribution sharing for App campaigns.
For any account that’s running ACi and ACe or ACi and ACpre campaigns at the same time, here’s how to check if your campaigns have attribution sharing enabled:
- In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon
- Click the Conversions drop down in the section menu.
- Click Settings.
- Navigate to the App attribution sharing section, and make sure that it’s labeled “App campaigns share conversion attribution across app campaign subtypes”.
- For accounts with both ACi and ACe campaigns, the box beside “Share in-app conversion attribution across app install, re-engagement and app deep linked campaigns” should be checked.
- For accounts with both ACi and ACpre campaigns, the box beside “Share install conversion attribution across app install and pre-registration campaigns” should be checked.
Changes
- Avoid changes to conversion settings, such as conversion windows and conversion counting options.
- Avoid changes to high-performing assets.
- Avoid cycling your bids up and down, and aim for one-time changes if possible.
- Avoid changes to the optimization goal (campaign focus) or targeted events.
- Avoid drastic changes to geo-targeting.
- Avoid changing the targeted install or in-app event.
