Best practices guide: Setting up your App campaigns

So you’ve built an amazing mobile app. That’s great!

Now comes the hard part: finding the right people to install – and keep – your app.

This guide will show you how to use App campaigns to promote your app across our largest channels like Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, Gmail and the Google Display Network.

Simply share your goals and App campaigns use the power of Google AI to build, optimise and match your ads with the right people for your business. With our AI technology, App campaigns are able to analyse hundreds of millions of signal combinations and test different creative assets and channel combinations to serve the best-performing ads. 

Read on to learn key best practices to setting up a successful App campaign.

1. Define your goals to optimise your campaign

Share your goals – whether it’s increasing installs, driving specific in-app actions or getting users to pre-register for your app before it launches. App campaigns will then optimise your campaign bidding and targeting for those objectives. 

Some examples of goals that you may have include:

Learn how to set up App campaigns differently depending on your goal.

2. Upload diverse creative to generate the best-performing ads

Provide a diverse mix of text and high-quality video and image assets. This enables App campaigns to dynamically generate creative that's optimised for the best reach and performance across different channels. 

You can include up to 10 text, 20 image and 20 video assets per ad group (and 20 HTML5/playable assets for mobile game marketers). Here are some creative best practices to bear in mind: 

• Text: Write standalone phrases that vary in length as different ad placements have different text limits. Ensure phrases focus on unique selling points and include conversational text with clear calls to action.
• Image: Image assets should utilise the full ad frame with limited blank space and have high pixel density and minimal text overlay. Avoid superimposing logos and calls to action.
• Video: Add engaging videos that vary in length between 10 to 30 seconds. Include videos in different aspect ratios, like portrait, landscape and square to qualify across more ad channels and account for the different ways people hold their devices.

Use our Ad strength indicator to evaluate whether your App campaign assets are sufficiently diverse to drive the best performance. Also, make sure that you regularly monitor your asset performance based on the ratings in your asset report and replace low-performing assets with new ones. 

Learn how to make better creative assets for App campaigns.

3. Set up deep links for more seamless web-to-app user experiences

Users value brands which offer a frictionless web-to-app experience to help them more easily interact, and in return, brands witness better campaign performance. For users that already have your app installed, you can deliver this optimised experience by implementing deep links. 

Deep links bring users from your mobile web ad directly to the relevant in-app content, so that they can more easily take an action, such as completing a purchase or signing up for a loyalty programme. On average, advertisers who have implemented deep linking see over 2X uplift in conversion rate.¹ 

Setting this up requires technical implementation. To simplify these workflows, you can use Web to App Connect, a one-stop destination with guided steps to help marketing and developer teams more easily set up deep links, as well as conversion tracking and bidding processes to ensure that you’re capturing the full value of your campaigns. 

4. Adopt privacy-centric solutions for better campaign measurement

User expectations for privacy continue to grow, and shifting platform standards have made measurement more complex. To adapt to these changes and drive lasting results, it is important to implement measurement best practices and privacy-centric solutions such as the following: 

• Set up conversion tracking to better measure how effective your App campaigns were at driving app installs and in-app actions that matter to your business.
• Use Google Analytics 4 to unlock powerful measurement capabilities that help you understand engagement across your website and app and optimise your campaign performance. If you’re already using a Google-approved App Attribution Partner for conversion tracking, you can use Google Analytics 4 as a complementary measurement solution.
• Understand the role that Google’s conversion modelling plays in providing comprehensive measurement of your App campaign performance.
• For your iOS App campaigns, evaluate whether it makes sense to set up your app within the SKAdNetwork measurement framework. Also, consider implementing the ATT prompt and on-device conversion measurement to increase your observed conversions. Learn more about measurement best practices for your iOS App campaigns.

1. Google Data, Global Divisions, Feb. 2022.