As App campaign placements expand, Google Ads aims to improve asset combinations for app ads

In July, Google announced it would be extending App campaigns to show in the Discover feed and YouTube search results. Now, the company says it is working on updates to the way it treats and reports on creative assets across inventory sources.

An update to App campaign modeling, rolling out in the next few months, should improve the way assets are combined for better-performing ads. Google will also attribute traffic to specific assets to give advertisers more information on the assets that are performing.

Why we should care

Google said it doesn’t expect app marketers will see any “adverse” effect on campaign performance, you may see some shifts in asset reporting metrics.

With ads eligible to show across so many different inventory sources, the assets that are successful are likely to vary depending on the user and environment. Having more assets, Google says, will give you more ad combination options as well as access to more placements.

Google already suggests advertisers upload as many asset variations as possible (4 for text, 20 each for images, videos, and where applicable, HTML5) to give the system maximum combination possibilities.

More on app campaigns

• The updates will apply to active App campaigns automatically and there’s no way to opt out.
• App campaigns are delivered to users deemed likely to download apps.
• They can serve automatically across Google Search, Play, Display Network, Discover and YouTube.
• Advertisers don’t control where their app ads show, and Google’s system dynamically selects the combinations of text, image, video and HTML5 assets to show in ads.

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About The Author

Ginny Marvin

Ginny Marvin was Third Door Media’s former Editor-in-Chief (October 2018 to December 2020), running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.