Google App campaigns expand to Discover feeds, AdMob testing ads on app loading screens

Mobile gaming is a $68.5 billion market, with 80% or $54.9 billion coming from smartphone games and $13.6 billion coming from gaming on tablets, according to a Newzoo’s latest Global Games Market Report. In other words, it’s big business.

Google has been focused on advertising opportunities for mobile games specifically and apps generally for several years. The company is announcing new inventory and features for app publishers and advertisers at Think Games at ChinaJoy, a giant conference for game developers in Shanghai this week.

For App campaign advertisers

App campaigns (formerly Universal App Campaigns) are automated campaigns that run across Google Search (as of this month, on iOS browser searches as well), Play, YouTube and Google’s mobile display network. Now, three more inventory sources are opening up to this campaign type.

Discover inventory. App campaign ads are now eligible to show in Discover, the feed that appears on the Google home page on mobile and Chrome. Google first announced ads in Discover at Google Marketing Live in June. App ads will

App ads will begin to show in Discover feeds in the U.S. now and will be available in Malaysia, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Canada, Brazil, Japan and Indonesia “in the coming months” with plans to make the inventory available globally by the end of the year.

YouTube Search ads inventory. App campaigns are also gaining access to YouTube search results on mobile devices.

Display in-stream ads inventory. These are skippable video ads that run before, during or after a video on a site or app in Google’s mobile display network.

For AdMob publishers

On the publisher side, new announcements for developers using AdMob to serve Google ads in their apps include new ad placement test, smart segmentation expansion and more metrics.

Ads on app loading pages. Google is running a test, currently in early alpha stage, to show ads while users are waiting for their apps to load when they first open them. The app’s branding will appear in the bottom 15% of the page to help orient users, and an ad shows in the rest of screen. If you’re interested in joining the test, contact your AdMob account manager.

Smart segmentation on rewarded ads. Google created smart segmentation for developers that monetize their apps with a mix of ads and in-app purchases. Just 4% of users will make in-app purchases, according to an earlier Google study. Smart segmentation is designed to keep ads from showing to that segment of users deemed likely to make in-app purchases and only show ads to those who are unlikely to make purchases. Google debuted smart segmentation for interstitial ads earlier this year. Now smart segmentation can also be applied to rewarded ads. That means players that appear likely to make an in-app purchase to advance in a game or power-up will not be served rewarded ads.

AdMob dashboard insights. Google is beta testing showing more alerts in the AdMob dashboard when its system detects anomalies in a publisher’s key metrics such as eCPM, impressions and revenue.

Why we should care

App advertisers don’t have control over where their ads appear. If you’re running App campaigns, keep an eye on your performance metrics as this new inventory comes into play — you’ll likely see impressions (and hopefully conversion actions) rise.

While the announcements Wednesday apply to app advertisers and developers globally, it’s notable that Google is making them in China. “This is a strategic event for us,” said Sissie Hsiao, VP of product for mobile app advertising at Google, by phone Tuesday. Apps developed in China generated $3.2 billion in China and another $6.9 billion in revenue outside of the country, said Hsiao, “We want to continue to partner with APAC customers.” She added that Google has teams throughout APAC. However, Google has no Play or Search presence in China, which means it’s missing out on a massive market. Getting developers in the region to consider Google AdMob’s SDK for app monetization, for example, is another way to go about it.

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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 writes 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.