Essential Mobile App Conversion Tracking Tips for Google Ads

As the world increasingly uses mobile devices, having your own app can be a lucrative business decision. The ability to communicate to your customers right from their pockets means you can send live promotions, answer questions, and control your brand image more effectively.

However, building and growing your app comes with its fair share of challenges. First, you need to find the right team to build it and ensure that the user experience is top-notch. Of course, you also need to grow your user base in the first place. Otherwise, all that hard work would be for nothing.

If you plan to use Google Ads to promote your iOS or Android mobile app, it can become expensive quickly. But with the right mobile app conversion tracking tactics, you can understand precisely what is working and what needs improvement.

In this article, we will discuss how to track your app installs and in-app activity to increase conversions and boost your bottom line:

What is App Install Conversion Tracking?

Mobile app install tracking allows you to see how many people have downloaded your app and attribute these numbers back to the marketing efforts that drove them, such as Google Ads. Tracking your installs can be a challenge. There are numerous app stores, and not all of them share this data.

Luckily, Google does provide this data, making them an excellent marketing partner. This way, you can see how effective your ads are at generating clicks, installs, activity, and ultimately revenue.

Why is Mobile App Conversion Tracking So Important?

Tracking your mobile app conversions lets you know whether your marketing efforts are successful overall, and specifically which strategies are worth the investment. But there are more metrics than mere installs to consider. There are engagement metrics that help you determine if your app is a good fit for your market, such as:

• Average Daily Active Users (ADAU)
• Stickiness
• Conversion rates
• Retention
• Purchases

When you set up your mobile app conversion tracking the right way, you can get a bigger picture of how your business is growing or stalling as a result of your mobile application.

How Does App Install Tracking Work?

When a user installs an app, they leave a trail of data clues. This can include where they downloaded the app, the referring source, and their demographics. For instance, Google Play or app stores provide this data to brands and developers, which you can use this data to make smarter marketing decisions going forward.

Types of Mobile App Conversions You Can Track

You can track a variety of conversions for both Android and iOS apps to measure how effectively your ads are leading people to install your mobile apps. There are a couple of different ways to track this:

• Downloads from Google Play – For Android apps, you can track when someone who clicked your ad downloads your app from the Google Play store. Conversions are tracked automatically from Google Play, and you don’t need to add tracking code to your app.
• First Opens – For both Android and iOS apps, you can track the first time someone clicks your ad opens your app after installing it. You can use this option if you use Firebase or a third-party app analytics provider.
• In-App Actions Such as Purchases – If you’re using Google Ads to drive purchases or other actions within your app, use conversion tracking to measure your campaigns’ effectiveness. You can automatically track in-app purchases for Android apps that use in-app billing. You can track custom in-app actions through Firebase, by adding code to your app, or by using a third-party app analytics provider.

How to Set Up App Install Conversion Tracking

Setting up mobile app tracking does require a few steps, but it’s relatively straightforward.

First, make sure you are logged into the right Google Ads account associated with your app.

Once you’re logged in, click on “Tools.” It’s located in the header bar. Then select “Conversions”:

After clicking on the conversion, you will see a screen where you will click on the “+” button:

After clicking on the plus button, you have multiple options to choose from, including “Apps”:

After clicking on “Apps,” you have again multiple options to choose from:

• Google Analytics + Web – With “Firebase,” you will import conversions from a linked Firebase project or Google Analytics App + Web property.
• Google Play – With “Google Play,” you will import Android app install and in-app purchase data from Google Play.
• Third-Party App Analytics – With “Third-party app analytics,” you will track app installs from a third-party analytics platform.

Let’s say you are looking to monitor Android app installs. Therefore, you select “Google Play.” Then you can select one of the following two items:

• Installs – This option lets you track Android app installs, without adding code to your app. When someone downloads your app from Google Play after interacting with your ad, it will count as a conversion.
• In-App Purchases – This option lets you track in-app purchases in your Android app using Android in-app billing. When someone makes a purchase in your app after interacting with your ad, it will count as a conversion.

Let’s say, in your case, you want to track the app install. After clicking on the install click on “Continue”:

Now, you will need to provide the following information:

• Conversion Name – Give a proper name to your conversion.
• Mobile App – Select your app name.
• Value – Select this option to enter a value for each app install. For example, this may be the price of your app.
• Include in “Conversions”- if you will enable this then you will get conversions data in your reporting column “Conversions”. Moreover, automated bidding strategies like Target cost-per-action (CPA), Target return on ad spend (ROAS), and Enhanced cost-per-click (ECPC) use the data in the “Conversions” column to optimize your bids. Choosing not to include a conversion action in the column means your automated bid strategies won’t bid for these particular conversions.

After providing this information, click on “Create and Continue,” where you will see a screen confirming that you are done with the conversion setup. You’ll start seeing conversions within a day after people click your ads and download your app.

To see the conversion data that has been collected (reminder that this may take some time to be available) click on “Tools” and then “Conversions”:

One of the rows will show your “App Install” data:

And there you have it. You now know how to set up your mobile app conversion tracking and install tracking and access this data to aid your marketing campaigns.

Now let’s look at some ways your tracking will help your brand:

Benefits of App Install and Conversion Tracking

If you aren’t tracking conversions, you’re missing out on crucial data that your team can use to make your ads more effective. Here are just some of the many benefits that come with proper mobile app conversion tracking:

I. Better ROI

Do you know exactly how much it costs to get one customer to install your app? If you’re not tracking, then the answer is no. With a tracking setup, you can see which channels, ads, and campaigns are delivering more profit than costs.

ii. Increase Conversions

Despite your best guesses, you might find that one particular ad angle is not working. With enough data, you can tweak your Google Ads to increase conversion rates over time, becoming more effective with each iteration. And you can cut underperforming ads to ensure you aren’t wasting your budget.

iii. Improve the User Experience

With your newfound in-app analytics, you can see how long users spend on each page. You can see which buttons they click on, or where they abandon purchases and user flows. This allows you to continually improve your app to make it more appealing to your users, so they keep coming back for more.

iv. Leverage Historical Data

The best time to plant a tree is yesterday. And the same goes for setting up your mobile app conversion tracking. Since it takes some time for Google to generate the data to show you information later, you want to get a head start. Eventually, you will have months and even years of data that helps you make smarter campaigns to increase conversions and app engagement.

v. Form Stronger Business Partnerships

It can be highly profitable to work with complementary businesses that serve your market in ways you can’t. For instance, if you sell shoes, you might offer advertising space or push notifications to promote a partner shoelace company. By being able to demonstrate your user base and engagement, you have a stronger negotiating position with your business partners.

vi. Experiment with Confidence

The beautiful thing about mobile app conversion tracking is that once you have the data, you can always use it to recreate previous versions of your apps and ads. If you find that you’ve lost conversion over time, go back and see at what point your engagement fell off and get back on track.

Wrap Up

Mobile apps are an excellent way to grow your business. They can generate goodwill, engagement, better customer service, and revenue. However, they are a somewhat different beast compared to traditional sales pages and websites.

Whether your app is your primary business or an extension of it, you need to carefully set up your mobile app conversion tracking step by step, as outlined above. Once this is done, be sure to continually check your analytics for insights into more effective Google Ads campaigns.

With a combination of analytics, excellent ad copy, and smart keyword research, you can generate a sizable increase in app downloads. Assuming you have a great user experience, the result will be better market knowledge, affinity, and ultimately profit.