Universal App Campaign (UAC) with Google Ads

If you are having trouble getting people to download your app, you are not alone. Not all of us can make a bird angry or let people crush some candy and call it a day. Getting people to download your app is hard work. Still, with the help of Google Ads App Campaigns, also known as Universal App Campaigns, it becomes easy.

What Are Google Ads App Campaign Examples?

Using Google Ads App campaigns is a surefire way to drive downloads. The Universal App Campaign Google Ads’ responsive advertisements brilliantly. You simply load up the necessary assets and your budget, and Google Ads takes care of creating and displaying your ads.

Responsive advertisements draw from various assets to create a native ad, which is an ad that looks like it belongs where it is shown. Google Ads App Campaigns must be responsive, in that there is no way to design personal ads. You simply develop the assets for use to make the ads.

The assets required by Google Ads are lines of text, keywords, images, and videos. To make the most effective Universal App Campaign, you want to include every type of asset they allow. Universal App Campaigns will also borrow assets from your app store listing.

Ensure your ads work by writing engaging copy for the text and shooting compelling videography. You want to make sure all of your assets work well together.

Google Ads’ systems use different combinations of your assets to test various Universal App Campaign. They learn which Universal App Campaign performs the best the most often and serve only those.

Google Ads App campaigns exemplify user-friendly technology in its targeting and pricing as well. The automated targeting and bidding make it, so you can focus more on optimizing your assets and results.

The automated bidding lets you choose whether to focus on installs or in-app actions. Whatever focus and budget you input, Google Ads will return the maximum amount of installs or actions to scale.

Automatic targeting means that Google Ads looks for the groups that respond best to its most effective Universal App Campaign. You will still need to know about your audience to create images and videos that captivate them. Google Ads will take care of getting your creative work in front of them.

Google Ads shows your Universal App Campaign across its entire network. Its network includes Google Search, Google Play, and YouTube, which all have massive user bases. Your ads will also show on Discover, wherever Google Display ads show, and many more publishers and partners that sell space to Google Ads. Google App Campaigns show everywhere, hence the name Universal App Campaign.

Using Google Ads to create a persuasive Universal App Campaign is easy. The hardest part is producing all of the graphics and videos to suit your audience. From there, Google Ads does all of the work.

How to Make a Google Ads App Campaign?

Google Ads has streamlined the process for turning your work into Universal App Campaign.

Before beginning, you need to have an understanding of who your audience is. This knowledge will help you make videos, images, and text copy to set up your campaign. Universal App Campaign that turn out installs use assets tailor-made for their audience.

To set up your campaign, log in to Google Ads. On the homepage, find “Campaigns” in the menu on the left and select “New campaign.”

Click “App promotion” for your goals and then select a campaign type.

and then choose the subtype

You will probably want to click “App installs.” App engagement is a specific type of Universal App Campaign. It is for promoting actions you want people who already have your app to take. App engagement campaigns are better for apps with a lot of users. If you want to promote your app to get more users, select “App installs.”

You will need to set up mobile app conversion tracking. It allows you to track the efficacy of your Universal App Campaign. Conversion tracking shows you how many downloads you have and where they originated. Google Ads needs this information for apps that are not on the Play Store, but you should consider doing this anyway, even if you have a Play Store product.

Now you get to tell Google Ads about your app. Tell Google what store your app is available on, and then search for your app so they can have the right one. If you have your app available on multiple stores, think of them as separate apps. You will need to set up a new campaign for each one.

Next, you name your campaign and choose which languages and locations to target. You will want to select areas you think will likely have conversions. Base your choice of location on where you think people will be most likely to use the app.

When you pick languages, keep in mind that Google Ads will not translate apps. You should only show your ad to people that can read it. Suppose you are trying to market your app in multiple languages. In that case, you will need to make different ad campaigns featuring translated text.

Set your daily budget, and then pick your “Campaign optimization” choice. Your daily budget is the maximum amount you can spend. The amount you spend will depend on how many installs or in-app actions happen.

“Campaign optimization” choices are the automatic bidding options mentioned earlier: cost per install and cost per action.

If you mainly aim to get the most installs, you want to choose cost per install. Google Ads does not require you to input a target bid. You can either input a target bid or run a “Maximize conversions” campaign.

If you choose to input a target bid, you are essentially telling Google Ads how many installs you want per day. If your daily budget is $50 and your target bid is $1/install, Google will then try to show your Universal App Campaign to enough people to land you 50 installs.

If you do not input a target bid, you tell Google Ads to run a “maximize conversions” campaign. Google Ads will calculate the best bid to get you the most installs it can. Be aware that if your daily budget is lower than the optimal bid per conversion, you might not get any conversions. It is also a sign that you might need to rethink your campaign.

The other “Campaign optimization” option focuses on driving in-app actions. An in-app action can mean signing up for an account or using some other functionality.

When you choose the cost-per-action option, you are required to input a bid. The bid is the amount you are willing to pay each time someone installs your app and does the chosen action. By dividing your daily budget by your target bid, you can calculate the maximum amount of users your campaign can bring in. The chances are low that you will reach your maximum. Driving in-app actions is a difficult task.

At this point in setting up your campaign, you choose a start and end date. Once you click “Save and continue,” you are ready to start uploading your assets.

Under “Add Assets,” the first step is to input headlines and descriptions. You must input two of the former and one of the latter, but you can and should input at least five. If it is possible to input more than five, take advantage of it.

Headlines are 30 characters of text, and descriptions are 90. Make sure they go together, as Google Ads will use them when making up Universal App Campaign.

Along with text, you can add up to 20 in any combination of videos, images, and HTML5 assets. Google Ads also draws assets from your app store listing to have maximum versatility in creating advertisements for your App Campaign.

Included videos must be hosted on YouTube. They can be squares, portraits, or landscape videos, and Google Ads recommends including some of each. They also say that if you can only make one video, landscape videos perform best as Universal App Campaign. It is advised to work on getting multiple landscape videos before moving to portrait and square videos. Lastly, if you do not have videos, Google Ads will test out videos made out of media from your app store listing.

Images have to be .jpg, .gif, or .png and a maximum size of 1,024 KB. Google Ads recommends using both landscape and portrait images. Both work well for native ads, and portrait images work best for interstitial advertising. Having both options guarantees further reach for your Google Ads app campaign.

If you are familiar with Google Web Designer, you can also make HTML5 assets for your campaign. The HTML5 file should be a .zip with no more than 40 files and no larger than 1 MB. Google also has a validator tool you have to run your .zip through before submitting. Please note that your HTML5 must have dimensions of 480×320, 320×480, 300×250, or 300×50.

Using HTML5 to create truly dynamic ads will work wonders for your Universal App Campaign. Familiarizing yourself with HTML5 or hiring a web developer will boost your marketing potential.

Once you have submitted all of your assets, click “Save and continue.” Voila! Your Google Ads App campaign should now be up and running.

Now you can sit back and monitor its efficacy. Using the preview option, you can view how your apps might look on Display, YouTube, and Google Play. Previewing them can be nice, but what you want to know is if they work.

For starters, keep an eye on your conversion rates. If you are having trouble getting your downloads up, there are some possible culprits. You might not be bidding high enough. Maybe there are potential conversions, but some other advertiser is snatching them by outbidding you at every turn. If it is within your budget, adjusting your bids can help you out.

If it is not within your budget to adjust your bids, you might need to reconsider your messaging. This means looking over your conversions and finding out what worked in what they were shown and following its example. Google Ads can only work with what it is given. You have to provide high-quality assets to return converting Universal App Campaign.

If your app is performing well, it does not mean the work is done. Take a look at who is installing your app and what advertising reached them. If it was your graphics that drew them in, maybe you should put more money in that department as it seems to be giving you the best returns. By playing to your strengths, you can be sure that the Google Ads algorithm only churns out high-quality Universal App campaign.

Tips to Make Your App Campaign Maximally Effective

Now that you know how to make a Google Ads app campaign, you can work on perfecting the craft. Google Ads does most of the work in making Universal App Campaign, leaving you with lots of options to fine-tune your campaign. Here are some pieces of advice on how to make the most of the options you have:

Fill Out Your Assets

It is better to have something and not need it than to need something and not have it. Keep this in mind when you include assets in your App Campaign. By providing Google Ads with as many options as possible, they can test a wider range of Universal App Campaign to ensure you get the best results.

Google Ads does not require you to include five different 90-character descriptions, but you can and should. The same goes for the 30-character headlines. Using a variable but similar writing style can also do wonders for brand awareness.

With the media assets, things can be a little tricky. You are only allowed to submit 20, and yes, you should view this as a limitation. You should include at least one landscape video, a portrait image, and a landscape image if you can. But what about the other 17 slots?

It will not hurt to double up on the basics when building your asset portfolio. Landscape videos, portrait images, and landscape images are the most commonly used assets in Universal App Campaign, so you might want to include two of each. Including one square and one portrait video will expand your reach by filling out your portfolio.

As mentioned earlier, play to your strengths for the other 12 assets. If you have a knockout video crew, make more videos. If you find that your images get people to install your app, design more graphics.

You can never have too many assets. A craftsman is nothing without his tools, and the Google Ads App Campaign algorithm is nothing without its assets. By giving more assets, you give the algorithm more room to create the perfect Universal App Campaign.

Track How Changes Affect Your Performance

Acting is reacting, and advertising is…well it is also reacting. You want to see how different changes affect your App Campaign’s performance and use them to inform future changes.

You can track the way specific updates to your campaign affect performance from your “All Campaigns” page in Google Ads. Whether you have changed your assets or your budget and bidding structure, knowing the way they impact your campaign will guide future decision-making.

Adjust the way you change your campaign to be in line with changes that boosted performance. If you thought you were playing to your strengths by producing a new video, but it did not get you the results you wanted, maybe try taking a different approach.

Tracking your performance by incrementing it based on changes in your campaign keeps you from repeating the same mistakes. It also helps you repeat any decisions that wound up driving people to your application. At the end of the day, getting installs is what matters. If you let your metrics guide you, you should be able to produce a winning ad campaign.

Do Not Jump the Gun on Decision Making

Because Google Ads relies on machine learning to make the best Universal App Campaign examples, it could take some time to get the results you expect. You might want to tweak your budget and bid structure immediately, but you should wait and see how the campaign looks after a few days.

When Google Ads is testing its Universal App Campaigns, it might not yield results at first. Testing always involves failure, and failure means Google will not use that combination of assets in that position again.

If your App Campaign is consistently underperforming, you might want to review your budget or asset portfolio. The fix could be as simple as increasing your target bid, or it could be complicated enough to merit scrapping the whole campaign.

Ensure Your Target Audience Can Use Your App

Do not pay for users that cannot use your app. As mentioned earlier, Google Ads will not translate your ad into other languages.

You probably know this, but do not bother translating your ad for audiences that speak other languages unless your app can be used in that language.

Another thing to bear in mind is that multiple countries might speak the right language for your ad, but that does not mean you want to advertise in all of them. If your app involves a service exclusively available in the United States, it would not matter if you get users in the United Kingdom or Canada.

Do not end up paying to get British people to download your Canada-based rideshare app by updating your language and location settings.

Make Use of the Bid Guidance Widget

The Bid Guidance widget is available for install and in-app action campaigns. It will appear when you are editing your campaign budget or creating a new campaign for an Android app.

The Bid Guidance app is a feature included by Google Ads to help you figure out your optimal target bid. It calculates how many weekly installs it thinks you will get with your bid based on the market value. The maximum amount possible is your daily budget divided by your target bid multiplied by seven for each day of the week.

Image source: Google Support

The Bid Guidance widget will also show you estimates of weekly installs at various target bids. It might not always be accurate, but Google has a large dataset to inform this widget. By using this widget, you can see if increasing your bid will get you more customers.

Also, it will let you see if you can lower your bid without losing customers. If you can get the same number of installs with a lower bid, you will save a lot of money.

The Bid Guidance widget is a helpful tool to make sure that you are getting the highest amount of installs or in-app actions within your budget.

FAQs:

What are universal app campaigns?

By using machine learning algorithms, Google Ads uses an automated ad type which help advertisers to target more app install by targeting best suitable audience. Such campaigns are called universal app campaigns.

What is an app install campaign?

App install ads allow users to install your app directly from your advertisement. Based on where your ad appears, any original content may be added to, removed, or modified during the ad serving processss

Wrap Up:

Getting more downloads and users for your app is made easy with Google Ads App campaigns. By taking all of the legwork out of designing advertisements, Google lets you take a metrics-driven approach to market your app. They still leave a lot of room for creativity, though, by using assets that you provide to work out the best Universal App Campaign.

You can optimize your App Campaign to yield the best results by focusing on how well different inputs perform, whether bids and budget numbers or assets.

Hopefully, this guide cleared everything up about App Campaigns for you, and you are ready to start building up a user base.