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Amol Ghemud Published: August 14, 2018
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How to Get the best ROI out of your Universal App Campaigns:
Google’s Universal App campaign makes the process easy for you. The objective of any app advertiser is to get the app into the hands of most valuable users. By most valuable, I’m referring to those users who will end up adding monetary value to my app.
With UAC it is easy to promote your apps across Google’s different networks consisting Search, Google Play, Google Display and YouTube Network. All you need to do is add some text ideas, some images to your campaign.
A. What is UAC?
Universal App Campaign is Google’s effort to utilize machine learning with its advertising platform. The idea of machine learning is to analyze the app in real time and put it before the hundreds of millions of users across Google’s various networks.
According to Google, UAC generates 140% more conversions than simple app promotion. It gives advertisers an opportunity test out app for both Android and IOS platform.
B. How UAC Differs from old App Install Campaign?
While the old app install campaign used to focus only on app installation in bulk, irrespective of whether user needs it or not, UAC utilizes Google’s machine learning system to bring the app to the would be potential users.
On the technical part, let’s see how UAC differs from old App install campaign.
1. Ad Assets
In App Install Campaign, Ad copy varies based on the type of Google network. Check below. While in UAC, you do not have much freedom for customization. The only editable asset is text ideas. Mobile app install campaigns offer you the report to view performance for each individual ad, while the UAC campaign doesn’t show any performance data for ad copy.
2. Bidding
Mobile App install campaigns could provide 3 different bidding strategies; CPC, CPV (for YouTube only) and Target CPI.ดูหนังออนไลน์
Such bidding diversification is not available in UAC. Only Target CPI is the bidding option available in UAC. Moreover you can adjust the amount you wish to pay for a single install.
3. Reporting
For Mobile App Install Campaign, following segments/level are available to view.ทดลองเล่นสล็อต
For Universal App Campaign, only following performance levels are available to view.
C. Why Universal App Campaign works better than you think?
Unlike other AdWords campaigns, there is no option available to design individual ads for Google Universal App campaigns. Instead, Google utilizes your text ideas and different Ad Assets from Play Store to produce the best possible ad.
All you need to do is write text for the ad, apply bid, set budget and specify location. Google’s system will test the different combination and optimize for better performing ads, thus your extra work is saved.
AdWords also automates Bidding and targeting for you to get the best value of your download. In-app conversions allow you to find most valuable user for your app.
D. Campaign Designing & Creation
Designing a Universal App Campaign is just a piece of cake. Just follow these simple steps.ทดลองเล่นสล็อตฟรี pg
Sign In to your adwords account. Click on campaign creation button. Select Universal App Campaign.
Link your app from the app store. (Install Play Store or Install App Store)
Choose location & language. Apply target CPI bid and set budget.
The important section here is Campaign Optimization. You need to choose either a store app install or the user who are likely to perform an action.
Now comes the important stage of Ad creation. As we discussed above, get ready with the text ideas and images to be uploaded. Google has some recommendation for Ads dimension.
When you run Universal App Campaign, your ads are eligible to run across Google’s wide network. Let’s’ take a look how these ads appear across various network.ยักษ์888
The Google Play Store
Google Search Network
The Google Display Network
YouTube
F. Optimization of UA-Campaign
For optimizing UAC, it is important to understand how UACs are different from other AdWords campaigns. Unlike other AdWords campaign, there is a less opportunity for optimization in UAC. Also from this campaign, very less insights into reporting & ad control is obtained. Nevertheless there is certain room for optimization.
Here they are:
Campaign Bid
Adjusting your bid is one of the most important levers of optimization. Try increasing the bid and observe the pre and post bid change performance of the campaign. Google also allows you to bid on users ‘who are likely to complete in-app actions that you select’.สล็อตเว็บตรง
While the only bidding option available is TCPA, that does not mean google will charge you only the set amount.Setting the TCPA tells google algorithm that you are willing to pay that much amount for conversion. You may end up being charged higher than your target CPA.
Ad Text
Your ads are automatically generated using your text ideas, uploaded assets, and content from your Google Play and Apple App Store listings.But still, following areas are available where creatives can be tested.a) a set of 4 text ad spot; 25 characters eachb) a set of upto 20 display images (optional)
c) an optional set up of 20 Youtube videos
As performance reporting of these creatives is not available, run A/B test on your creatives with manual pre-post performance analysis. To do so, make one change and observe the changes. Compare the performance with previous data (of same range) & accordingly check if positive effects are obtained.
Performance Grouping
Performance grouping is the rank-stack given by google in Ad Assets. Google’s algorithm ranks the performance of each Ad Asset labeled as Best, Good & Low. Remember that while performance history will be available for each ad text, but their performance grouping data will no longer be available if you change an ad text.
Location
Increase efficiency of your campaign by testing your campaigns for different geographies. Keep in mind that targeting too much tightly can kill off your volume thus preventing your campaign kicking off.ทีเด็ด บอลเต็ง 99 วันนี้
Test For Both Android & IOS
Yes you read it correct. Google allows IOS Configuration with AdWords to run UAC on IOS devices. That is a different topic. You can read more here. Test which users give you better ROI.
Videos
It is better to provide customised video for your UAC. If you leave this field blank, AdWords may make a video for you.
Optimize for Funnel
Gone are the days when people used to run app campaign for installs. It is better to go after any event or in-app action. Aligning the goal of the campaign with good performance can be a bit of a challenge while optimizing for such low funnel volume. Remember, never make more than one change at a time. Otherwise you won’t be able to track the changes that work for you.
Conclusion
Nowadays the audience is more inclined towards mobile and app usage. Thus, this makes it a necessity for advertiser to get more users with Universal App Campaign. Following the above simple optimization tricks will do wonders to your campaign.
As we saw the difference between current UAC and old Mobile Install Campaign, it is hard to choose one over other.
Both have their merits & demerits. At the end, important thing is to make your app reach the hands of most valuable users.
Universal App Campaigns (UAC) represent a strategic shift from acquiring installs to acquiring valuable users. The system uses Google's machine learning to analyze countless signals in real time, identifying users who not only install but are also likely to perform specific, high-value in-app actions.
This is achieved by looking at data across Google's entire network to find patterns associated with your most valuable existing users. It then targets new users who exhibit similar behaviors. The key advantages are:
Predictive Audience Targeting: The system analyzes your app's content, Play Store listing, and existing user data to predict which users will convert.
Dynamic Ad Optimization: UAC automatically tests various combinations of your provided text and image assets, showing the top-performing ads more often without manual intervention.
Cross-Network Reach: It determines the most effective placement for your ads, whether on Search, YouTube, the Play Store, or the Display Network, to maximize your return.
By focusing on in-app events, you train the algorithm on what a quality user looks like for your app. To see how to define these critical in-app conversions, review the full setup guide.
The strategic importance of UAC's automated multi-network reach is its ability to find your ideal users wherever they are most receptive. Instead of you guessing where to allocate budget, Google's machine learning makes data-driven decisions to place your app in front of high-intent audiences across its largest properties. This unified approach is superior to siloed campaigns for several reasons. For instance, a user might discover your app while watching a review on YouTube, search for it later on Google, and finally install it from the Play Store. UAC connects these touchpoints to serve the right ad at the right time. This integrated strategy is designed to maximize conversion probability at every stage of the user journey, which is why Google states UAC can generate 140% more conversions. You provide the creative assets and goals, and the system handles the complex task of optimizing placements for the best possible ROI. Understanding how to supply the right creative inputs for each network is explored further in the complete article.
The main difference is the shift from manual control to automated efficiency. While older Mobile App Install campaigns required you to create specific ads and set bids for each network, UAC streamlines this entire process, letting you focus on strategy instead of tedious management.
The most significant distinctions are:
Ad Assets: In older campaigns, you created unique ad copy and visuals for Search, Display, and YouTube. UAC instead pulls from a pool of assets you provide, including text ideas and images, along with content from your app's Google Play Store page, to dynamically generate the best ad for any given placement.
Bidding: Traditional campaigns offered varied bidding options like CPC and CPV. UAC simplifies this by using Target CPI (Cost-Per-Install) or Target CPA (Cost-Per-Action) as its sole bidding method, automating bids to achieve your specific acquisition cost goals.
Reporting: UAC provides a consolidated performance view, whereas older campaigns offered granular reports by network, placement, and ad, which required more analysis.
This automated framework allows for faster scaling and optimization across Google's vast inventory. To learn how to interpret UAC's unique reporting style, read the full analysis.
The reported lift of 140% more conversions is a direct result of UAC's machine learning engine working on multiple fronts. It is not one single feature but the synergy between automated processes that drives this performance, removing guesswork and manual adjustments from the equation. The core drivers behind this success include:
Automated Ad Generation: Instead of you running A/B tests, UAC constantly combines your text ideas, images, and videos with assets from your app's Google Play Store page. It identifies the most effective combinations and serves them more frequently.
Intelligent Bidding: The system analyzes hundreds of signals for each potential ad impression to set the optimal bid in real time, focusing your budget on users most likely to install or complete an in-app action.
Cross-Network Optimization: UAC automatically allocates your budget across Search, Display, YouTube, and more, shifting spend to the channels delivering the highest return on investment without your manual input.
This holistic optimization finds valuable users at a scale and speed that is impossible to replicate manually. Delve deeper into the best practices for structuring your creative assets to get the most out of this automation.
UAC's approach to ad creation is a prime example of programmatic optimization. It effectively runs a massive, continuous multivariate test on your behalf, which is far more powerful than traditional A/B testing because it analyzes many variables at once to find the winning formula for different audiences and placements. The system pulls from your provided text ideas, images, and videos, plus your app icon and description from the Google Play Store. It then mixes and matches these elements to create thousands of ad variations. Google's machine learning serves these different combinations across its networks, measures user response, and quickly learns which ads drive the most installs or in-app actions. This frees your team from the time-consuming task of creating and testing individual ads, allowing you to focus on developing higher-quality creative inputs. The full article explains how to craft compelling text ideas that give the algorithm the best material to work with.
Setting up a UAC is straightforward, allowing you to get a high-performance campaign running quickly. The key is to signal your true objective, which is acquiring valuable users, not just driving install volume.
Follow these essential steps for a successful launch:
In your Google Ads account, create a new campaign and select 'Universal App Campaign' as the type.
Link your app by searching for it on the Google Play Store or Apple App Store.
Define your geographic and language targeting to reach the right markets.
Set your daily budget and your target cost-per-install (Target CPI). Start with a competitive bid to ensure the campaign can gather data.
In the 'Campaign Optimization' section, select the option to focus on 'users who are likely to perform an in-app action'. This is the most critical step for maximizing ROI.
Choosing to optimize for in-app actions tells Google's algorithm to prioritize user quality over install quantity. To learn about setting up conversion tracking for these actions, explore the detailed guide.
The rise of automated campaigns like UAC signals a fundamental shift in the role of a performance marketer. Your value is no longer in manual, granular campaign adjustments but in providing high-level strategic direction and superior creative inputs for the machine to optimize.
Your focus should pivot to these key areas:
Creative Strategy: Since UAC combines assets automatically, your primary lever for performance is the quality of the raw materials. Invest heavily in developing diverse, high-quality images, videos, and compelling text ideas that resonate with different user segments.
User Value Definition: Your expertise is needed to define what a 'valuable user' is. This involves setting up accurate in-app conversion tracking and analyzing which events correlate with long-term revenue.
First-Party Data: As privacy regulations evolve, leveraging your first-party data to inform Google's algorithm becomes a key competitive advantage.
Your role evolves from a campaign operator to a strategic architect of the inputs that fuel the automation engine. The full article offers more insight on how to build a creative testing framework for UAC.
This is a common challenge that directly impacts profitability, and UAC was designed to solve it. The campaign optimization setting is the key, allowing you to explicitly tell Google's algorithm to prioritize user quality over sheer quantity, which older campaigns struggled to do effectively. When you set up your campaign, you can choose to optimize for 'Install volume' or 'In-app actions'. By selecting 'In-app actions' and linking your campaign to specific conversion events (like completing a level, making a purchase, or signing up for a trial), you fundamentally change the campaign's goal. The system's machine learning will then seek out users who resemble those who have already completed these valuable actions. This shifts the focus from a low-cost install to a high-value user, directly addressing the problem of empty installs and increasing the likelihood of positive ROI. The complete guide explores how to select the right in-app events for optimization.
UAC's automated ad generation directly resolves this inefficiency by centralizing creative assets. Instead of building separate ads for Search, the Display Network, and YouTube, you provide a portfolio of creative components—text ideas, images, and videos—and UAC's system assembles the best-fit ad for any context. This asset-based approach saves dozens of hours of manual work and eliminates the guesswork of matching creatives to placements. With the time saved, your marketing team can shift its focus from production to higher-impact strategic activities:
Creative Development: Focus on producing a wider variety of high-quality, conceptually different assets. Test new messaging angles, visual styles, and video formats.
Strategic Analysis: Spend more time analyzing which types of creative assets perform best, rather than which individual ads are working.
Landing Page and Store Listing Optimization: Improve the user experience on your Google Play Store page to increase conversion rates from ad clicks.
This allows your team to operate more strategically, feeding the machine better inputs rather than just operating the controls. Learn more about the specific asset dimensions and requirements in the full article.
Providing a diverse set of high-quality creative assets is the single most important factor for success with UAC. Since Google's system does the heavy lifting of ad creation, it needs strong raw materials to work with for optimal performance across all networks.
Here are the essential creative assets you must prepare:
Text Ideas: Provide multiple distinct headlines and descriptions. These are the core messaging components the system will test.
Images: Upload images in various aspect ratios. The article specifically mentions landscape images with a 1.91:1 aspect ratio and minimum dimensions of 600x314. Supported formats are GIF, JPG, and PNG with a max size of 150 KB.
Videos: While not mentioned in the text, video is a crucial asset for platforms like YouTube. Including both landscape and portrait videos is a best practice.
Failing to provide assets in the recommended formats and sizes can limit your campaign's reach and effectiveness. For a complete checklist of all creative specifications you will need before starting, refer to the full guide.
UAC reporting is intentionally streamlined, which represents a major departure from the granular data available in older campaign types. While Mobile App Install campaigns allowed you to view performance by ad group, network, placement, and even individual ad, UAC consolidates this into a higher-level summary. This change requires a shift in how you evaluate success. Instead of micromanaging specific placements or ads, you must focus on the overall outcomes your campaign is driving. The primary available performance levels are by campaign, time, location, and device. The implication is that you should trust the automation to handle tactical optimization and measure success based on macro-level business KPIs, such as total conversions, cost per valuable action, and overall return on ad spend. The goal is no longer to tweak the best-performing ad but to analyze which creative themes and strategic inputs are driving the best results for Google's algorithm. Dive deeper into the available UAC metrics in the full post.
While UAC automates bidding and targeting, your strategic inputs are what guide the machine toward success. You retain significant influence over the campaign's ability to find valuable users, and your role shifts from manual operator to strategic director of the algorithm.
Here is how you can effectively steer the system:
Optimize for In-App Actions: This is your most powerful lever. By telling Google to optimize for users likely to make a purchase or complete a key action, you provide a clear signal about what user quality means to you.
Provide High-Quality Creatives: The algorithm learns from how users interact with your ads. Supplying diverse, engaging images, videos, and text ideas gives it better material to work with, improving its ability to match ads to audiences.
Refine Your Store Listing: UAC pulls assets and context from your Google Play Store page. A well-optimized listing with clear messaging and strong visuals improves both conversion rates and the algorithm's understanding of your app.
Your primary job becomes feeding the system with clear goals and strong creative assets. Read the full article for more advanced strategies on guiding UAC's machine learning.
Amol has helped catalyse business growth with his strategic & data-driven methodologies. With a decade of experience in the field of marketing, he has donned multiple hats, from channel optimization, data analytics and creative brand positioning to growth engineering and sales.
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Setting the TCPA tells google algorithm that you are willing to pay that much amount for conversion. You may end up being charged higher than your target CPA.
