Create an App campaign

App campaigns allow you to promote your app across Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, Gmail, and within other apps and mobile websites on the Display Network. This article covers how to create one of these campaigns in your Google Ads account. This process includes creating an ad group consisting of ads generated from your ad assets.

Note: The ad groups feature availability is ramping up through the end of the year, and may not be available for your account yet.

Before you begin

To learn about how these campaigns work, read about App campaigns and review the best practices for promoting apps on Google.

Instructions

  1. Sign in to Google Ads account.
  2. In the page menu on the left, click Campaigns.
  3. Click the plus button , then select New campaign.
  4. For your campaign goal, select App promotion.
  5. For your "Campaign subtype," pick App installs, App engagement, or App pre-registration (Android only).
  6. Select your app's platform.
  7. In your search field, enter your app name, package name, or publisher, then select your app from the list that appears. Google Ads can automatically count installations as conversions for Android apps in the Google Play store. To track all other installations, first set up mobile app conversion tracking.
  8. Click Continue.
  9. In the "Campaign name" field, add a name for your campaign. You may want to indicate in the name that this is an App campaign, so you can find the campaign more easily in the future.
  10. If needed, update any location or language settings. Keep in mind, Google Ads doesn't translate your ads, so you should only target languages that match your ads.
  11. Set your average daily budget.
  12. Under "Campaign Optimization," choose to optimize your campaign the kind of user actions that you want to prioritize.
  13. Set your target bids if required. Campaigns focused on app installs don't require a target bid, while campaigns focused on in-app actions or a return on ad spend require a target bid.
    • For app installs on Android, you may see a projection of install volume for a range of bid values if you've linked your Google Play and Google Ads accounts. Learn more about bidding in App campaigns
  14. Set the start and end dates for your campaign.
  15. Click Save and continue.
  16. Enter your ad group name.
  17. Under "Ad Assets," add at least two headline ideas and one description idea (it's recommended to add up to 5 of each). You can also view reports on asset performance to help optimize asset usage.
  18. You have the option to add up to 20 of each of the following assets:
    • Video
      • Videos must be hosted on YouTube.
      • Orientation can be landscape, portrait, or square. Adding one of each, if possible, is ideal and recommended.
        • If you have resources to produce only one video, consider creating a landscape video.
      • Once you have multiple landscape videos within your asset portfolio, consider creating portrait and/or square videos.
      • If you don't have videos to add, Google Ads may make a video ad for you using assets from your app store listing.
    • Image
      • Upload images as .jpg or .png with a maximum size of 1024 KB for landscape.
      • For native ads, landscape and portrait images are the most valuable format.
      • For interstitial ads, portrait images are the most valuable format.
      • Other valuable formats include: 320x50 pixels, 320x480 pixels, and 300x250 pixels.
      • Learn how to upload image ads in different sizes
    • HTML5
      • Upload HTML5 as .zip with a maximum size of 1MB and no more than 40 files.
      • To validate your HTML5 assets before uploading, run your .zip file through the HTML5 Validator tool.
      • HTML5 sizes currently accepted include:
        • 480x320 (landscape interstitial, variable size)
        • 320x480 (portrait interstitial, variable size)
        • 300x250 (fixed size)
        • 320x50 (fixed size)
      • Learn about HTML5 for App campaigns
  19. Click Save and continue.

Apple will soon implement new privacy policies for iOS 14 users. These place limitations on your campaign setup. To achieve optimal performance, run 8 or fewer App install campaigns for each of your iOS apps.

Note: Depending on where your ad is shown, your App campaign assets may be altered for performance and user experience purposes. For example, text may be truncated and images or videos may be cropped to fit users' screens.

Was this helpful?

How can we improve it?