Google Announces New Features for App Advertisers to Improve ROI

In this digital age, apps have become an integral part of human life. Not so long, apps revolutionized the way people over the world get themselves engaged. People have got the convenience to buy goods and services, staying connected with loved ones without geographical barriers, and adding fun to life with games. All these happen on their fingertip through the different apps. While businesses have found a new way to interact with potential users and retention of loyal customers. The swarming apps in the stores make it evident.

According to recent research from Google, 63% of consumers will continue to seek out the best app experiences even once stores reopen. Moreover, 75% of consumers are more likely to purchase from brands whose apps allow them to transact quickly. Therefore, every advertiser is looking to make their app stand out among the others in the crowd. But with the increasing demand for apps, it is not a cakewalk to get the app easily discovered, and convert new users into loyal customers. App advertisers are seeking new ways to get visibility, and Google has directed the way to this.

To get this issue solved, Google announces new features for app advertisers, functional from June. It will let the advertisers activate insights to help improve performance, so they could reach more people and keep valuable users coming back.

Let’s take a peek at the new features by Google for app advertisers.

Reach to More Users No Matter Where They are
The scope to run app campaigns has widened, as these are eligible to run on Search, YouTube, Google Play, Discover, and over three million other sites and apps. Previously, these were shown only on a mobile.

Users these days are progressively moving across multiple devices to fulfil their digital needs. It is true that mobile usage is continuously rising across the world. However, the analytical trend says that 46% of total time on websites is spent on desktop. So expanding the reach of App Campaigns will help advertisers meet new consumers where they are.
From June, advertisers targeting Android users will be able to reach prospects additionally, in the desktop versions of SERP as well as the Google Display Network.

When users will click the app ad in desktop browser, they will be redirected to the Google Play Store desktop version. They can then choose to install that app directly onto any Android device linked to their Play Store account. The app gets automatically installed on their mobile device.

Advertisers won’t have to put an additional effort if they are already running App campaigns on Android at present. Desktop traffic and performance for their app ads will automatically show under “Computers” in campaign reports.

Create Custom In-App Events in Google Analytics Without Code Updates
While growing the business using a mobile app, the foremost step needed to grow is connecting to new users. However, the crucial thing is to understand the alterations after the first install, which is possible by measuring the right in-app events.
These events are measured using Google Analytics for Firebase SDK presenting important insights that matter to the business. It provides details showing how the users engage with a particular business app. Previously, both coding and an app update were required in Firebase to create a custom in-app event, like tracking orders when folks complete a purchase. In a relief to advertisers, Google has now announced event creation and modification directly from the Analytics interface, without requiring any code updates. It will allow configuring the right in-app events based on advertisers’ marketing objectives.

The new feature will let the advertisers change events’ name or parameters, or create new ones without any developer resources required. With the ability to quickly make adjustments to the event plan, they can ensure capturing the most relevant conversion events for their business app.

Measuring all the right events helps to improve the performance by bidding on particular Analytics conversions in App campaigns. Google research study shows an increase in installations and in-app events when the app campaigns switched to Google Analytics for Firebase conversions- with no significant change to cost per conversion (CPC).

Deep Linking Validator and Impact Calculator to Get the ROI Estimate
When a brand’s app is seamless and easy to use, the consumers are likely to be stick loyal to that brand. Deep linking goes a long way by aligning specific places in the app making it convenient for users to find what they are looking for. It creates a good experience for prospects, whether it is while buying a new product, booking a service or hopping back into their favorite game, in turn for advertisers, improve conversion rates. Google’s research indicates that on-average, deep linked ad experiences drive two times the conversion rates, hence boosting the ad performance.

However, getting started with deep linking is not simple as it demands collaboration with technical teams to create joint KPIs and prioritizing key updates. Hence, Google has announced two tools-deep link validator and impact calculator, making it easier for advertisers to implement deep links. These tools estimate the ROI opportunity of implementing deep links.

The deep link validator helps advertisers validate deep links for their entire Android app. Advertisers can send and download a detailed report using this tool that contains all the checks performed on the link and how the missed configurations should be fixed.
The next tool Impact Calculator provides a list of all the missing URLs that advertisers may want to consider while implementing as deep links and the estimated missed conversions from not implementing them.

Deep Linked Data-Driven Attribution
With App deep linking, customers get directed to the right content in the app, often leading to more conversions. However, the path sometimes deviates as users search across various sites and apps before taking the ending action. It is then harder to pinpoint which ad drove a conversion. To help the advertisers understand how specific mobile web ad clicks drove customers to complete purchases within the app, Google has also introduced data-driven attribution (DDA) for deep linked campaigns. It can improve bidding decisions for web-based campaigns.

Why We Care
These new features from Google can drive more reach of business apps, improve the performance of app campaigns, and retention of existing users engaged within the app — while helping developers and advertisers to focus on their own priorities.