• by Inbal Lavi , Op-Ed Contributor, November 21, 2017

Google’s rollout of Universal App Campaigns (UAC) should be making advertisers and app developers jump for joy. Why? Because its puts an end to the costly bidding wars and inflated costs of ads, and on average drives 140% more conversions per dollar than other app promotion tools.  

Simply put, Google has created algorithms that understand the myriad paths that a user can take from an event to conversion.  It is able to assign value to each pathway and evaluates the lifetime value (LTV) of a customer based on data across Google’s assets, pinpointing the right way to reach every member of a target audience.  

After working with UAC for more than a year, Webpals Group has been able to consistently meet developers’ goals at lower costs and improved KPIs. 

Along the way we’ve picked up some kernels of wisdom that have further improved the effectiveness of UAC and are worth sharing with developers and advertisers just beginning to work with UAC.

Measure Twice, Cut Once

During your testing period make sure that you’re paying attention to your goals and KPIs to ensure that they’re realistic and affordable.  Your daily test budget should be at least 50 time larger than your expected CPI.  That means that if you are expecting a CPI of $2, your daily test budget should be $100, at a minimum.  We’ve found that a short testing window of two weeks is ideal, as it’s the right amount of time to ensure that Google’s algorithm is learning enough about your parameters to perform effectively before tweaking any settings. 

While this might be a higher initial time and cash outlay than you may be imagining (especially if you have to tweak your settings after poor results on an initial test), this is the chance to hone your KPIs so that you can ultimately profit from UAC. 

Think Outside the Box

Define your engagement KPIs thoughtfully – there are more ways to measure a campaign’s success than the standard indicators such as registration and sales.  Completed tutorials, reaching a certain level or user status, and click outs are also legitimate metrics to measure your app’s performance and can lead you to uncover some surprising new opportunities as well.

What works on one of Google’s assets might work even better on another asset, or bring you to an entirely new group of customers that you were not originally targeting.  Focusing on unique engagement KPIs further allows you to tailor your acquisition path to each customer.  If, for example, you can see that a gamer has achieved a specific level in one app, that same gamer can be directed to your new app starting from a heightened level.   You’ve just created a new opportunity for heightened engagement because you were looking at the same information, from a different angle.  By looking for KPIs that work for you, not for your industry as a whole, you will encourage different paths to success. 

Find New Customers Without Searching

To extend the reach of your advertising efforts, check out new markets that you haven’t previously considered.  Google has made it almost too easy to penetrate across their assets, and will mix and match messages automatically.  Make sure to investigate the tangential ways to reach your customer through methods that you’ve been too risk averse to try in the past or gamble on new creative from your app or landing page that you’ve been toying with.