• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, May 8, 2019

Knowing the amount of revenue generated relative to the cost of driving app installations and actions drives profitability. On Wednesday, Google announced a new automated bidding option and ways for advertisers to access YouTube ad inventory.

The bid option -- target return on ad spend (tROAS), scheduled for release next month on iOS and Android globally -- automatically calculates the bid for advertisers. It will pay more for users who are likely to spend more in the app, and pay less for users who are likely to spend less.

Google also announced new ways to develop and manage the creative elements of the campaign, making it easier to serve potential and existing customers more relevant ads in more places.

Google also introduced two new placement options that begin with YouTube when advertisers have at least one landscape image and one video. The first placement is on the YouTube home page feed, and the second is on in-stream video.

Later this month, advertisers can set up multiple ad groups in the same campaign and tailor the assets in each ad group around a different theme or message for different customers.

And while bidding options and placements improved, the list of validated agency partners also grew longer.

Eight agency partners — Vidmob, Consumer Acquisition, Bamboo, Apptamin, Webpals, Creadits, Kaizen Ad, and Kuaizi — were selected by Google to help manage the creative process from design to reporting.

They were selected based on their history to collaborate with Google’s AppDev team. For example, they had to demonstrate their ability to develop top-tier creatives. Those selected were required to know how to create ad assets across all Google app formats such as text, image, and video, as well as having knowledge of aspect ratios.

Google ran trial periods with agencies where key awareness, adoption, and quality metrics, such as the performance of their creatives and the number of clients supported, were tracked and assessed.

The agencies in the program will become part of a partner directory for app advertisers, and are expected to keep up to date with creative trends and innovations, as well as maintaining the expertise and bandwidth to implement the latest Google tools and best practices. They will also need to know about monetization models. Google offers two today, waterfall mediation and Open Bidding, but there are more on the way.

App developers can expect Google to introduce new ways to increase revenue as the company continues to explore new ways to grow overall app revenue beyond just ads.

Smart segmentation, announced at the Google Developer Conference, remains one way that helps developers grow revenue by showing ads only to users who are predicted not to spend on in-app purchases.

A Google spokesperson said developers participating in the program have seen up to 30% growth in overall revenue. Investments are being made to build solutions that improve revenue for app developers while making their jobs easier.