An app campaign is a Google Ads campaign type that promotes a mobile app across Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, Discover and partner apps and sites, from a single set of text, images and videos you supply. You set the goal, budget and bid; Google decides where to show the ads and how to combine your assets.
How app campaigns work
There are three main subtypes. App install campaigns aim for new downloads. App engagement campaigns aim to bring existing users back to take an action, such as making a booking. Pre-registration campaigns, available for Android apps, collect sign-ups before launch on Google Play. You choose one per campaign.
You do not write individual ads or choose keywords. You provide headlines, descriptions, images, videos and, where you have them, HTML5 assets, and Google builds ads for each placement. The campaign is driven by a bidding goal: a target cost per install, a target cost per action for an in-app event such as a first purchase, or a target return on ad spend for apps with in-app revenue. Google’s guidance has long been that the daily budget should be many times the target cost per install, so the system can collect enough results to learn.
Measurement comes from the app, not the website. The usual set-up is Firebase linked to Google Ads, or a third-party attribution partner such as AppsFlyer or Adjust, sending installs and in-app events back as conversions. On iPhones, Apple’s App Tracking Transparency prompt limits user-level tracking, so Google relies on modelled and aggregated measurement for iOS results.
Why it matters
For a UK business whose product is an app, such as a booking app, a fitness subscription or a local delivery service, app campaigns are the main way to buy installs through Google, because standard search campaigns cannot send people straight to an app store install in the same way. The automation means a small team can reach every Google surface from one campaign.
The same automation hides a lot. You get limited control over placements and little insight into individual searches. That makes the quality of the in-app events you send back the main lever you have. If you optimise for installs alone, you may get many downloads from people who never open the app twice. Optimising for a meaningful action, measured properly and with consent handled under Google’s EU user consent policy, which covers UK users, usually produces customers rather than numbers.
Common mistakes
- Bidding for installs when the business needs subscribers or purchasers, then judging the campaign on revenue it was never asked to produce.
- Setting a budget too small for the target, so the campaign never leaves its learning period.
- Changing targets and assets every few days, which restarts learning each time.
- Supplying only text, so Google cannot serve the app on YouTube or in image placements.
- Neglecting the store listing. The ad brings people to the listing, and a weak listing loses them; app store optimisation matters as much as the campaign.
How to act on it
Before launching, confirm that installs and at least one valuable in-app event are recorded accurately in Firebase or your attribution tool, for both Android and iOS. Choose the event closest to revenue that still happens often enough to give the campaign data, often a completed sign-up or first purchase.
Give the campaign a varied asset set, including portrait and landscape video, and leave it for at least two to three weeks before making large changes. Review asset ratings and the cost per in-app action, not just cost per install, and move budget towards the campaigns that bring retained users. I set up and manage this work as part of Google app install campaigns.