Google App campaigns to get YouTube inventory, tROAS bidding

A new bidding option and YouTube inventory were among the announcements for app marketers running Google App campaigns (formerly Universal App Campaigns). Google announced the updates at its I/O developer conference Wednesday.

Target ROAS bidding. With Google’s target return on ad spend (tROAS) automated bidding, the algorithm will automatically adjust bids higher to serve ads deemed likely to spend more on in-app actions after they install your app. “If you’re looking for users who will spend twice as much as they cost to acquire, you can set that multiplier for your tROAS bid, and it will find you the right users accordingly.”

tROAS bidding will be available next month for Google App campaigns on iOS and Android.

YouTube inventory. App ad inventory is opening up on the YouTube homepage feed and on in-stream video for advertisers that have at least one landscape image and one video asset in their campaigns.

Other news. App campaigns will support multiple ad groups that can include different assets for their ads starting later this month. Eight agencies have been selected as preferred creative partners for App campaigns: Apptamin, Bamboo, Consumer Acquisition, Creadits, Kaizen Ad, Kuaizi, Vidmob and Webpals.

For publishers running ads from Google’s mobile ad network, AdMob, Google said it will be expanding its Open Bidding monetization model currently in beta to all publishers later this year.

Why you should care. Google continues to invest in its app campaign product, available for iOS and Android apps. App campaigns are automated to run across Play Store, YouTube, the million or so apps that are in the Google Display Network and Google.com. It is steadily bringing its smart bidding types to this campaign format. Earlier this year, it announced max conversions bidding for App campaigns. Target cost-per-install (tCPI) and target cost-per-acquisition (tCPA) are already available.

About The Author

Ginny Marvin

Ginny Marvin is Third Door Media's Editor-in-Chief, managing day-to-day editorial operations across all of our publications. Ginny writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, she has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.