• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 14, 2017

Google says Universal App Campaigns now deliver half of all app downloads across its network, so it is moving all app install advertisement under the umbrella of UAC.

As of October 16, 2017, all app-install campaigns will run as UAC ads, but its current app-install campaigns will not stop running until November 15, 2017.

Google introduced UAC about two years ago to help developers drive app downloads. UAC uses Google’s machine-learning technology to help find customers across Google Play, Google.com, YouTube and the millions of sites and apps in the Display Network based on a marketer's business goals.

The ads are distributed across multiple Google networks such as Search, GDN and AdMobi, and use a CPA model.

Bill Riddell, digital media manager at Chacka Marketing, has been testing UAC with a couple of clients. He says UAC and machine-learning algorithms allow Google to use a variety of signals to identify certain consumers and drive them to complete an in-app action. 

With the new change, Riddell says Google is releasing two new variants of UAC. One focuses on target cost per acquisition where the marketer tells Google how much they are willing to pay. Google identifies the consumers based on many signals to drive more qualified users at or below the CPA set in the platform.  

The second new version is based on Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). It works in a similar way to the target cost per acquisition, but rather than a CPA target it focuses on revenue and is geared more toward retailers.

The ability to bid and optimize against a range of goals like CPI, CPA or ROAS has become the major advantage to performance in UAC.

Google says advertisers that optimize for in-app actions with UAC, on average, drive about 140% more conversions per dollar than other Google app promotions products.

Developers and publishers need to convert their campaigns, so in a post Google details guidelines to help them make the move.