Web2App · Published 2024-08-30 · 2 min read
Setting up the ad campaign once the MMP is chosen
The previous article was about MMPs.
Right, the MMP is settled, so now we move on to setting up the campaign. We will configure a Web2App campaign in Google Ads so that it directs web traffic to the app. With the ordinary setup the campaign will run, but Google Ads will not learn. Our task is to pass user purchases from the app back to Google Ads. Then Google Ads will bring the best users — the paying ones.
To pass the data, set two parameters in the MMP
- Link ID
The link ID is a text value such as "1260A71AF4B76FD8928C09D929597123". You get it in Google Ads and enter it in the MMP. After that the MMP sends the app's events to Google Ads.
- Event mapping
Say the app has a purchase event that you send to the MMP. To the MMP that is just a string of letters, "purchase"; it could equally well have been "event1". If the MMP sends an event like that to Google Ads, Google Ads will not understand that we are telling it about paying users. To make Google Ads understand, we declare that purchase equals in_app_purchase.
Or in other words: "hey Google Ads, this user has paid!"
That is the theory. The diagram is attached.
Questions
I set everything up as described, but there are no conversions. Purchases are at zero. Once you have configured the event forwarding into the MMP, everything after that is on the MMP. If you can see conversions in the MMP but not in the ad network, write to MMP support.
What if I am on the free Firebase tier? Yes, that is a problem with free Firebase. AppsFlyer has the same problem, despite being, to put it mildly, not free. Tenjin and Adjust have excellent support.
Should I put the ad networks' SDKs into the app? No. Only your MMP's SDK.
Right. What do I tell the developers when purchases are at zero and they say they followed the instructions? The developers are right. Integration with an MMP is one line of code: trackEvent('purchase', 10, "USD"). The developers have done everything they could. The rest is on the UA managers and on support.