Look Out, Facebook: Google Ups The Ante On Mobile App Install Ads

Ads that make it easy for people to install apps on their mobile devices became a surprise cash cow for Facebook. The ads reversed the social network's dismal mobile ad situation, which was blamed for helping tank its initial public offering almost two years ago, and prompted rivals such as Twitter and Yahoo recently to announce their own mobile app install ads.

Now, Google has upped the ante, announcing enhancements coming over the next few months to its own version of app install ads introduced a year ago. "From a consumer perspective, people aren't necessarily looking for apps. They're looking for solutions to their problems," Jerry Dischler, vice president of product management for AdWords, said at a livestreamed customer event in Half Moon Bay, Calif. (the archive of which you can view below). To help advertisers provide solutions rather than just point people to apps, Google plans to offer advertisers more ways to run those ads and then prompt people to actually install and use them.

For instance, the ads now will be able to run in search, on Google's display-ad network, and on YouTube using its TrueView format, which allows viewers to skip ads and advertisers to pay only for ads people watched. Ads also will be able to be targeted based on what other apps people have installed on their smartphones and how often they use them. For instance, Dischler wrote in his blog post, "if you exercise regularly and use an app to measure how far you run, you might see an ad for an app that helps you measure the foods you eat and calories consumed."

Also, Google will provide what's known as deep linking, so that if someone does a search for a hotel room, for example, Hotel Tonight can run an ad that links into an app's reservation page if it's installed on that person's phone. Finally, Google is providing app developers with more ways to measure not just app installations but in-app purchases and other app activity.

Ad firms said the mobile app install announcements cement the utility of search as a way for app developers to find and retain users. "We're seeing an escalating war between Google and Facebook on mobile," Matt Ackley, chief marketing officer at digital ad firm Marin Software, said in an interview. Especially with the deep linking, he said, "there's now an opportunity for search to play" more effectively in that game.

"Google is trying to be a trailblazer in the app space – they know apps are where it’s at in mobile, and this positions them at the front of the industry in terms of ad targeting and analytics for mobile apps," Larry Kim, founder and chief technology officer at search marketing firm WordStream, said in an email. "The new app features will make it easier to serve up apps to consumers as well as to increase engagement within those apps."

Generally, Google at the event emphasized the need for marketers to reach people wherever they are. "It’s not really about mobile, it’s about consumers," said Dischler. "It’s no longer about devices, it’s about connecting people to the content they want."

The company also announced better ways to measure conversions, marketing-speak for sales or other actions such as installing an app, on mobile devices and in physical stores. For instance, in one pilot, agency Rimm Kaufman Group did campaign for retailer  Express that resulted in a 102% increase in return on ad spend from in-store sales.

In addition, Google promised it would deliver in coming months a couple of new software tools to make it easier to measure the impact of campaigns and to experiment with and test changes to AdWords campaigns.

Here's the video of the event with all the details: