ValueTrack Parameter to Match mobileappcategory:: in PLACEMENT_PERFORMANCE_REPORT

[Mark Rogoyski]

In Display Network mobile app install campaigns that target mobile app categories as the biddable placement, you can get the mobileappcategory:: ID string in the PLACEMENT_PERFORMANCE_REPORT in the Criteria field (Placement column).

For example, if you are targeting: /All Apps/Google Play/Games

It will show up as mobileappcategory::60008 in the PLACEMENT_PERFORMANCE_REPORT's Placement column (Criteria field).

For reference, here are the mobileappcategory IDs: https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/appendix/mobileappcategories

My question then, is there a way to get this mobile app category ID string in the ad's URL using ValueTrack parameters or some other mechanism?

For example, in the case of targeting mobile app placements (in comparison to mobile app categories), in the PLACEMENT_PERFORMANCE_REPORT, the mobile app placement shows up as the mobileapp::1-123456 style string ID, and in the URL, you can use the ValueTrack parameter {placement} to get the same mobileapp::1-123456 style string ID. This is very useful for aligning data in internal systems.

However, for mobile app categories, it does not seem like you can get the mobileappcategory::60008 style string ID in the URL as a parameter. If your campaign is targeting mobile app categories as the biddable placement and use the {placement} ValueTrack parameter, Google passes the mobileapp::1-123456 style string ID of the mobile app where the ad was shown, and not the app category that is being targeted. The PLACEMENT_PERFORMANCE_REPORT does report the mobileappcategory:: style ID.

Basically, the behavior is inconsistent between mobile apps and mobile app category targeted campaigns, it seems.

Looking at the definition of the {placement} parameter (https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375447?hl=en), it has the following explanation:

The content site where your ad was clicked (for keyword-targeted campaigns), or the matching placement targeting criteria for the site where your ad was clicked (for placement-targeted campaigns)

I interpret that to mean that since our targeting criteria is the mobileappcategory, we should get the mobileappcategory:: string ID in the URL parameter. However, it returns the mobile app, which is not our biddable targeting criteria.

Is this the expected behavior of the {placement} parameter, or should it in fact return the mobileappcategory:: instead of the mobileapp:: string ID for mobile app install campaigns targeting mobile app categories as the biddable placement?

If this is in fact the expected behavior, how then can we get the same mobileappcategory:: string ID in the URL as a parameter? We'd like what comes in on the URL to match what we see in the PLACEMENT_PERFORMANCE_REPORT, just like we see for mobile app placements currently.

Btw, I know there is the {target} parameter that returns a partial category name, but this is not the ID, and the category is not unique since iOS and Android have different mobileappcategory:: string IDs for the same category description.

For example: {target}=games

Android: 60008 - /All Apps/Google Play/Games 

iOS: 60506 - /All Apps/Apple App Store/Games

Also, getting the mobile app where the ad was shown even though it is a mobile app category campaign is very useful in itself, and we would not want to lose that information, however, ideally we'd also be able to get the actual biddable criteria placement that is targeted as well to align with the data in the PLACEMENT_PERFORMANCE_REPORT.

Thank you very much.

Mark

[Nadine Sundquist (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your detailed post; it made your question very clear. As far as I know, ValueTrack does not have the mobileappcategory available in any of its parameters. I don't know any way of getting that information into the URL. I'll look into filing a feature request for you.

Cheers,

Nadine, AdWords API Team

[Mark Rogoyski]

Thank you Nadine. We would like this to be a feature to get the mobileappcategory:: ID string on the URL.