Admob App Install Tracking for Android device for internal performance analysis

[chris]

Hi,

We've been running on iOS AppStore Mobile App Installs with Admob for a while, and have been using the setup described here (https://developers.google.com/app-conversion-tracking/docs/ios/install-confirmation-server#if_install_came_from_adwords) to receive confirmations of IDFAs for users that have installed through clicking on an AdMob Mobile App Install ad unit. We use this to track the performance of campaigns with our internal analytics solution.

We've just launched on Android, and I can't find the documentation around how to do this with Android devices. I don't think you guys provide a way to do this via s2s, but is there some solution that will help me identify Android users that have clicked on an Admob ad, and track them in our internal analytics system for lifetime value analysis, engagement analysis, etc? Perhaps via Google Play Game Services SDK, Google Analytics SDK, Valuetrack, or something else? It's not entirely clear to me which solution can help me specifically identify and track which Android users came from Admob mobile app install ads. I don't want to just see install counts in my Adwords dashboard. I essentially need a way to internally map an Admob installed user to their Google advertising ID.

We currently are integrated with the latest Google Play Game Services SDK.

It would seem very strange that Admob would support advertiser id tracking on iOS but have no solution for Android...

Thanks!

[chris]

I understand this forum is more for publishing Admob Ads than for advertising on Admob, but I don't know where the latter forum is and I would hope that Google Admob representatives here know the full circle of their product. Additionally, maybe there's a solution within the GPGS SDK, so perhaps this is the right place.

[Eric Leichtenschlag]

Hi Chris,

Unfortunately there aren't any conversion tracking representatives on this forum, but I'll ask around why there apparently is no server to server solution for Android.

[Eric Leichtenschlag]

So here's the answer I got from someone who knows more about conversion tracking:

For tracking downloads on Android, the Play Store is not a black box like the App Store is on iTunes.  Each app can see the referrer that drove it to be installed by listening for the install_referrer intent.  More can be found here.  This is better / easier / more scaleable for app developers than sending advertising IDs to each ad network and having them confirm.  Instead, developers can just put unique links into all their marketing channels -- everything from marketing emails to advertising -- and track the installs coming from each of those.

If you have are using hand-rolled app analytics, then you need to set up a receiver to catch the install_referrer intent and store it.

If you are using an analytics package like Google Analytics, then referrer sources will simply show up in their reports via this mechanism.

The only dependency is that the links should look like this: play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tomsapp&referrer=AdWords

or market://details?id=com.tomsapp&referrer=AdWords

You can also use these macros to track performance at an even more granular level: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375447?hl=en

For example, play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tomsapp&referrer=placement%3D{placement}%26creative_id%3D{creative}

[chris]

Thanks Eric! Especially for the links. One feedback I'll say regarding if it's "better/easier/more scalable" is it seems this is a solution for Google to get around the privacy issue of passing device IDs over a URL/API, hence the reason why Android devices and Admob is rolling out the Advertising ID (the IDFA iOS equivalent). Hopefully as the Android Advertising ID becomes widely available, a solution of passing the advertising ID directly to the advertiser will be made available. This is how most ad networks operate.

In the interim, I'll work on this solution.

Thanks again!