Introduction
Advertisers can allow agencies to run campaigns on their behalf using the Google Ads integration.
Both advertisers and agencies must actively configure the system. The video below shows the steps required by both the advertiser and agency to enable the agency to measure and attribute mobile traffic to the advertiser's app using Google Ads.
The configuration enables AppsFlyer to attribute conversions to an agency from within the AppsFlyer dashboard.
Before the Agency can begin the process, the Advertiser must first configure the Google Ads integration. For details, click here.
Enabling agencies attribution of Google Ads
AppsFlyer supports agency configurations with Google Ads. It is essential that the advertiser and the agency have separate Google Ads accounts to enable AppsFlyer to correctly attribute the data.
Setting-up Google Ads attribution for agencies
To start agency attribution of Google Ads campaigns with AppsFlyer, follow these steps:
Advertiser pre-step: enabling the agency access to Google Ads
Prerequisites:
- In AppsFlyer, grant the agency access to the app using the instructions here.
- In AppsFlyer, activate the Google Ads partner.
To share the advertiser's Link ID:
1. In Google, go to the Google Ads Dashboard, click on the Tools icon
2. Select Linked accounts.
3. Under App Analytics Provider, find AppsFlyer. Select Options.
4. Click Share with another account.
5. Insert the Agency’s Google Ads Customer ID
6. Click Next. Click Send invite.
The advertiser can now see that the invitation request has been sent to the Agency. When the Agency accepts the invite, the status changes to Sharing.
For more details on sharing your Google Ads Link ID, click here.
Agency step 1: accepting the Link ID
The Agency can see the link status is now Active.
Agency step 2: setting up Google Ads on AppsFlyer
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Click Integrated Partners on the left tool bar, search and select Google Ads.
Activate partner should be ON and the Link ID set by the advertiser. These settings are grayed out to the agency.
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The Agency sets its Google Ads Customer ID.
Enter all of the Google Ads Customer IDs (Sub Accounts) of the Google Ads accounts that the agency is running campaigns for the advertiser's app.
You can find the Google Ads Customer ID by clicking on the arrow in the top left corner and thereby opening the Navigation Panel.
- To measure running retargeting campaigns on Google Ads, ask from the advertiser to toggle Google Ads Retargeting to ON. Once completed, you can configure the Re-Engagement Window.
- We recommend setting the Click-Through Attribution Lookback Window to 30 days, to match the Google Ads value.
- The View-Through recommended is 1 day, to match the Google Ads value. The scale allows you to customize the number of hours/days after an ad is viewed, during which the impression can be attributed to this partner.
- Reinstall attribution:
- To enable reinstall attribution, switch it on.
- No need to enable view-through attribution or configure lookback windows for reinstall attribution, as the values are taken from install attribution settings.
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Click Save & Close.
Agency step 3: mapping your in-app events
1. Click the In-App Events tab.
2. Select to either send In-App Events from Only Google Ads Installs or from All In-App Events to Google Ads.
3. Map all In-App Events you want to send to Google Ads, with the pre-defined Google Ads events.
4. Click Save.
Important!
Import the first-open and in-app actions to Google Ads to begin counting conversions in both Google Ads and your AppsFlyer dashboard.
To be able to import, you must launch the app and perform your mapped in-app events at least once.
Note
- It may take up to 6 hours until the new conversions change status from No Recent Conversion to Recording Conversion.
- If an agency works with an MCC account and the app is promoted via several MCC sub-accounts all sub-accounts must be configured in the Google Ads Customer ID field (as seen on above screen shot).
In such a case there is no need to configure the customer id of the MCC account.
Agency step 4: measuring your app conversions
2. Under the Measurement section, click Conversions.
3. Click the + icon.
4. Select App from the list of conversion types.
5. Select Third Party App Analytics.
6. Click Continue.
7. Check the box next to first_open ALL your apps and for each event you want to import.
8. Click Import and Continue
9. Click Done. You can now see your third-party conversion event in the Conversion Actions table.
Click the name of the event to see more details.
Congratulations! You have now completed the agency setup for attributing Google Ads mobile installs on AppsFlyer.
To watch the video "Setting-Up Google Ads Attribution for Advertisers" click here.
For details of how advertisers can attribute multiple agencies/MCC Google Ads accounts, click here.
Agencies: collecting cost, clicks and impression data
Agencies can retrieve cost data from Google Ads, which also includes the clicks and impressions data.
The cost data is displayed on both the agency and advertiser dashboards, at the campaign level.
If the agency is transparent, then in the advertiser's dashboard the cost data is displayed under Google Ads campaigns. If it isn't, the data is displayed under the agency's campaigns.
Google Ads postback partners
Some partners (e.g., Bidalgo, Adquant), referred to as Google Ads Postback Partners, are similar to agencies. They help their advertiser clients run Google Ads campaigns, but require getting postbacks for Google Ads conversions.
These Google Ads Postback Partners (GAPPs) can also collect postbacks for Google Ads installs acquired by the advertiser directly, or even by other agencies (see Use Cases below). Using the postbacks information the GAPPs are able to optimize on Google Ads campaigns for the app.
Important!
Google Ads Postback Partners are NOT attributed with installs or events on AppsFlyer.
The advertiser needs an active Google Ads account set up on AppsFlyer, and also to set up the specific GAPP on AppsFlyer to enable sending postbacks to it.
Other GAPPs integrated with AppsFlyer: Blackbox, Appreciate, Marin Software, Miramedia, Mpbisummer, Protonads, Springrain.
Google Ads postback partner setup
1. Click Integrated Partners from the left sidebar
2. Enter the name of the GAPP you would like to work with in the search box and click the logo.
Tip
Enter "Google Ads" in the integrated partners field to receive the list of GAPPs.
3. Click on the required GAPP to open its unique configuration window (which contains only the Integration tab):
4. From your Google Ads account, copy the Customer ID (without hyphens) from the top left-hand corner and paste it to the AppsFlyer Ads Customer ID parameter as shown in the screenshots below.
5. Enter the number in the Google Ads Customer ID field.
6. Configure the In-App Events Postback section.
7. Click Save.
Important Notes
- Disabling attribution for Google Ads prevents sending postbacks to GAPPs.
- You can configure multiple Ads accounts (CID) to send postbacks (step 5) by separating each CID with a comma.
- To work with multiple GAPPs, the campaigns for each GAPP should be run from separate google accounts. If you switch from one GAPP to another, make sure to disable the first GAPP's setup in AppsFlyer first.
Google Ads postback partners use cases
An advertiser is running Google Ads campaigns and wants the traffic from its Google Ads accounts to be sent to GAPP X.
- Advertiser configures Google Ads
- Advertiser configures GAPP X - Google Ads
The advertiser must enter all its CIDs (Ads Account IDs) in the GAPP X - Google Ads configuration.
An advertiser and an agency are both running Google Ads campaigns, the advertiser wants only its traffic to be sent to GAPP X.
- Advertiser configures Google Ads
- Agency configures Google Ads (just for their traffic to be attributed to them as an agency)
- Advertiser configures GAPP X - Google Ads
The advertiser must enter ONLY its CIDs in the GAPP X - Google Ads configuration.
An advertiser and agency are running Google Ads campaigns, the agency wants only its traffic to be sent to GAPP X.
- Advertiser configures Google Ads
- Agency configures Google Ads
- Agency configures GAPP X - Google Ads
The agency must enter ONLY their CIDs in the GAPP X - Google Ads configuration
An advertiser and agency are running Google Ads campaigns, both the advertiser and agency want their traffic to be sent to GAPP X.
- Advertiser configures Google Ads
- Agency configures Google Ads
- Advertiser configures GAPP X - Google Ads for their CIDs
- Agency configures GAPP X - Google Ads for their CIDs
Notice that these must be different CIDs between the advertiser & agency.
Available parameters for gapps
The contents of the postbacks depend on the initial integration of the GAPPs with AppsFlyer, and are unrelated to any advertiser configuration. Therefore, any two GAPPs may have differently defined postback parameters.
For example, campaign type, city, carrier and ad_type are parameters, which may or may not exist in any GAPP's postback.
There are two sources for GAPP postback parameters:
- AppsFlyer macros - for details of all the macros available on AppsFlyer's postbacks, click here.
- Google Response - with every install attributed to Google Ads, AppsFlyer receives relevant information from Google. The following are available parameters on GAPPs postbacks, as received by AppsFlyer from Google Ads (for detailed parameter descriptions, click here)
| Ad Events ID | Campaign ID | Campaign Name | Campaign Type | External Customer ID (CID) | Network Type | Network Sub Type | Timestamp | Video ID |
| Ad Group ID | Creative ID | Keyword | Match Type | Placement | Ad Type | Interaction Type | Conversion Metric | Location |
Note
The information available is based solely on the information sent by Google to AppsFlyer. If, for some reason, Google does not send an install's information, AppsFlyer can't pass it on to the GAPP.