Exploring Google’s UAC – ad assets

If you’re an app advertiser, you’re familiar with Universal App Campaigns – but are you a UAC pro? Today DEPT®  & Google are breaking down some common UAC questions that you might have, starting with questions about ad assets.

So what is UAC? UAC (Universal App Campaign) is Google’s first asset-based app install campaign type. An asset is any ad component, such as an image, text, or video, and in UAC they’re treated as individual building blocks. There are 3 benefits to trying out asset-based advertising:

• Simplicity: By adding assets individually rather than fully blown creatives, you’re giving Google the building blocks to create dozens of different permutations of ad formats on the fly, with very little effort.
• Control: Using asset-based ads gives you the control to define each specific building block and its messaging to end users.
• Performance: Google’s machine learning models can determine what message to show to what user, on different surfaces, in different times – to best resonate with end users at a time when they’re most likely to complete an action (in this case, install an app).

Where does each video aspect ratio serve on UAC?

• Portrait: AdMob
• Interesting Stat #1: Portrait videos have up to a 60% higher conversion rate compared to Landscape videos served in portrait mode.
• Interesting Stat #2: Nearly 70% of the impressions served on AdMob are in portrait mode.
• Square: AdMob
• Landscape: YouTube + AdMob

Running all 3 video aspect ratios helps maximize reach across Google’s network. However, if you know your most valuable users are only on Portrait/Square, remove Landscape videos so you only serve on AdMob. If you know YouTube is the most valuable network, remove Portrait & Square. Please only do this once you have tested out all of the video ratios. UAC creates automatic assets for me if I don’t upload any.

Where do they come from?UAC scrapes the app store or the Google Play Store to create automatic assets if you do not upload any.

How many assets can I upload? You can upload four lines of text, 20 images, 20 videos, & (now) 20 HTML5 assets.

What are the most important asset sizes to prioritize? Based on the frequency with which they serve across the Google Network, they are:

• 320×480 (Portrait Interstitial)
• 480×320 (Landscape Interstitial)
• 300×250 (Square)
• 1024×768 (Tablet)
• 768×1024 (Tablet)
• 320×50 (Banner)
• 1200×628 (Landscape Image)
• 728×90 (Leaderboard)
• 300×50 (Banner)
• 320×100 (Banner)

What is the optimal # of assets in a UAC campaign, and what kind?

Text: 1-2 text ideas (out of 4) are shorter than 20 characters

Image: 2 variations each of the top 10 high-reach recommended dimensions (see above list)

Video: 10 landscape videos, 5 portrait videos, 5 square videos