Automated Facebook App Advertising: How and Why to Run it

Launch — pause — restart. Adjusting costs and rates, eliminating ineffective placements, problems with scaling. Setting up an advertising Facebook campaign is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process.

Everyone knows this, and everyone wants to find tools to automate it. This article will focus on one of them — Automated App Ads on Facebook. We have already evaluated the features of the new format and compared the results with manually configured campaigns.

What are automated app ads

Automated App Ads (AAA) is automated mobile app advertising on Facebook. The new automated campaigns are based on artificial intelligence. The new format was presented in the fall of 2020. Among the unconditional advantages: the ad campaign is optimized in real time, around the clock. The simplified structure of one campaign, one group, and one ad also helps prevent audience overlap and reduces the number of RCs needed to achieve the intended goal. As a result, money is spent more productively.

The work is based on machine learning technology and allows to achieve a noticeable increase in results with less effort. This type ensures that the best image or video combinations are shown to the most targeted users on the most effective placements such as Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or Audience Network. The system itself manages the whole process.

Facebook representatives warn that AAA should not duplicate the common active campaigns for applications whole testing because it can prevent the desired effect.

What settings can be set

• Supports targeting by the operating system, country, and language.
• You can specify the marginal rate to control costs.
• You can set up optimization for specific events.

What settings can’t be set

• No targeting of gender, audience, and interests.
• You can’t choose your placements.
• It is impossible to target by region.
• No possibility to exclude GEO.
• No targeting for age.
• Impossible to divide into groups.

Advantages of automated app ads

The new format uses a simplified structure to prevent audience duplication and reduce the number of campaigns to get the desired result: one ad campaign, one group, and one ad. As a result, this allows you to start promoting faster.

A dynamic search of creatives is implemented. Machine learning works so that it derives the most effective combinations by itself. For example, you need to add up to 50 different images and videos with five text options. Then the dynamic selection of creatives will automatically check and show the most effective one. There’s no need to create different combinations of creatives. The system will find the best one by itself and use it.

Implemented an updated and improved way to reach goals by selecting an event for which this format is optimized. This will determine who will be shown the publications to get the best results. Depending on the purpose, you can optimize for installations. The installation goal works by showing publications to the people who are most likely to install it:

• Installations and Events. When you select this option, the system balances the number of installs and actions entered by the advertiser.
• You can set it to events only. In this case, ads will be shown to people who are most likely to perform the specified action at least once.
• Value — getting the highest revenue. Thanks to the value function, there is a chance to increase the value by showing people who are most likely to help provide the maximum revenue.

Guide: How to create and run automated advertising on Facebook

1. Specify the purpose for installing the application in the settings.

2. Select Automated advertising for the app.

3. Click Continue.

4. Give a name and go to the group level.

5. Specify a name. Specify the OS, country, and language.

6. Choose a target according to what user actions you are interested in.

7. Set a budget.

8. Fill in the data for your automatic ads.

9. Press “Publish.”

Does automated app ads really work? Test

So, how does AAA work? First, let’s look at the case of one of our clients, where manually configured RCs were already running.

We specified the settings and set the budget. We chose Ukraine as the target. Then, we filled all the fields with the main text and the title, added 50 images, and launched it. The study took us one month, and it was launched on both operating systems.

So, let’s move on to the numbers:

☝️ 1,385 installs for Android, 345 for iOS

☝️ For Android received a CPI of $0.46, for iOS — $1.06

☝️ CPI for Android decreased by 41%, and for iOS — by 10.1%

Test result: The new campaigns were cheaper in terms of CPI than the manually configured ones. Plus, the new format reduces involvement in the modification process, reducing the time spent on ad creation. As a result, optimization is more productive and timely.

Our Promodo team is happy to help you launch an automated Facebook app campaign. Contact us using this form.

‍