Develop Reference

Firebase conversions on Google ads?

I don't really know if im in the correct forum, but please if not, point me in the right direction.
I have a little problem: I have setted up a campaing for downloads of the App from a client (A corporation) this campaing is setted on the objective of the first_open(Android) on firebase. I've talked with my associated account executive and he tells me we should also have another campaing with a first_open (iOS) objective.
Here is where the problem starts. The google executive tells me we should have an event called first_open (iOS) which should be a separated event from first_open (Android), but I can't find this. It's not listed as an event on firebase nor google analytics web + app, I've tryed creating this event on my own but can't seem to get it working.
If I go into firebase conversions or events, I can only see one first_open event, that I can use a filter on, and see Android/iOS independently, but I can't seem to export it in separate to Google Ads conversions. There are some events called something like this, but they show 0 conversions.
If I can use the filter on firebase to see iOS first opens, how come I cant seem to see this conversions in Ads??
Also, how come I can extract this "Conversion events" from firebase, through google ads, but I'm not able to see them on firebase nor analytics?
Thank you!

I had a similar issue. In my Firebase settings, my iOS App was missing the app id and team id. After filling in that data, I was able to setup a iOS conversations in Google Ads.

We had exactly the same issue. I have done 2 things that solve the problem.
Supplied the missing App ID in Firebase
Setup adSupport.framework in the app

To add to Mark Currie's answer -
As soon as I entered App Id and Team Id in Firebase, iOS conversions started showing in Google Ads.
For finding team id, as of today, you have to look at Apple Developer Account => Identifiers => App ID prefix

Has anyone gotten Google Play's "Tracked Channels (UTM)" campaign tracking to work?

The Google Play Developer Console offers the Tracked Channels (UTM) view under User Acquisition → Performance which should be able to show a breakdown of which tagged links users clicked to get to the store listing, etc.
I have generated several different links to my app using the Google Play URL Builder, e.g.:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vandenmars.colortrek&referrer=utm_source%3Dso%26utm_medium%3Dlink%26utm_campaign%3Dlink%26utm_content%3DTBk
I did a couple of tests last week where I opened the Play Store using these links and installed the app on new devices immediately from there. Still, the Tracked Channels (UTM) list shows no entries.
A bit more background that may be relevant:
My app itself does not use the Google Analytics SDK and does not register a receiver for the INSTALL_REFERRER intentI would assume that the Play Store handles the links directly without requiring app interaction, especially since it can track store listing views that don't lead to installs, but maybe this is incorrect? Or maybe the store disables tracking based on the app manifest?
I opened the links in Chrome on my PC and clicked "Install" thereMaybe the links only get tracked if they are opened in the Play Store App on the actual device? Seems strange, but I am running a test on that right now, the data just hasn't updated yet.
The tagged installations I did were on days that have been processed alreadyIt sometimes takes Google a long time to update the "Performance" data, but the data I can see already includes this Sunday and the tests were done on Friday. So, unless the UTM tracking data takes even longer to get processed, it should already show up.
Do I need to enable something somewhere for this to work? Or am I doing something else wrong?
UPDATE 1:
Meanwhile, one entry has started showing up in the Tracked Channels (UTM) list. Unfortunately, as the help-text states, "UTM-tagged links that have a single store listing visitor [...] are included in the “Other” category." So I have no idea which of my test links it is, if any. The entry is only showing as a Store Listing Visitor, but not as an Installer.
The last day included in the stats is Wednesday (supposedly), which is also the day when I did the test of opening the link directly in the Play Store app on a device for the first time. I did install the app during that visit, but it was after I had uninstalled a previous installation.
So, here's what I learned from this:
It doesn't look like there is some on/off switch for UTM tagging that I need to enable.
Including the Analytics SDK and registering an INSTALL_REFERRER is not strictly needed for just the tracking of Store Listing Visitors, but it might be needed to track Installers/Buyers.
There may be a difference between visits to tagged links from a PC vs. from the Play Store app on a device.
This leaves the following questions:
Are UTM links only tracked by the Play Store app, or also by visits to http://play.google.com/...?
Does an app need to use the Analytics SDK to forward information about installs and purchases to the Play Store, or do these get tracked independently of the app like the store listing visitors?
Is only the first installation of an app on a specific device counted under Installers, or is a fresh install after an uninstall also counted? How about after a factory reset of the device?
Bonus question: Is there a way to expand the "Other" category? :)
UPDATE 2:
Now I'm back to square one: 3 days ago, I opened more test-links on different devices (including the one that I thought was the one that showed up last time), directly in the app store, installing the app immediately. The data shown includes everything up to and including two days ago, so these visits and installs should be tracked by now. Yet, the list does not show any additional entries beyond the one from update 1 above.
So, either I have absolutely no clue what should be going on, or this whole tracking system is one giant buggy mess... Some things I've read in random forums suggest the latter, but maybe I am missing something, too?
UPDATE 3:
This is getting stranger and stranger. Now, all of a sudden, I see an entry showing 14 store visits and 10 installs for "zedge/android"! Why would someone make their own utm tagged link for my app?!? On top of that, none of my other tests have ever shown up (still just the original entry under "Other") and I don't even see the 10 installs in the statistics... Looks like this whole thing is just plain broken... Correction welcome.

We're in the same situation too now. No Google Analytics set up, need to run some ads this weekend, so I'm going to try to use UTM tags to track the app installs.
There may be a difference between visits to tagged links from a PC vs.
from the Play Store app on a device.
Found this in their documentation
"Note: Over-the-air and web (play.google.com) impressions aren’t
tracked on your app’s User Acquisition page at this time."
If you want, send the link over and I can test it out.

Before direct user to Google Play app page, send GET request with UTM params to your own site. Register this site to Google Analitics. It will count page visits only.

I am going through the same problem. I wanted to test if the UTM source and UTM campaign from the new Dashboard required some SDK or API installed in the app itself. So I contacted Google Play Devs, I asked specifically if we needed Google Analytics and their response was:
this not the case and also there is nothing further that you can add to the app itself.
I did try downloading my own app and sent the link over to a couple of dozen people (bare in mind that the app does have a Google Analytics setup, but it is from 2016, so old version) with the following link
Power my Robot with UTM links setup
I put random words, and all the visits and downloads on both UTM Campaign and UTM Source showed under "Other" and not the words I put. I managed to get around 20 downloads from this link.
However, after questioning Google why it was showing under "Other" and not the word I put in the link, they said it is because of a minimum threshold, which they don't know the amount.
As mentioned above, I used this form to get the Google Play with the UTM tags.
And also, I agree with a comment above, that Apple simply works. From the campaign section in the dashboard, you can open the "Link Generator" and they specifically say that the minimum amount in order to show the number is at least 5 installs using the link in order to protect users' privacy. Google Play can learn something from Apple in this case.
I will try to keep this updated if anything changes on my stats. And feel free to click on the link above and install the app, open and then de-install, just to build up the numbers and see if I can cross the threshold and discover what is the minimum amount they require.

I confirm that the Google Play Store UTM tracking doesn't work with your configuration, as I have the same (no Google Analytics SDK, but firebase-core) and I can't see any installation listed in the Acquisition view of the Play Store.
I note that the Play Store documentation part about UTM tag has a link to an url builder on the Google Analytics Guide, so may be the solution in to install GA SDK.

Have found google page that suggest how to build url with utms: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/android/v4/campaigns?hl=es#google-play-url-builder
This is an example:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id={application_id}&referrer=utm_source%3D{source_id}%26utm_medium%3D{medium}%26utm_term%3D{term}

How to stop Google Analytics Bots, referral spams in OS Versions, Top Device Models entry for Android

I'm surprise to see statistics in Google Analytics page for one of the Android app and noticed the following strange informations
Apple iPhone in Top Device Models
Strange OS names entry in OS Versions :
Macintosh Intel 10.10
Linux x86_64
Windows 7
(not set) (not set)
Note:
I have answered the the current possible solution, but that doesn't make corrections to the available old data sets please let me know any ways to correct the old data sets and get out of the cons mentioned in my answer!

Bots and referral spam are two different things, the answer you posted will only help with bots. I am going to refer to the article about removing referral spam here
Normally we say there are three types of junk visits:
Ghost referrals like the darodar / ilovevitaly / cenoval
Creepy crawlers like semalt (a.k.a. best-seo-solution.com) and fake referrals like maridan.com.ua and blog.ranksonic.com.
Well behaved bots and spiders
Issue Number 1
I suspect data being inserted directly into the Analytics account directly though the measurement protocol. I say this because I have several old Google analytics accounts that are showing hits, the websites for these accounts no longer exist and haven't existed in years. I also have an old application account like yours that no longer has any data sent to it that shows data daily. The only way for data to be inserted into them is if someone is doing it directly, the hits are coming from known referral spam sites (the big list). There has been a lot of talk on the net lately on how to deal with the first two problems. Google has not come with any solution as of my writing this. The article gives a few very good ways of dealing with it. here
Idea of how its done google+ post
Tip: It appears that they are currently only targeting Web Property 1. so if you say make UA--xxxx-2 there will be no spam inserted.
Issue Number 2:
This will be hard to detect, they are actually thing your site. A filter on the known bad crawlers helps.
Issue Number 3
The answer you posted is correct but will only help with this: Bot and Spider Filtering. Its also kind of old.

Note: I have answered my own question for Bot and Spider Filtering , please provide if any better solution for the Cons mentioned below and avoid referral spam
Google Analytics Google team announced Introducing Bot and Spider Filtering to get away with referral spams,bots in Analytics Entries !
Introducing Bot and Spider Filtering
Many of you have shared with us that it’s hard to identify the real
traffic that comes to your pages. That’s why I’m pleased to announce
that we’re adding bot and spider filtering.
You can simply select a new checkbox option which would be included in
the view level of the management user interface. This option would be
labeled "Exclude traffic from known bots and spiders". Selecting this
option will exclude all hits that come from bots and spiders on the
IAB know bots and spiders list. The backend will exclude hits matching
the User Agents named in the list as though they were subject to a
profile filter. This will allow you to identify the real number of
visitors that are coming to your site.
Nestlé has been testing it and has found great benefit:
“The Bot filter solution is essential for getting deeper insights.
View level availability let us stay fully aligned with Best Practices
provided to all site owners. Very easy to use, understand and
communicate across thousands of Google Analytics users.” ~ Katarzyna
Malik, Nestlé Google Analytics Specialist
Happy Analyzing!
Posted by Matthew Anderson, Google Analytics Team
Steps to enable Bot Filtering:
Go Google Analytics home page and click on the Admin tab.Click on View settings
select Bot Filtering to get rid of known bots and spiders option.
This will remove the spam hits from their analytics for only upcoming analytics data. So this solution has two cons!!
Cons:
Historical data will not be affected by this option, i.e. spam hits
which were made in the past will remain in your data, Google will
only filter your future hits.
Google promises to remove hits from known bots, which means that the
time from the new bot appearance to the moment when it will be
included in the Google filter list can be indefinitely long. I use
this solution for the last week though and didn't find any new bots
breaking through the filter
Ref:
SO POST
techcrunch
G+
Blog

Google Analytics for Android tracking id protection

I am integrating my Android application with Google Analytics and was wondering what kind of security measures should be taken to avoid my analytics data being deliberately polluted by bad people. Sure, GA data is not production-critical, and there are (hopefully) not too many people running around who do such things just for fun, but still - within reason, I'd like to apply whatever preemptive measures there are.
Right now the only thing that comes to mind is that I should avoid the tracking id falling into bad hands.
Google search results I found only talk about:
protecting the tracking id for webpages - not so much talk about how to do the same for Android applications
setting up a GA filter to include traffic data for my own webpage only - again, this is just for webpages...
When submitting hits from my app, there seem to be two ways for the data to reach the GA servers:
If Google Play Services is not installed, putHit runs and fires an HTTPS query with the hit data. If log level is set to debug, I can see this happening, and the data in the ADB logs, along with the tracking id.
If GPS is installed, that will take care of dispatching presumably also over HTTPS.
So this leads me to think that the best I can do on the application front is to make sure log level is above debug (which is a good idea regardless) and to encrypt the tracking id to at least make it difficult to extract from the APK.
On the GA front, I have not found anything similar to the webpages-filtering solution.
Is there anything else I can do?

After you login into: Google Analytics
Under Admin > View > Filter > New Filter > Custom - you could possibly choose to filter by Application Id.
Application Id i believe is the package name you set in your manifest file.
Again this is not fool-proof:
Anyone else can setup the same Application Id too, but it will require more effort.
Google Analytics - shud hv provided a better way to solve this.

Can I track what keywords lead users to find my app on Google Play?

I know I can add a referrer parameter to the Google Play URL to track downloads from a specific source, but can I track which keyword searches users used to find my app on Google Play?

Before Google Play, i.e Android Market, I was receiving in the referrer all the relevant information to help me understood how my app was found.
It could have been keywords, tops, similar applications, etc.
It was really, really useful.
Since Google Play, I do not receive anything anymore. The only referrers I get are the one I set manualy when I do some campaigns. I spent a lot of time trying to understand why, but it looks like Google Play just doesn't send this information anymore. Doesn't make sense to me, however.
However, you'll get keywords of how users found your application on Google Play from Google search engine (if they hit "Install on my phone" button).
Referrer example utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_term=my+keyword
(doesn't work if user is using https Google search)

Not exactly, because your app is found by keywords defined by YOU.
-> If you're selling navigation based app, you may enter "navigation". Therefore it appears under keyword navigation and in that case, the result would be relevant.
If they open something related to app that is related to your app, will you be interested in the first keyword that could have been something totally different?
-> If there's an app with keyword "children", they open it and Google Play then recommends something else with children, they open it. Then, this second app, having also keyword children could have a tag "navigation". Then Google Play could recommend YOUR app. I don't believe that tag "children" would be your concern :-)