We are using Facebook mobile ad campaigns to let users install install our app via the App Store and Play Store.
However, currently we don't have a way of tracking "how" a user reached our app. i.e. which specific ad campaign they came from when installing the app.
Largely, this is because FB mobile ad campaigns don't have support for UTM tags.
I know there are 3rd party solutions that helps with attribution, such as adjust and AppsFlyer. However, I'd like to know if this is possible using just the FB ads SDK for Android and iOS.
Thanks in advance!
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I'm measuring the number of installs for my application, on both iOS and Android, through Facebook Analytics. This has been setup with Facebook SDK to enable install tracking. It seems to be working fine and I'm able to follow the number of installs.
My problem is that when I look at the number of installs I get from iTunes Connect (App Units) and Google Play (Total Installs), they don't match the numbers from Facebook Analytics. Both iTunes Connect and Google Play register on average 15% more installs than Facebook Analytics. Can anyone help me to get an understanding of why this is happening and what I can do about it? If not, which of these numbers are more reliable?
Thank you for your time and your help!
App Units on iTunes Connect App Analytics are the actual "purchases"/downloads. Bus some users might never even open your app. That's why it's possible that App Units might be higher than the numbers from Facebook. I assume at least for iOS that Facebook can only send information on the first launch of the app, not on the actual install.
Facebook Analytics for installation are not real time, some time they reflect on backend within 1 hour.
Apps are though installed, though counts are getting reflected on iTunes and but when user open app then only that count gets reflect on Facebook / Google analytics.
How my app was installed, how to track where the downloads are coming from, through which partner (advertising publisher)?
For example, I created ads in Facebook or in AdMob. User saw the ads, clicked on them, was redirected to the Google Play Store where he downloaded my app. How can I know that this user downloaded my app by clicking on the Facebook or AdMob ads? Does Google Analytics track and show this info?
You can easily set up install tracking for Mobile Apps:
Enable app install tracking in your account.
Install tracking is automatically enabled in Google Analytics for Android apps. You don’t have to do anything!
Update your Google Analytics SDK.
You need to change a few lines in their manifest file. Refer to the Developer Guide for Android for specific example on how to do this.
Set up Custom Campaigns.
Custom Campaigns are a Google Analytics feature that add parameters to the URL of your marketplace page where users download your app. It’s these parameters that tell Google Analytics what marketplaces your traffic comes from. Get an overview of Custom Campaigns in Google Analytics and how they work. You must set up Custom Campaigns for each platform you’re using.
Analyze your data using the Mobile App Sources report.
If you complete the steps outlined above, your data will appear in the Mobile App Sources report. Use this report to find out what brings users to your download page in each marketplace.
Reference: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3389142
We created some Facebook Ads campaigns to drive installs to our Google Play page. We quickly realized that Facebook strips out any tracking parameters you might try to insert in the URLs.
This forced us to implement the Android Facebook SDK integration (bravo, Facebook, bravo). However, after confirming that all our events were getting recorded correctly in Facebook "Analytics for Apps", and configuring our Ads Account ID in our newly created Facebook App ID, our campaigns did not seem to register any Mobile App Installs.
How do I set up the link between my Facebook Ads campaigns, and the Facebook App ID / SDK integration?
The connection between a Facebook Ad campaign and the Facebook App ID happens right at the beginning of configuring a campaign.
When you choose "Get installs of your app", you are asked to "Choose app or enter its URL".
If you paste a Google Play link in here, you'll see your app icon appear next to your app name. Doing this will NOT work.
To configure everything correctly, you need to choose the Facebook App ID that you created earlier, NOT the Google Play link. Facebook App IDs have a different icon, and look like this:
In our case, we had created the campaigns before the Facebook App ID, so we had to edit all our campaigns to connect them up correctly. Annoying, although the campaign information was preserved, we needed to recreate all the ads manually.
As soon as we did this we started to see our Mobile App Installs being tracked in the campaign, which meant the AVG COST PER MOBILE APP INSTALL and related information began getting recorded. Hurray!
I have successfully implemented the Facebook SDK and AppEvents to report installation of my Android app. I have verified that it registers the last install data in the dashboard, and I see thousands of fb_mobile_activate_app events in my App Events tab on Facebook.
I have been running a paid campaign on the app, however, even after over 24 hours since adding the SDK, I am getting reports of 0 installs. Since I am basing my budget on how the ads perform, it seems odd to not have any data.
Is there something I am missing here?
Be sure you have your goal point to a Facebook app, and never have to paste in your Google Play URL.
If your mobile app campaigns previously used a Google Play or iTunes link, you'll need to recreate your campaigns to utilize the install tracking via the Facebook Mobile SDKs.
Last week I uploaded a new app.
I started a Facebook mobile campaign, and did as was told in https://developers.facebook.com/docs/ads-for-apps/measurement/ in order to measure app installs (I added the Facebook sdk v3.5 into my apk and called the relevant api calls).
In my Facebook apps -> Insights -> Mobile App Installs page, it says:
This dashboard shows organic and paid app installs reported by either the Facebook SDK for iOS, Facebook SDK for Android, or a Mobile Measurement Partner*. Developers should use this dashboard for debugging to ensure that app installs are being recorded. This dashboard can also be used as an indicator of app install volume** and as a baseline for understanding how ads are increasing installs of your app. For detailed data on paid installs, see the analytics in the Ads tool.
What I want to see is my ads impressions, clicks, installs.
What I do not understand is, are the numbers in the "Mobile App Installs" page refer to overall app installs, or only installs made via facebook ads?
Also, regarding the last sentence ("...see the analytics in the Ads tool") , I don't see any info about installs in the Ads tool (only impressions and clicks, no installs).
Does anyone know where to find the data I'm looking for?
Edit:
in Facebook's https://www.facebook.com/ads/manage page, only have the following data:
And there is no info regarding actual installs.
Where can the installs data be found?
Figured it out...
My campaign was created with a google play url, and not with the facebook app I created in https://developers.facebook.com/apps.
The ad format is the same (sponsored ad in android devices), but the info I get in the dashboard is different (in https://www.facebook.com/ads/manage).
When I created an ad using a Google Play url, the is the info I have:
And when I created an ad for the facebook app I create, this is what I have:
In Facebook Insights, you will see all mobile app installs reported by your app.
To see impressions, clicks and installs, you will need to view the ad report in admanager which can be accessed via:
http://facebook.com/ads/manage