Banco Bradesco, founded in 1943, is the second-largest private bank in Brazil, with more than 4,600 branches and 47,000 automatic teller machines across the country. Bradesco created a mobile app to provide consumer banking services like checking account balances, paying bills and transferring money between accounts, to its on-the-go customers. Bradesco teamed up with one of its online agencies, One Digital, to promote their latest app across Google AdWords Search and Display solutions. The team focused on driving cost-effective app downloads with the help of the Conversion Optimizer for mobile apps, a bidding feature that uses historical conversion performance data to automatically optimize ad placement so ads show more often when conversions are likely to occur.

Luca Cavalcanti, Director of Digital Channels, said: "Our apps are a key way for us to engage with our users and deliver the value they need. Promoting our apps with Google helped us to exceed our return on investment goals. With AdWords, we've dropped cost-per-download by 70%. Google is an important mobile partner for promoting our apps."

Bradesco promoted their mobile apps with ads on Google Search and the Google Display Network and used the Conversion Optimizer for apps to reach their app download and cost-per-download goals.

• Nearly 1 billion ad impressions and 4.4 million clicks during the first month
• Top 5 Ranking in Finance category of Google Play apps on average
• 31x increase in app downloads
• 70% decrease in cost-per-download (decrease from greater than R$5 to less than R$2)

To learn more about how Bradesco exceeded their app download goals, see here for the full case study.

Posted by: Gabi Viana, Head of Mobile and Social Marketing, Latin America

With 29% of shoppers planning to purchase smartphones this holiday season, there’s no doubt that some of the shiniest new mobile devices will be wrapped up under the tree this Christmas. Little time will be wasted before happy new smartphone and tablet owners begin searching for the best apps to fill these new devices. So it’s no surprise that according to Google Trends, during the week following Christmas last year, searches for “best tablet apps” rose by more than 70%, while searches for “free phone apps” jumped by about 37%. The holidays are prime time for app promotion, so it’s important for marketers to make sure their app stands out from the crowd.

Maximizing reach with search and display ads
Whether you have a shopping companion app, a banking app, or a mobile gaming app, it’s important to reach the right audience to drive downloads and increase awareness. Many marketers have made mobile work for them by using search and display strategies together to raise interest and drive downloads of their app.

TripIt, a mobile travel organizer, used click-to-download ads on Google Search and the Google Display Network to promote their app to business travelers on the road. By creating and optimizing display ads within other apps, TripIt increased downloads by more than 75% and slashed cost-per-download by more than 96%. According to Rhonda Hanson, senior director of search marketing, promoting their app with mobile ads allowed TripIt to, “redirect the dollars we've saved on app promotion to improving our app and providing a better trip-organizer service to our business travelers.” Download the full case study here.

Maximizing ROI with Conversion Optimizer
Savvy advertisers also know they can take app promotion to the next level with optimization tools. Leading mobile game developer GREE promoted their apps to gamers using Google Search click-to-download ads along with image and text ads on the Google Display Network. To make sure they were getting the best return on investment for their in-app display ads, they used Conversion Optimizer for apps to reach their cost-per-download targets. This automated campaign optimization helped them improve app download rates by 150%, decrease cost-per-download by 52% and improve click-through rates by 49%. Download the full case study here.

If you haven’t already created your holiday app strategy, it’s not too late. Here are some things you can do to win across search and display:

1. Make sure you’re reaching people when they search for apps like yours and help them easily download your app with click-to-download ads and mobile app extensions
2. Reach relevant users within over 300,000 premium apps on the Google Display Network with image and text ads
3. Track downloads on Android and iOS with AdWords conversion tracking and optimize ROI with the automated bidding feature, the Conversion Optimizer for apps
4. Measure in-app user activity with Mobile App Analytics in order to optimize
5. Increase app promotion campaign budgets for the holidays to account for additional ad clicks

For more on how you can drive cost-effective app downloads with Google AdWords, check out this recorded Learn with Google webinar.   

Posted by Jessica Sapick, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

Apps are a powerful way to keep your most loyal users engaged, and can also be a real driver of revenue for marketers big and small. When advertising apps, the key is to know what’s working and what’s not. While advertisers have already been able to measure their Android app downloads within AdWords, we’ve now launched the ability to track iOS downloads that were driven by in-app display ad campaigns.

To set up iOS conversion tracking, advertisers need to create a single code snippet in their AdWords account and install it in their app. This snippet is accessible in the AdWords interface in the same place where advertisers have been able to codelessly track Android downloads. With iOS conversion tracking, marketers can better understand which campaigns are most effective at driving app downloads. These enhanced insights help marketers iterate on app promotion strategies to reach their return on investment goals, with the help of features like the Conversion Optimizer for apps.   

Figuring out what ads are working is key for marketers like Sho Masuda, Vice President of Player Marketing for GREE, a leading mobile social game app developer. GREE has used click to download and in-app advertising solutions with AdWords to promote their app, and Masuda says, "Google’s host of tracking and optimization tools help us quickly iterate and maximize ROI across our app promotion campaigns. iOS conversion tracking will help us gain even deeper insights into our Google app promotion efforts for our iOS apps."

If you’d like to learn more about how to track value beyond the app download, you can watch a recording of our Learn with Google webinar “Understanding your App Users with Google Analytics” here.

Posted by Morgan Hallmon, Product Manager

We recently launched improved app promotion text banners for Google Play and iTunes Store apps on the AdMob network. These banners will now contain information about the app being promoted, such as the price, app title, and the user rating that come directly from the Google Play or iTunes store.

Here’s a sample of what these ads will look like:


By providing more details in the ad unit, we empower users to make more informed decisions about what they’re getting, what they have to pay for it, and how other users like the app. More informed users drive improved conversion rates, thus providing better value for advertisers and app developers when they promote their mobile apps on the AdMob network.

Keep an eye out for more improvements to our ad formats, as well as look out for more ways to improve advertiser value and provide users with more information to make better decisions on mobile. We’re looking forward to continuing to helping app developers grow their businesses with AdMob.

Posted by: David Lewis, Software Engineer, Google Mobile Display Ads