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5 tactics from Ashley Black
The Pros and Cons of Google App Campaigns (UAC)
Watch the full episode“On Android you have the benefit of actually serving your ads in the Play Store — that's like super high intent. You cannot get that inventory anywhere else. I always liken the Play Store traffic to branded search — you're reaching people at the highest intent moment possible when they're actually searching for something they want.”
Play Store ads are high-intent Android inventory you cannot buy anywhere else
The Play Store search placement is the defining advantage of Google App Campaigns for Android. Like branded search, it captures users at the exact moment of intent — they are in the store, actively looking for an app to download. No other network can offer this inventory. Ashley Black considers it the primary reason to run UAC on Android even if control over placement is limited. The high-intent inventory alone justifies the trade-off of reduced targeting precision compared to Meta or TikTok.
“On iOS Google's actually not as competitive but I really don't feel it can be overlooked — you still have Google Search which you can't buy search from anywhere else. And you have YouTube which still is the number one most downloaded app in the world not just in the US.”
On iOS, Google UAC is still worth running for Search and YouTube — unique inventory unavailable elsewhere
Even without Play Store inventory on iOS, two iOS-exclusive advantages keep UAC relevant: Google Search (the only way to buy intent-based search inventory outside Apple Search Ads) and YouTube (the most-downloaded app globally). Ashley Black argues that dismissing Google UAC on iOS because it lacks a Play Store equivalent misses these high-value placements, especially for apps where users research before downloading — health, finance, education.
“A lot of people despise Google's products for that reason but as we were kind of pointing out it's like it's all trade-offs. You trade off some of that control for reach for the high intent things like that.”
UAC trades targeting control for scale — accepting that trade-off is the key mindset shift
Google UAC's biggest drawback is its black-box nature: advertisers cannot force video ads to run in specific placements, and traffic distribution across Play Store search, YouTube, AdMob (in-app network), and mobile web display is opaque. Ashley Black reframes this not as a flaw but as a designed trade-off — you sacrifice placement-level control in exchange for Google's algorithm optimizing across massive scale inventory. Fighting the algorithm by manipulating bids to force traffic to specific placements usually backfires.
“Google Search is mostly done in a browser — it's not like in an app. YouTube — there's still quite a bit that happens in a browser. MGDN is mobile Google Display Network — ads in browsers on websites. A lot more of Google's mobile traffic is served in-browser in comparison to these other app-native platforms like Meta or TikTok.”
Google UAC serves more traffic in-browser than any other mobile network — critical for iOS measurement
A material portion of Google UAC traffic reaches users through mobile browsers rather than apps — which was historically invisible to SKAdNetwork on iOS. Ashley Black had clients where 99% of Google traffic came from search and zero conversions registered in attribution before SKAN 4.0. Even with SKAN 4.0, iOS Google campaigns require careful measurement configuration that Meta or TikTok campaigns simply don't need. This unique in-browser traffic mix is the most underappreciated difference between Google UAC and every other major mobile ad platform.
“Nobody knows — this is the other reason why people don't like this. You have really limited visibility into where your ads are showing. If you have a really good Google rep they do have the ability to see the breakout but in the frontend you're making a lot of assumptions and you're a little bit blind to what's actually at play.”
Limited placement visibility makes UAC optimization inference-heavy — get a rep with backend access
In the Google Ads UI, placements are bucketed into just four groups — Search, Search Partners, YouTube, and Display Network — each hiding sub-placements. Play Store search and google.com search are lumped together; AdMob and Play Browse are both inside Display Network. Without a Google rep who has backend access, advertisers are largely blind to whether poor performance comes from low-intent AdMob traffic or high-quality Play Store search. Ashley Black's advice: build a relationship with a dedicated Google rep who can pull the placement breakdown and treat the algorithm as an optimization partner rather than an adversary.