Mobile App Ads for Installs

For a free setup service, call 1-800-694-2600

Reach the right people at scale where they are most engaged, in News Feed

Drive installs to your mobile app with just a click to the App Store and Google Play

Overview

You can now get your mobile app ad for installs up and running very easily by copying and pasting your app's Google Play or Apple App Store URL into the Ads Create Tool. If you're new to developing on Facebook, this is a quick and easy way to get started without having to register your app with Facebook. Read our simple steps under Get Started Running Mobile App Ads for Installs, and then go to our Ads Create Tool to get started.

After you get your ad up and running, we recommend that you integrate with Facebook to take advantage of our advanced measurement and optimization tools. Learn how to get started measuring installs with mobile app ads for installs.

If you are looking to run ads for engagement and conversion, please see our mobile app ads for engagement and conversion tutorial.

Create Ad Now Track Installs Contact Mobile Measurement Partner

Get Started Quickly

Set URL in the Ads Create Tool

After choosing the "App Installs" objective, copy and Paste your app’s Apple App Store or Google Play URL link into the destination box in our Ads’ Create tool.

Customize Ad

Add a custom message for your audience (and local text for different countries) and a 1200X627 image. Your “Title” and “Icon” image default to what are in the respective app stores, but you have the flexibility to change this.

NEW: Use video creative for your mobile app ad for installs. First, upload the image you would like to use for your video ad. This image will serve as the still-shot and will be displayed with the play button when your ad is shown. Afterwards, under the area where you upload the image you will see an option to upload a video.

Choose Audience

Select the right mobile targeting options:

First, select your platform (Android or iOS)
Then select the specific OS versions (e.g., “Jellybean 2.3 and greater” or ”iOS 5.0 and greater”) that you want to target.
NEW: Within Android and iOS, you can also select the devices you are interested in reaching. For example, on Android, you can choose to reach Android 'tablets' or Android 'smartphones' (or both). Similarly, for iOS, you can reach iPod, iPhone, or iPad devices.
Lastly, you also have the option of selecting WiFi-only if you are interested in reaching devices that specifically have WiFi only connection.

You can add further targeting options to reach people in the demographic, interest, and broad category groups that are relevant to your app.

Set Budget

You can set a daily budget or a lifetime budget for your ad. With the one-link flow, you will be able to optimize for clicks and measure clicks and CTR. After you get your ad up and running, we recommend that you eventually integrate with Facebook to take advantage of our advanced measurement and optimization tools. Learn how to get started measuring installs with mobile app ads for installs.

Place Order

If you haven’t advertised with Facebook before, you may need to set up a payment source before completing your order.

Measure App Installs

If you measure your mobile app ads for installs, you will be able to:

Improve campaign performance - You will begin to see installs reported as well as the Cost per Mobile App Install (CPI) in your Ads Manager.
Get more effective and more advanced bidding options - You can set a cost per action (CPA) bid to better manage your budget while maximizing installs, or use oCPM to optimize for audiences most likely to install your app.

Learn more about why you should measure your mobile app ads for installs or continue reading below to understand how to measure.

To measure your app installs you just need to go through two simple steps:

Register your App
Add the Facebook SDK

You can also measure, in aggregate, what people are doing in your app (for example, actions like 'added to cart' in a commerce app or 'level achieved' in a game). In order to do this, after you have implemented Steps 1 and 2, follow the instructions in the Measuring App Events section.

Step 1: Register your App

To use mobile app ads for installs, you'll need to create an application on Facebook. Note that this does not mean you have to implement Facebook Login or integrate your app with Facebook at this time; you need an app on Facebook to get an app ID. If you already have one, you can skip this step. If you do not, you can create one by visiting the App Dashboard and clicking "Create New App" under Apps in the top navigation. You'll be prompted to fill in a name for your app, and a unique namespace.

Next, add information about your app on the 'Basic' section of the App Settings page. Specifically, you will need to complete the 'Basic Info', and, after choosing to add a platform, the 'iOS', and 'Android' section (depending on your native app).

Most of the information in the top section ('Basic Info') should complete automatically. You do not need to specify an app domain or a hosting URL for mobile app ads for installs. Make sure you are not in 'Sandbox' mode.

If you have an iOS app, you'll need to complete the following fields in 'iOS' Section:

App Store ID: this can be found in the URL for your app in the App Store, e.g.: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-great-app/APP_STORE_ID.
The other fields are not required for mobile app ads for installs.

If you have an Android app, you'll need to complete the following fields in 'Android' Section:

Package Name: You can find this in your AndroidManifest.xml file. The package name should be in the format com.example.androidapp. Alternatively, you can get it from your app's URL in Google Play, e.g.: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=PACKAGE_NAME.
Class Name: You can find the class name of the launch activity in your AndroidManifest.xml file. The class name should take the form com.example.androidapp.MainActivity, and should use the name of the activity that contains the tag .
The other fields are not required for mobile app ads for installs.

Next, fill in information for your ad on the App Details page. You can navigate to this page from the sidebar on the App Settings page, or go directly there at https://developers.facebook.com/apps/YOUR_APP_ID/appdetails.

You only need to complete the field for your logo (1024x1024). Note that you do not need to submit your app for App Center Listing in order to run a mobile app ad for installs.

If you need to associate advertising accounts with your app (so that you can run ads on behalf of your app), you will need to go back to "Settings" on the left hand navigation, then "Advanced", and you will find a field called "Advertising Accounts" that you can associate emails with your app.

Step 2: Add the Facebook SDK

You need to integrate Facebook's latest SDK or work with a mobile measurement company in order to get access to measurement and installs. You can leverage our tutorials to help you get started with Facebook's SDK for iOS and Android. You don't need to implement Facebook Login to create or use mobile ads for installs. However, you will need to reference methods in the SDK to measure installs.

After installing the SDK, include the following code to be executed when your app is in the foreground. This will allow the app to ping back the install event to Facebook when the user opens up the app for the first time, and again in the future if there is a network error. Our client code will stop sending installs once it acquires a success code from the server, and our back-end will only count the install a single time if it receives multiple hits for the same device:

For FB iOS SDK 3.6 or higher (3.7.1 strongly recommended), you can measure total app installs and the total times your app is launched daily. Simply add the following to your UIApplicationDelegate applicationDidBecomeActive selector:

[FBSettings setDefaultAppID:YOUR_APP_ID];
[FBAppEvents activateApp];

Similarly, for FB Android SDK 3.5, you will be able to measure total installs and total times your app is launched daily by adding the following to onResume() of each Activity in your app:

com.facebook.AppEventsLogger.activateApp(context, YOUR_APP_ID);

The first instance of activateApp will be treated as an install by Facebook. So, we recommend you add the code above for the latest iOS and Android SDKs to measure both installs and other app events.

For older versions of the SDK, use the code below to measure installs, but we strongly recommend that you upgrade to the latest SDKs and use activateApp.

For the FB iOS SDK 3.0 through 3.5:

[FBSettings publishInstall:YOUR_APP_ID];
For the FB Android SDK 3.0 through 3.4:

com.facebook.Settings.publishInstallAsync(context, YOUR_APP_ID);

A note for Android developers If you are using ProGuard on the release build of your app, you must add this snippet to your app's proguard-project.txt config file:

-keep class com.facebook.** { *; }
-keepattributes Signature

These flags are used to preserve generics signatures and to preserve type information used for reflection. Both flags are necessary for the SDK to function correctly in an Android app.

Confirm that installs are being tracked You can confirm that the volume of installs is being correctly reported in the Insights section for your app in the App Dashboard under "Mobile App Installs". In addition, in the App Summary Page, after choosing your app, there is a time stamp 'Last Mobile Install Reported" for iOS and Android so that you can confirm that an install is being reported (see image below).

Measuring App Events

App events for iOS or Android allow you to measure, in aggregate, what people are doing in your app. This is done by sending an event from your app via Facebook's iOS SDK version 3.6 or Facebook's Android SDK version 3.5. This event can be one of 14 predefined events such as 'added to cart' in a commerce app or 'level achieved' in a game, or other custom events that help you understand the engagement and ROI coming from your mobile ads on Facebook.

Once you implement app events, you will be able to measure 1) the total count of these actions taken within your app and 2) the count of these actions attributed to a specific ad campaign. Please note that this reporting tool is currently in early beta. We will be working on improving our optimization and insights, and develop new features that will further leverage app events in the future.

If you are interested in additional performance metrics for mobile app ads for installs (including lifetime value, downstream conversion, etc.), you can connect with a mobile measurement company.

Optimize Bidding

When you set your app up to measure installs, you can now set a cost per action (CPA) bid to better manage your budget while maximizing installs, in addition to oCPM, and CPC bidding options.

Cost per Action bidding: If you are measuring installs with the Facebook or Third Party SDK and have quality install history on Facebook, you can bid on a cost per acquisition (CPA) model. With CPA bidding, you can express the maximum bid you are willing to pay for an install and Facebook optimizes ad delivery to drive app installs.
Optimized CPM bidding: This is an effective option for advertisers and developers who are measuring installs but don’t yet have quality install history on Facebook. With Optimized CPM bidding, you can optimize for audiences most likely to install your app and you will pay per impression.
Otherwise, select cost per click (CPC) bidding to reach audiences most likely to click on your ad.

Based on your qualification, the appropriate option will be available to you.

Exclude people who already have your app installed

For Android, users that already have your app installed are automatically excluded as long as you provide us your app's package name in the app settings page.

For iOS, add an array key called URL types to your app's main .plist file, and give it a single array sub-item called URL Schemes. Then add a single item to URL Schemes with your app ID prefixed with "fb", e.g. "fb1234567".

What's Next

Now that you are driving installs, bring people back into your app. Learn how to drive engagement and conversions within your app

Additional Resources and Ad Tools

Tutorials

Set up your app for install measurement with the Mobile App Ads for Installs Tutorial video.
Getting Started with Power Editor shows you how to easily create large-scale campaigns
Ads Create Tool tutorial
Best practices infographic

Webinars

Showcases

Ads Create Tool

Our most popular ads tool is now available for mobile app ads for installs. The Ads Create tool also gives you access to all our other ads products. Learn how it works.

Get Started

Power Editor

This advanced tool offers enhanced targeting capabilities and is the best option for running a large number of campaigns. Learn how it works.

Get Started

Preferred Marketing Developers

PMDs are a community of best-in-class developers that can optimize and manage your campaigns if you do not have the resources to do so in-house.

Get Started