Creating App Ads

Mobile App Ads

With mobile app ads, you can promote your mobile app in the Facebook mobile News Feed. Each ad will be delivered as a sponsored story labeled Suggested App. People can like, comment, share and, most important, install your app with a simple tap.

Desktop App Ads

With desktop app ads you can promote your desktop app in the News Feed on facebook.com. In addition you can also book ads in the right hand column.

Create Your First Ad

Prerequisites

Before creating an ad you need to fulfill the these prerequisites:

• Mobile Apps: Your app must be available in the Apple App or Google Play store.
• Desktop Apps: Your app must be a Facebook Canvas app.
• Facebook Page: You need to be admin of a Facebook page.
• Image(s): You need at least one image to create an ad.
• Ads Account: If you haven’t advertised with Facebook before, you may need to set up a payment source in the Facebook Ads Manager.
• For Amazon Apps: You need to configure your Amazon Appstore url in the app settings under the Android platform with your Facebook App ID. We require your Amazon Appstore app have a corresponding Facebook app within your app settings

Link Ad Accounts

To measure installs in the Facebook Ads Manager or if you want other people or companies to run ads on behalf of your app, you have to associate advertising accounts with your app using the app dashboard. Use the button below to navigate to the advanced app settings and add accounts via the Authorized Ad Account IDs input field.

Recommended

• Facebook SDK: Take advantage of our advanced targeting, measurement and optimization tools by adding the Facebook SDK for iOS or Android to your app. This step is optional but highly recommended.
• Exclude People who Installed Your App: Read our guide below.

Step-by-Step

The Ads Create Wizard will guide you through all necessary steps to create an ad. When changing parameters you will be able to preview the result of each setting, for example how your ad will look like.

1. Get Started: Use the Create Ad button below and choose Get installs of your app to set the objective "App Installs".
2. App: Pick your mobile or desktop app by using the typeahead or copy and paste your app's Google Play or Apple App Store URL into the form.
3. For Multi-Platform Apps: You can only promote one platform at a time. Select a platform, later repeat all steps to create ads for other platforms.
4. Audience: Who do you want your ads to reach?
5. Budget: How much do you want to spend?
6. Media: Upload or pick at least one images for your ad. The recommended image size is 1200X628 pixel. Use may also use a video.
7. Text & Links: Set what text and links do you want to use. Connect your ad to your Facebook Page, pick a Call-To-Action.
8. Place Order: Use the "Place Order" button so book your ad. You may use the "Review Order" to verify your ad configuration.

Exclude People who Installed Your App

For Android, people who installed your app are automatically excluded as long as you provide us your app's package name in the app settings page.

For iOS 9.0+, the only way to exclude users is forwarding app events to Facebook. We are able to exclude users for 180 days after their most recent app event (whether it is an install, app open or in-app event). If you use a Mobile Measurement Partner (MMP) that only sends install events, after 180 days, those users with the app installed will begin to see install ads again even if they are using the app consistently.

For iOS 8.x and below, we are able to exclude users if we can detect that your app is already installed on their device. To allow us to detect if your app is installed, you must do one of the following:

1. Configure your application's Info.plist file so that fb{your-fb-app-id} is a registered URL scheme for your app. If Facebook detects that fb{your-fb-app-id} is a registered URL scheme on the device, we'll know your app is already installed and we can exclude that user. See Configure Xcode Project for instructions on how to configure your app's Info.plist. You might have already done this if you're using the Facebook SDK.

2. Provide a “Deep Link” URL when creating an ad. A deep link is a URL that directly opens your application on the device. For example, yelp:///search?terms=burritos is a deep link that directly opens the Yelp application. If Facebook can detect that your deep link URL's scheme is a registered scheme on the device, we'll know your app is installed and we can exclude that user.

Next Steps

After you get your ad up and running, we recommend that you integrate the Facebook into your app to take advantage of our advanced measurement and optimization tools.