Google overhauls iOS ad tools with AI to chase App Store gold

Google is rolling out an overhaul for its iOS App campaigns, introducing a slate of AI-powered tools for bidding, ad creation, and measurement to help marketers better capture a slice of the booming App Store economy.

• More ways to play: The updates expand the creative toolkit for advertisers. Marketers can now use co-branded partnership ads featuring YouTube creators in their campaigns and add interactive playable ads as end cards after videos on Google’s AdMob network.
• AI at the auction: The biggest changes center on AI-driven performance. A new target ROAS (return on ad spend) bidding feature lets advertisers set a specific profitability goal for the AI to chase. Google says lending app Uatas saw a 7% ROAS increase with the tool. AI is also being used to automate the tedious work of resizing videos for different screen formats.
• A post-IDFA playbook: To navigate Apple's privacy rules, Google is deploying an on-device measurement tool that keeps user data from leaving the device. The company says this system unlocks more accurate attribution, with one publisher, Codeway, seeing a 6x increase in attributed installs and an 80% lower cost per install. The updates are a clear effort to give marketers more reliable tools in a post-IDFA world.

As consumer spending on the App Store surges, Google is equipping advertisers with more sophisticated, automated tools to compete for those dollars, while carefully navigating Apple's privacy-first ecosystem.

• Also on our radar: As Google sharpens its advertising tools for iOS, its consumer-facing AI is also getting more integrated into mobile apps like Calendar and Maps on both Android and iOS. Meanwhile, the company continues to face pressure on its home turf, where a federal court recently upheld a ruling that its Play Store maintains an illegal monopoly.