Google ODM & ICM Explained

So the first one was ODM1 which was first party data. Then we had ODM 2 which is event data. So this one I'm I'm I'll be a little bit more straightforward than I think Google is being. But um you know they're using what they call temporary anonymous signals from the
Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Tangent AOY 101. I'm Roman from Tangent and today I'm joined by Ashley Black. Hi Ashley.
Hi. Nice to see you again. Yeah, it's been already third time and every time we talk about Google, just so happens, Ashley knows a lot about it because she works there. And today we'll talk about some mysteries like ODM, ICM, is it the right one? ICM. You
got it. Yeah. So

if you don't know what that means and you advertise on Google, stay tuned. This is very important. Now uh but before we start, Ashley, just in case anyone doesn't know anything about you, maybe a short intro will be very helpful. Now
absolutely. So I um I have my own company called Candid Consulting where I run people's Google ads specifically app ads uh on Google and also do consulting for app companies. But prior to that I spent almost 10 years at Google. Six of those years I led the app ad sales team. So my team worked very very closely with mobile developers, the marketing teams within them on how to use Google's products. Since I've left the company, I think I've gotten even more insight to how the products actually work versus like how we're told that they work um

within the company. But I sort of bring a unique perspective in that I I have sort of firsthand experience on the inside of how things mechanically work and and um now how to apply those things.
How did uh like nonrelated to the slides that Ashley prepared, I'm just very curious uh how does the landscape look for you now in terms of the your customers? Is it like more non-gaming?
Yeah. So, right, we we known each other for a long time and when I was working with you when I was at Google, all of my clients, my team's clients were all games. And actually now uh almost I don't have any gaming clients. I work uh almost exclusively with subscription apps. And I think I I think that's a function of like sophistication and people and and how companies grow. As you know, gaming companies generally

tend to be very very sophisticated. UA is really like their bread and butter. um where I feel like a lot of subscription apps like subscription based apps are really I think in the past few years have grown a lot and um and now they're starting to realize like okay I got to really master the UA side of stuff and so they're turning to people like myself to help them and establish themselves on different channels.
Yeah. Yeah. But especially last year we've seen like so many non-gaming
Yeah. So it's like booming like crazy nowadays. So that's why
Yeah. Exactly. So and I feel like a lot of times people will have uh within those companies they're you know very product heavy and um a lot of times they'll bring on people who have marketing backgrounds but then they go to touch the app side of stuff and they're like oh I I have no idea what this is. And so um that's where I come in and advise a lot for these companies.
Nice. Nice.

Um then thank you. Um so if you are promoting on Google and you are not using the ICM ODM now is the time and u why and what it is we'll discuss now I asked Ashley to prepare some slides as always so feel free to share the screen and we will jump into it.
Absolutely. Okay. So, when we talk about um let me see here. When we talk about ICM, ODM, we're really specifically talking about um iOS, like Google's iOS products and offerings. So, even though like ODM exists and I think ICM exists for Android, they don't they're not as relevant. Um or you you probably don't you don't think about them as much. And we'll talk about why that is the case. So when you hear about these acronyms, ODM, which is ondevice measurement, ICM, which is integrated conversion

measurement, they could do a lot better job at naming these things. Uh to explain what they actually are. Um but when you hear those, we're really talking about Google's response to how to make their iOS product better for for people who are promoting their iOS app. So, um, even myself like early on with all these acronyms and they, you know, one of them's called ODM, one of them's called ODM 2.0, like it gets confusing. And so, this is basically an explanation of what those are. Um, I think I put here on the next slide, you know, what they're really designed to do and, um, who they stand to benefit and like the value that they actually deliver. So with that, I'll I'll walk everybody through. There's sort of like the three primary products that we'll talk about. The first one is ODM, on device measurement, um, which is using firstparty data. So if you're an advertiser, it's your data. [snorts]

There's ODM 2.0, which is event data. We'll talk about that one. That's newer for Google. ODM one has been longstanding for years. And then we'll talk about ICM which has been launched for probably about 9 months maybe now 9 10 months. Um but there are some things that you need to do in order to access it and I don't think everybody knows that. So you ready to dive in?
Absolutely.
Okay. So like I said the first one that we'll talk about is ODM ondevice measurement and that's using firstparty data. It's launched a long time ago. So like in 2023 I might have still been there. I was still there at Google when this launched. Um, and really what it is, you know, with this first bullet here is that it's Google's way of like privately linking ad clicks to inapp actions, but it's using your data. So, um, and usually it's you sharing your email or phone phone number of users.

Um, and it does it in a privacy safe way. Everything is compliant. However, I don't think we saw like a ton of adoption of this. if I'm being totally honest. One, because it does require dev work um to be able to share this data, but also it require it really only stands to benefit people or apps that collect a lot of these emails and phone numbers. So, if you are an app that doesn't collect them, like at actually at the time when I was running this, games didn't collect a ton of emails and phone numbers, right? subscription apps. Absolutely. They they it's part of their onboarding process. But in games that it's not super common or at least it wasn't when I was working with them. So, this wasn't even something that my team pitched um to say, "Hey, this could help your iOS campaigns because it wasn't relevant." Um the other thing that it stands to help a lot or the types of companies that it stands to help or campaigns are those that serve on Google's O and O, so

owned and operated properties and that would be things like YouTube and search. So, if you're looking at your your distribution by network in Google and you see that most of it's on display network, this probably wouldn't be a huge change for you or, you know, it wouldn't um have that big of an impact. So, again, um depends on where your ads serve, depends on the amount of first-party data that you collect. And I would say that you're probably going to see a very modest improvement on your CPA, like a 10 to 15% reduction on it. Um, if you see a difference. And also something really, really important to note is like this only affects Google's reporting of those conversions. So, you're not going to see a huge difference in your MMP. We'll get to that in a second. That has to do with ICM. Um, and so, you know, take it with a grain of salt. like if you're looking at your performance in scan or if you're

relying on your MMP their probabilistic modeling like this probably isn't going to be a huge game changer for you.
Uh still uh I would like to understand also how do we integrate ODM? Is it um changing the app or I pull the API server to server? Now, I have to to be honest, I'd have to double check what the actual integration is. Like I said, it does require a little bit more dev work from from those advertisers that I've like sent it over to because I'm not a technical person. I don't do the implementation of this part. A lot of them have shied away from it saying like, h feels like a lot of work for not
for not that much gain. Um, so yeah, that that's just what I've heard, but it does require obviously some changes on like the Firebase SDK. That's simple. That's just like an update, but it does require you to be able to send that first party login data like the email or phone number back to Google. It's hashed

in some way. Yeah.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
So, that's that's ODM1. It's been out for a long time. Again, it's up to you if you decide to implement it and it's not a good fit for everybody. So,
but you're saying there is ODM2.
There's ODM 2. [laughter]
Yeah.
Yes. Should have re Well, I guess they did technically rename it, but ODM2 is um using So, the first one was ODM1, which was first party data. Then we had ODM2, which is event data. So, this one I'm I'm I'll be a little bit more straightforward than I think Google is being, but um you know, they're using what they call temporary anonymous signals from the device itself. Um this is straight a definition. This first sentence is a definition taken from Google. Um however while Google hasn't

said it explicitly I think everybody has inferred that ODM2 also is using IP addresses to inform its models which then you know people are like okay well then they're doing fingerprinting. I'm not going to get into all of that. Uh still maintain good relationship with Google. I don't want to, you know, say anything out outside of that, but um that that's what's been inferred by I think a lot of the documentation that that's what's happening there. This one would be good for everyone, right? The other one there's sort of like stipulations. You got to have certain amount of users, certain inventory. This one, you're good. And the other thing that's nice about it is that you really didn't have to do anything for the to access this one. It was sort of an automatic um update to Google's models. um you just had to ensure that you were on the right version of Firebase. So I think at this point like again this launched this this rolled out a while ago. Um I if you're staying up to date

on your Firebase SDK like you're probably on the right version, but there's documentation that shows what version you need to be on. Um the thing to note and I think this is common with like you know any company is that they roll this they roll all of these changes out gradually right so it's not like you know on October 1st we saw this big shift typically um if people aren't familiar with UAC right it serves on multiple different inventory sources so it serves on search on ADM Mob on YouTube um if we're talking about Android serves on the Play store. And typically when Google is going to roll out any sort of like large change like this, they roll it out on certain segments of inventory. So they might roll the change out on search first and then they'll phase in ADM Mob as an example. Um it's up, you know, it's up to them on how they determine what they're rolling out and when. So from

what I understood, at the end of last year, this had rolled out on search and ADM Mob inventory. And then in Q1 at some point, the the quarter we're currently in, it was going to roll out on YouTube as well. So, it was sort of a phased approach. Um, which means depending on where you've been serving, like where the your um primary inventory is coming from for iOS, you may have noticed uh an impact already or maybe you haven't.
Gotcha. And um [clears throat] that's a separate product, right? So, ODM.
Yes. in ODM2 I can use them both or one of them
you don't both to be clear but you don't the first one ODM one requires implementation on your end like you would know that you've done that because it requires dev work 2 like I said is is really something that Google did on their back end so um it's not something like you're like oh it was included in release whatever um

it it it was just starting to phase is the the roll out on their end and they haven't been clear on like ex you know the exact date that they started rolling it out. I don't think they ever will be. Um but you may be able you may be able to tell that there's a little bit of a shift in performance as they started to roll this out. Um but I would say you'd probably want to look for that that change sometime in Q4 if you did notice something. Um, however, with all of that said, you know, I have a a lot of advertisers who I work with and [clears throat] I haven't noticed anything major as a result of this. I, you know, I think maybe some people have, but in my personal experience, I haven't seen anything huge, but again, you don't have to do anything as the advertiser, so there's no downside.
Yeah. Yeah. And the the Firebase SDK is a must anyway, right? If you're

advertising on
Yeah, I mean I've yet to run into anybody who doesn't have it. Okay.
Um so [clears throat] that that's pretty standard.
Roger.
But yeah, this one I think we had a lot of high hopes for ODM2. Um again, this would have only affected Google's reporting like that the performance that Google is reporting. Ideally, you would maybe see that a little bit in like your own, you know, BI, but the just to be clear, like you wouldn't necessarily, well, I was going to say like you wouldn't necessarily see this in scan. Um, you might if Google starts to have like better signals, it can optimize better for better users and that could result into better performance in scan, but ultimately you would see the um the results in Google's front-end reporting. Which leads me to M which is the first

time we can start to see Google's reporting outside of Google. So we'll shift over to the next slide if that's okay. Any other questions Roman on
No perfectly clear.
Okay. All right. Cool. All right. So then we get into ICM which is integrated conversion measurement. Let's I I always I used to do this with my team. I'm like, how could I rename something so that it makes more sense for people [laughter] like that? The integrated conversion measurement, maybe it's just me, but I'm like, that means nothing. Um, let's just call this like Google sharing info or data with MMPs. That's what this is. Um, so really this launched back in May of I guess 2025. So you could have had access to it starting um then. But what this really is is that Google for a long time had not shared any

information about their modeled conversions on iOS with the MMPs. And the MMPs were saying like, hey, we're not going to report on your numbers if you're not telling us how you even got there with them. And so I think they came to an agreement with most of them and said, hey, okay, this is what's happening. And now the MMPs are saying like okay now now we feel more comfortable including your data in our own modeling. So for [clears throat] example like if you use apps fire like in their SSOT reporting um and so this is like I said this is you would start to see a shift in your performance your Google performance as it's reported in your MMP. That make sense? Yeah.
All right. Um, so [clears throat] again, who is it good for? If you, it's good if you use your MMP uh probabilistic reporting. If you don't, like if you're if you're die hard just looking at scan,

this would not have any impact on you. Um, and also this has a a big impact if you have a lot of traffic that serves on search or web display. you probably wouldn't be able to tell that a ton, but like on search where the AT prompt is not shown or if you have like really low um AT opt-in rates or you don't prompt for it at all, this would likely help in the reporting um as viewed in your MMP. So again, this this is not going to make your performance in Google look any better. That will continue to look the same. it will look substantially better in your MMP once you adopt this. Um, and you do have to I think most of the MMPs have said like, oh, it's automatic. You don't need to do anything. You do. Um, in almost all of them, there's some sort of like toggle in your attribution settings for Google where you have to like enable probabilistic modeling um or reporting

of it. So, just check your settings and make sure that is turned on. um otherwise this would not be reflected in your MMP.
We will leave the documentation links at least for tenon in the description of this video. Um I have a question. So you are saying it's not improving the campaign performance in the Google dashboard but it improve improves it in the MMP dashboard. Right. Do you think it improves the performance in general outside of any reporting or it's just like an attribution of the users? It's just different way to look at the data when I have the ICM on.
Yeah, the latter. It's really just for attribution. Um, [clears throat] so like I said, your your Google campaigns will

continue to operate how they have been. Um, you're not going to see a change there. It's just that the MMP is finally starting to report more Google conversions because it has more confidence in how Google modeled them. Um, so that's where you would see the change. Now, if you're using your MMP to do like, you know, to do optimizations back in Google, maybe that could help you per you know, improve your performance as a result. But again, like this is mostly for attribution
and I think that's it. Those were the three primary ones. Yeah, this is my information, but those are, you know, we got ODM one requires work from the devs. um not a good fit for everybody. ODM2, you don't have to do anything except make sure you're in the right version of Firebase. TBD if it has any impact on you. And ICM, this is just um better reporting of

Google's conversions in your MMP. That's the breakdown. That's the simplified version of all of these acronyms.
I see. I see. Super. Like much more clear now. Uh yeah, maybe one question before we part ways is how do you see 2026 and the UA in Google? Anything uh particularly important in 2026 that wasn't important in 2025 and advertisers need to pay attention to it. I think, like I said, I'm mostly working with subscription-based apps now. Um, and so what I'm seeing a lot of testing of and and I think a lot of people have been doing this for a long time on Meta and now they're starting to look to Google to see if they can do the same,

which is more of a web to app strategy. And I I always like to be super clear because I think we throw around web to app and there's like so many definitions of it. Um, just just to be like really explicit here, Google has their own web to app product.
That is I I think in my opinion is not the same as what everybody else in the industry refers to web to app. Their web to app product is really like deep linking. It's it's meant for people who already have the app installed and it's a way to drive users who are like searching for something back into an app. That's Google's web tag.
Yeah. Then there's um web to app which is using a web- based ad product and driving users to the app store directly to the app store. No landing page in between. That's what I'm going to talk about in a sec. Um so that's one version. And then I think other people talk about web to app of like driving to a web landing page doing a checkout

there again for like subscriptionbased apps to um sort of avoid the store fees and then pushing a user to the app. Okay. So everybody uses that same term for like all these three different things.
Where would you put the quizzes? Like quizzes were like crazy last year. Do you know they they survey you with a lot of questions and then you're like, "Oh no, I have to download." Yeah. Yeah. It all happens before.
Yeah. I think of that as like the the last one like I call it web web to app.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Um you have some sort of landing page in between, you know, however you're engaging whether it's the quizzes, the long form flow. Um and then ultimately like you are pushing somebody back to the app store to complete versus you know just driving a payment right then and there. But um
the one that I see more marketers talking about and spending time on is

the second one that I mentioned which is using a web- based uh a web- based ad product. So, not UAC and then driving users to the app store directly through um like tracking URLs, tracking templates available on their MMP. I will say it's complicated. It's like a really complicated setup. Um you a little bit of a plug for my friend um over at AppStack to Lucas. I think he's done he's figured out a way to make it a little bit more simplified but for those that are still using their MMPs um as a way like it's a lot of steps um it can be kind of cumbersome but once you get there I think you gain back a lot of control obviously like you're just running basically a search campaign at that point um with keywords and um and also then the the measurement becomes a lot less um you know uh it it

demystifies it. You feel a lot more com uh confident in the results because at that point they're pretty much deterministic.
I see.
So that's that's my prediction of where I see a lot of things going. Google I don't know how they're going to react to it. I know that they probably don't like people taking their products and splitting them apart again. Um, but I think marketers are sort of like desperate to one to have performance, but also two to have transparency.
Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah, that's what I thought that like Google will probably want you to use UC because that's a product for the mobile, right?
I think it's just been tough. the iOS product is I you know again I only see a small subset of advertisers but I spend a lot of time talking to marketers and the products still just even with all of these new newer releases and it's still they're you know there's still time um

they haven't even released everything on um ODM like I was saying like YouTube maybe just launched this quarter for ODM
but uh you know just I think people are desperate for to be able to leverage Google as a platform for iOS and on UAC it just hasn't worked that well. Um [clears throat] and so they have to try different different ways of you know getting search and YouTube traffic.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
Then on that note, uh give us a like, hit the subscribe button. If you have any questions to Ashley, please leave them in the comments. We'll ask her to reply. Um, thanks a ton, Ashley. I learned a lot. Now it's ODM, ODM2, ICM.
You got it.
Yeah, I got it. [laughter] All righty. Okay. Thanks, Roman. See you. Cheers. Bye. Bye.