Unity Ads source app ID blocklist: block or allow sources

In Unity’s docs, a source app ID is the abstracted identifier you use to allow or block the apps your campaign bids on. A blocklist excludes the listed apps from receiving bids. An allowlist restricts bidding to the listed apps, and Unity warns that a narrow one can hurt the campaign. Unity gives you IDs only, not app names.

What a source app ID is

According to Unity’s app targeting page, you use source app IDs to allow or block apps to bid on. Sources can only be identified by their abstracted IDs, and Unity does not give out source IDs for specific apps. The docs also say source app IDs are case-sensitive.

In practice: paste IDs exactly as they appear in the report. A spreadsheet formula or script that changes case produces a string that no longer matches the ID.

Blocklist vs allowlist

	Blocklist	Allowlist
What Unity’s docs say it does	Excludes the listed apps from receiving bids	Restricts bidding to the listed apps
Starts from (our reading)	All sources, minus the ones you list	Only the sources you list
Cost named in the docs	None named. Every blocked source is volume you stop buying (our reading)	Limiting sources limits scale

Unity’s page says that limiting sources limits the scale of your campaign, so restricting an allowlist too much can negatively impact the campaign’s performance. The docs give no number for “too much”. A narrow allowlist is therefore a bet that the sources you listed can carry the whole budget.

Our reading, not Unity’s advice: with a short history, a blocklist is the safer first step, because it removes only the sources you have seen perform poorly and leaves the rest of the volume alone. An allowlist makes more sense once you have enough per-geo data on the sources that work.

Where to find source app IDs

Unity’s page says to use the Reporting dashboard to analyze the geo level of each source your campaigns have reached. It tells you to pinpoint the best performing sources to allowlist and the poorest performing sources to blocklist.

The page points at the geo level. Our reading: judge a source inside one country at a time, not across your whole account, because that is the level Unity tells you to analyze.

“Best” and “poorest” have no thresholds in the docs. Set yours before you look at the data: how much spend or how many installs a source needs before you judge it, and which metric decides.

Once you have a short list of IDs from one geo, write down the geo, the date and the reason next to each ID. The docs do not say whether an ID’s mapping to an app can change, so these notes are the only way to tell later why an ID is on a list and whether removing it is worth a test.

What Unity does not give you

Unity does not give you app names. The docs say sources may only be identified by abstracted IDs and that Unity cannot give out source IDs for specific apps. Our reading: you cannot look up “which ID is app X” and list it in advance. You learn how an ID performs after its traffic has arrived in your reports.

What the docs don’t say

The app targeting page we read does not cover:

• the UI steps for entering IDs;
• list size limits;
• whether an allowlist and a blocklist can be combined;
• whether the mapping from an ID to an app can change over time;
• how fast a change applies, or whether it applies to running campaigns;
• thresholds for “best” and “poorest” sources;
• any automatic blocking. The page describes none, and auto-blocking in Unity is not documented in what we read.

Because speed is not documented, treat a list change as unconfirmed until your next report shows the spend from that source stopping. Change one campaign first and compare before you roll it out.

A value you will see: 000000000000

Some impressions show a source app ID as missing or as 000000000000. Unity’s Help Center article ties this to publishers that run campaigns without a valid store ID. By our reading it is not one app, so think before you put it on a list. We cover what the article says and leaves out in a separate short guide to source app ID 000000000000.

Doing this in DarkCore Ramet

DarkCore Ramet reads spend, installs, CPI, CTR and IPM from Unity by day, grouped by campaign, geo, app or source, and spend refreshes hourly (analytics). Its rules check spend and deposits every hour and can block a source_app_id, pause a campaign or lower a bid, and notify you in Telegram. That blocking is DarkCore Ramet’s own feature, separate from anything Unity does. The Unity docs we read describe no automatic blocking.