Unity source app ID 000000000000: what it means

Unity’s Help Center says source app ID 000000000000 shows up for impressions from publishers that run campaigns without a valid store ID. Unity cannot generate a real source app ID for those impressions. By our reading, that makes it a group of sources, not one app. The article does not say what to do about it or whether those impressions are billed.

What Unity’s article says

According to Unity’s Help Center article (shown as updated February 20, 2024), a small number of publishers using Unity Ads run campaigns without having provided a valid store ID. Unity is not able to generate a valid source app ID for any impressions from those sources. The ID then shows as missing, or as 000000000000.

What the article doesn’t say

The article gives no:

• fix or steps for the advertiser;
• statement on whether the affected impressions are billed or reported;
• contact to ask;
• explanation of how affected publishers are identified.

It links to a related article on finding source app IDs to target or block, which we did not read. Silence on billing is not an answer in either direction. Do not assume these impressions are free, and do not assume they are charged differently.

What follows, by our reading

Everything in this section is our reading, not a Unity statement.

• It is not one app. The value stands in for impressions from several sources that have no valid store ID. A row with 000000000000 in a report mixes whatever those sources are, so its numbers describe the group, not a single app.
• Blocking it may cut the whole group. Unity’s app targeting page says a blocklist excludes the specified apps from receiving bids. It does not say what happens with this value. If the bidding side treats the value like any other ID, one entry blocks every source behind it. You would also not know which publishers they were.
• You can’t judge it as an app. There is no app name behind it, and good or bad results on that row say nothing about one publisher.

How to check the volume effect yourself

Unity does not tell you what blocking this value does to your volume, so measure it. The app targeting page recommends analyzing sources at the geo level in the Reporting dashboard, so do the check per geo.

1. Pick one geo and a fixed period, for example the last 7 days. Note the volume that carries 000000000000 (impressions, spend, installs, whatever your report shows) and the geo’s total.
2. Work out the share. If it is small, the decision matters less. If it is large, it matters a lot.
3. If you decide to block it, do it on one campaign in that geo first. Leave bids, creatives and budgets alone during the test.
4. Compare an equally long period after the change. The docs we read do not say how fast list changes apply, so do not judge the first hours.
5. If the lost volume costs you more than the traffic was worth, remove the entry and write down the dates.

DarkCore Ramet’s analytics reads Unity stats grouped by campaign, geo, app or source, which gives you one place to compare periods. If you automate blocking, its rules can block a source_app_id, so decide on this value on purpose instead of leaving it to a generic rule.

For how blocklists and allowlists work in general, see our guide to the Unity Ads source app ID blocklist.