Android setup

What does Android need beyond the Gradle dependency?

Almost nothing. The Android side of the Kotlin Multiplatform AdMob integration needs exactly one manifest entry beyond the dependency added in Installation — the AdMob app id. Omitting it is not a soft failure: the Google Mobile Ads SDK crashes at startup because it cannot tell which account to attribute impressions to.

iOS, by contrast, has the longer setup story with SPM, Info.plist keys, and ATT. The Android side is the shortest page on the site for a reason.

The Gradle dependency itself is already on the page you came from. What Android adds is the small set of values that the GMA Next-Gen SDK cannot infer from the Kotlin code: the app id, the build configuration (minSdk, compileSdk, targetSdk, Android Gradle Plugin), and the repository that hosts Cronet. Each is a one-liner and none of them are the Kotlin Multiplatform library’s job.

How do I add the AdMob app id to the manifest?

<application>
    <meta-data
        android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.APPLICATION_ID"
        android:value="ca-app-pub-3940256099942544~3347511713" /> <!-- sample id; replace -->
</application>

Three things to get right in that snippet:

• This is the app id (ca-app-pub-…~…, tilde separator), not an ad-unit id (ca-app-pub-…/…, slash separator). The shape is the difference between GMA initialising and GMA throwing at startup.
• The value shown is Google’s public sample id and must be replaced with the real id from the AdMob UI before release.
• In a Kotlin Multiplatform project this entry belongs to the Android application module’s manifest, not the shared module. The shared module is where the Gradle dependency lives, but manifest merging happens in the app module.

admob-cmp itself declares only INTERNET. Everything else below comes from the GMA and UMP transitive dependencies.

The sample id in the snippet above is recognisable on sight: the ca-app-pub-3940256099942544 publisher id is the same one Google uses across its own sample apps and the ~3347511713 suffix is the Android sample app id. The library’s TestAdIds.ANDROID_APP_ID constant is the same value, so a quickstart using sample ids never needs to type it.

What is the AD_ID permission and do I need it?

The Google Mobile Ads SDK merges com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID into the manifest. Apps targeting API 33 or above that remove this permission cannot access the advertising ID, which reduces ad revenue. The permission comes from GMA rather than from admob-cmp.

To opt out — for a child-directed app, for instance — remove the permission explicitly:

<uses-permission
    android:name="com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID"
    tools:node="remove" />

The tools:node="remove" directive only works when the manifest root declares xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools". Most projects already have that, but it is the kind of thing that fails silently when missing. The merged manifest in Android Studio’s “Merged Manifest” view is the fastest way to confirm the permission is gone.

Caution

Removing the AD_ID permission reduces ad revenue. It is not recommended unless the app is child-directed or there is another compliance reason. Removing the permission also changes what must be declared in the Play Data safety form — see Play Data safety.

What are the Android build requirements?

admob-cmp 1.1.0 is built and tested against these values:

Setting	Value
minSdk	26
compileSdk	37
targetSdk	36
Android Gradle Plugin	9.2.1
Google Mobile Ads Next-Gen SDK	1.3.0 (transitive)
User Messaging Platform	4.0.0 (transitive, also pulled by GMA)

One repository gotcha that trips real builds: the GMA Next-Gen SDK pulls Cronet from org.chromium.net, which is served by Google’s Maven repository rather than Maven Central. Without the google() repository declared, the build fails with a missing-artifact error that does not name the cause.

settings.gradle.kts

dependencyResolutionManagement {
    repositories {
        google()
        mavenCentral()
    }
}

Add google() first so its resolution is preferred; the order is not strictly required but it makes the build configuration match how most AdMob projects are written. The library’s own consumer apps declare both repositories; without google(), the build fails on the very first Kotlin file that references GMA.

How do I confirm Android is wired up correctly?

Three short checks:

• Build and install the Android app, gate the UI on AdManagerStatus.Ready, and confirm a banner or interstitial renders.
• Outside Compose, the manager is reachable as AdMob.manager(context). It is the same process-wide singleton rememberAdManager() returns — never construct an AdManager implementation directly.
• If the app crashes at startup with a stack trace that does not name AdMob, the most common cause is a missing com.google.android.gms.ads.APPLICATION_ID. The full symptom table is on Troubleshooting.

The most common path that takes a first-time integration off the happy path is targetSdk and compileSdk drifting away from the values the library was built against. If you raise either, the transitive dependencies may pick up behaviour the library does not yet account for — particularly the GMA Next-Gen SDK’s StrictMode-sensitive code paths. The values in the table above are tested; raising them is your call and is not part of the supported compatibility window.

A note on cross-platform parity: Android emits no native video events on native ads. iOS emits five (VideoStarted, VideoPlayed, VideoPaused, VideoEnded, VideoMuted); the Android GMA Next-Gen SDK exposes no equivalent callback surface on NativeAd, so cross-platform logic must not depend on them. The native ads guide has the full explanation.

Where to next?

iOS setupSPM packages, Info.plist, ATT, and doctorIos.

Play Data safetyWhat to declare in the Play Console form.

Test safetytestMode versus strictTestMode.

TroubleshootingSymptom to cause to fix.