In-App Advertising Checklist: 2020 Edition

At the beginning of the new millennium, mobile applications penetrated every business area. No matter who you are or what you’re looking for, you can guarantee that ‘there’s an app for that.’ Such a significant growth of the mobile field, considering apps have maintained their role as a critical revenue stream for the industry, made user acquisition a crucial part of product development. Too much competition on the market places UA managers in the face of numerous challenges, and this year is no exception mobile marketers seek for new ways to improve UA, maximize ROI or expand to the new market.

For app developers or publishers, in-app advertising serves as the main user source therefore it is so important to stay up-to-date on every market trend and adjust paid user acquisition campaign according to the market state.

In this article I will reveal the hottest mobile advertising trends for the beginning of the year.

Ad Networks: Social Media domination

💡Ad Network is a mediator between the advertiser and the platform (the app where your ad will be shown to user). Ad Networks can be divided into "classic" networks such as AdMob, Applovin or Vungle and Social Networks (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat etc).

In 2019, we observed a strong growth of social media ads share: every quarter the number of ad creatives on social networks grew by an average of 7,5% . 2020 is expected to be the richest in social advertising.

2019 was marked by the launch of a new Ad Network - TikTok (video-steaming and sharing app) entered the market with an Audience Network. Despite TikTok has a reputation of app only used by teens, TikTok ads are likely to explode in 2020 as a true marketing channel.

Ad Creatives: no-code technology

💡The most popular ad format on a mobile marketplace is a video. Video ads covered more than 60% of mobile advertising over 2019.

Playable ad is said to be the most effective ad format but hard to deal with. It can be a long and expensive process since the creation of one creative can take one or two HTML developers and 2-3 weeks. However, in 2020, it becomes possible to significantly reduce playable ad creation cost with a brand-new no-code technology. Such platforms as TreSensa and AppOnBoard enable UA managers to create and design playables without HLML coding. This makes ad format with the highest CTR accessible to anyone and not expensive to work with.

Ad Targeting: top contributing countries

💡While setting up paid UA campaign, marketer has to choose the target market. The advertising cost in different countries varies and depends on the users' payment ability.

No wonder, the advertising cost in the US is very high since the US is #1 contributing country on both App Store and Google Play. But what should do publishers with no large advertising budgets? Find a balance between the paying audience and the traffic price. Check the list of top contributing countries in 2019 and reveal your target market for 2020 on iOS and Android devices.  

Apple Arcade & Google Free Pass

💡Special subscriptions that have been released by both stores in 2019 will have a big impact on the free-to-play gaming market. With the wide distribution of this subscription, experts will have to look for new approaches to in-app advertising.

App Store and Google Play offer access to dozens mobile games with no additional in-app purchases or in-app ad at the very reasonable price. This puts mobile game developers in a situation where they need to look for alternative ways of advertising and monetization. It’s hard to predict how widely subscriptions will be used in 2020, but UA managers should stay alert.

Multi-channel UA campaigns

💡Besides in-app advertising, there are other ways of user acquisition: ASO (App Store Optimization), Social Advertising, Influencer Marketing, PR & Press coverage and more.

In a situation where the market is so crowded, it’s hard to get along with only one traffic channel. Modern approach to user acquisition assumes combination of 3-4 marketing channels. Each channel has its own characteristics, so there should be a proper team working on each channel. Be sure to keep a record of all marketing activities and constantly optimize each channel: only by making regular improvements you can achieve good results on this market.

UA manager checklist for 2020

• Pay attention to Social Media as a good modern source of traffic for your app
• Reduce playable ad cost by adopting no-code technologies
• Check the list of Top Contributing Countries and find the perfect balance for your next target
• Keep an eye on Apple Arcade & Google Free Pass
• Run multi-channel UA campaigns