Summary
The article emphasizes the growing importance of user acquisition (UA) for non-gaming apps, which face challenges due to longer LTV maturation. With users spending nearly 5 hours daily on mobile devices and 90% of that time in apps, the competition is fierce. Notably, non-gaming app usage now surpasses gaming in the US, creating unique opportunities.
Success requires a tailored approach: Phase 1 involves creating engaging creatives, setting up MMPs, benchmarking CPIs, and aligning goals. Phase 2 launches campaigns with dedicated budgets for machine learning to reach target audiences, passing post-install data for accurate attribution. Phase 3 automates optimization towards down-funnel conversions and KPIs.
Key data includes 90% of US homes with CTV, and examples like Brigit (2X subscription rate) and Yemeksepeti (54% increase in first-time orders). AppDiscovery's managed service leverages proprietary ML to scale user acquisition and meet ROAS goals.
You Might Also Like
AppsFlyerHow to use ChatGPT to market your app [50+ prompts]
ChatGPT transforms marketing by accelerating research, ideation, and content creation. It aids in market analysis, competitor research, feature brainstorming, and ASO optimization. Marketers can leverage it for efficiency while maintaining strategic oversight.
SensorTowerHow to Analyze Churn for Your Mobile App
Sensor Tower's Churn Analysis tracks new, retained, and resurrected users to understand mobile app churn. Different categories have varying churn rates, e.g., social media apps like Instagram have low churn, while retail apps like Etsy have higher churn. This tool helps optimize user retention strategies.
SensorTowerHow Power User Data Can Boost Your Mobile App Strategy
Sensor Tower's Power User data measures days used per month, revealing app stickiness. The metric shows crypto apps' declining engagement, Netflix's SVOD loyalty, Duolingo's growing stickiness, and Instagram's daily dominance, offering insights into user behavior and monetization.
AppsFlyerHow PC and console platforms open up new revenue streams for game developers
Mobile game studios are expanding to PC and console platforms to boost revenue and reach new audiences. This shift is driven by higher ARPU on consoles, privacy regulations, and market saturation on mobile. Cross-platform measurement solutions are essential for tracking user flows and optimizing performance marketing across devices.
AppsFlyerCreative optimization: Why your best video ad fails as a static image
AppsFlyer’s 2026 creative data shows video and static image ads reward opposite creative qualities, so ad ops teams should plan, budget, and test them separately. Video spend is concentrating: gaming’s top 2% of video creatives captured 60.7% of spend, up from 53.5%, while image spend spread out. Top spenders are testing far more variations, widening the testing gap. Action/Strategy and Puzzle/Lifestyle show format-specific tone and social-proof reversals; Finance is the exception. Teams should use AI-assisted variation, analyze video winners deeply, keep broad image testing, and measure performance at attribute level.
AppLovinPaid User Acquisition: An Overview for Mobile Marketers
Paid user acquisition via social, search, programmatic, and influencer ads drives app growth. AppDiscovery simplifies campaigns with ML optimization, CPI-based CTV ads, and creative support from SparkLabs, helping hit KPIs efficiently. Key insight: leverage automation and data-driven targeting for profitable, scalable UA.
AppsFlyerOmnichannel Analytics Explained
Omnichannel analytics unifies customer behavior and campaign performance across mobile, web, CTV, and AI search into one identity, one attribution model, and one ROAS number. The core problem: a single customer seen on three surfaces becomes three users, inflating performance and corrupting attribution, LTV, and retention. Stitching channel reports into one dashboard is not unification—each channel keeps its own attribution logic, so conversions get double-counted and upper-funnel spend looks unproductive. For ad ops leaders, the takeaway is that identity resolution (deterministic plus probabilistic, privacy-safe) must happen at the data layer before any dashboard exists. Platform choice hinges on surface coverage, identity resolution, compliance, incrementality testing, and migration support.
AdjustJapan’s finance app growth in 2026 | Adjust
Japan's finance app category is outperforming, with H1 2026 installs up 8% YoY and sessions up 40%—nearly 5x the install growth and well ahead of global figures (5% and 29%). Stock trading is the standout subvertical: installs +90% YoY and average session length climbing to 11.7 minutes, driven by NISA reforms and a retail investor resurgence. Retention is improving across the full 30-day curve (D1 17% to 19%, D30 7% to 8%). For ad ops teams, the takeaway is clear: prioritize measurement depth, re-engagement, and channel-level quality over top-of-funnel volume alone.
More from AppLovin
Why pursue TikTok? A vision for economic expansion
The blog highlights the strategic rationale for a TikTok merger, emphasizing the performance advertising gap where TikTo...
Examination of e-commerce data practices
The article examines how identifiers like those from Google and Facebook flow across e-commerce sites via standard integ...
Performance Advertising: How we drive value and handle data
AppLovin explains its AI-driven advertising platform, Axon 2, which has quadrupled ad spend to a ~$10B run rate. The eng...
A Note from Our CEO: Discussing Web Advertising Opportunity and Unpacking Pixels
AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi refutes a short report questioning its e-commerce ad business and pixel practices. He highlig...
10 tips for user acquisition on a budget
User acquisition on a budget is achievable through a mix of organic and low-cost paid strategies. Key tactics include op...
How app technical health impacts LTV—and what to do about it
Performance issues like crashes and slow load times directly reduce user retention and LTV. With 60% of users uninstalli...