Liftoff(Vungle)Introducing Liftoff’s 2024 Casual Gaming Apps Report
Summary
Despite ongoing challenges in downloads and in-app purchases post-pandemic, the mobile gaming market demonstrates resilience with rebounding overall consumer spend and increasing app usage hours. While 2021's unprecedented growth may not return, the industry remains dynamic through genre evolution (like hybrid-casual games), live events for player retention, and innovative monetization strategies such as progressive bundles. Success in 2024 will depend on ROI-focused strategies, data-driven insights, and partnerships, as highlighted in Liftoff's report combining performance metrics and industry analysis.
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Liftoff(Vungle)The Casual Gaming Insights Mobile Marketers Need to Know in 2024
Casual gaming UA costs doubled to $2.17 CPI, with iOS at $4.83 vs Android $0.65. LATAM has lowest CPI ($0.44) but lower ROI. New genres like 3D Match and monetization trends like web stores are emerging.
AppsFlyerHow to deliver a winning creative strategy
A creative strategy is essential for mobile app marketing success. It combines compelling content with strategic planning to increase app installs and engagement. Key steps include defining objectives, understanding your audience, and setting KPIs. Best practices emphasize consistency, agility, and leveraging AI for optimization.
Liftoff(Vungle)Understanding Gamification, Player Motivations, and Their Impact on Mobile UA
Gamification uses game design elements in apps to boost engagement by understanding user motivations through GameRefinery's 12 Motivational Drivers and 8 Player Archetypes, as seen in successful examples like MONOPOLY GO! and Duolingo.
Liftoff(Vungle)6 Ad Formats to Take Your Mobile In-Game Advertising to the Next Level
Mobile in-game advertising balances revenue and player experience using formats like banners, interstitials, playables, videos, rewarded, and native ads. Each format varies in cost, engagement, and ROI across platforms, with no single best option—success depends on goals, budget, and platform-specific performance.
AppsFlyerWeb Gaming: The untapped path to lower CPI and boost ROAS
Mobile CPI and app store fees are eroding ROAS, making web gaming a viable acquisition channel. Full Unity-to-HTML5 ports now deliver 30-50% lower CAC and avoid 15-30% store revenue cuts via web payments. Measurement parity is here: AppsFlyer enables independent attribution, conversion signals, and unified reporting. Retention can improve; one strategy title jumped from 6-7 minutes mobile to 70+ minutes web. Best fit: deep RPG, strategy, puzzle, story games, not hypercasual. Action: audit catalog, pilot web ports, link accounts cross-platform, and use owned media to drive high-intent web users.
SensorTower2024 State of Mobile: The App Market Bounced Back in 2023 and is Primed for a Record-Breaking 2024
Mobile market rebounded in 2023 with record $171B consumer spend. Apps drove growth at 11% YoY to $64B. Generative AI exploded 7x. Travel apps surged 13%. Mobile ad spend reached $362B.
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.
SensorTowerTop 10 Worldwide Mobile Games By Revenue and Downloads in September 2026
September mobile gaming softened overall but delivered clear live-ops wins. Global consumer spending hit $6.13B, down 7% MoM, with the US at 28.7%, China iOS 15.7%, and Japan 12.4%. Downloads reached 3.56B, down 5.2%, led by India at 16.2%. ROBLOX topped downloads and revenue growth; Honor of Kings stayed strong via seasonal content; Candy Crush and Pokémon GO used music, celebrity, and event-driven engagement. For ad ops, prioritize event-aligned UA/retargeting, IP collaborations, seasonal battle passes, and localized creatives for US/India/Brazil. Monitor launch spikes from Bus Fever Party!, Honor of Kings Chess, and Brain Puzzle 3 to time bids and creative refreshes.
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