The State of Media Buying H1 2024 - United States Spotlight highlights the US's leadership in mobile gaming advertising. The US ranks first globally in app advertisers and second in ad impressions volume. Video ads dominate as the preferred format, and playable ads have experienced remarkable growth, rising from 1% to 13% since H1 2023.
Among game genres, sports games made a notable leap in ad impressions, while puzzle games maintain the top rank. The report is based on data from H2 2023 to H1 2024, with year-over-year comparisons to H1 2023. It covers the US, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, the UK, France, Germany, Brazil, and over 100 other markets, excluding Mainland China.
Game genres analyzed include action & shooting, adventure, arcade, board, card, casino, music, racing, role-playing, simulation, sports, strategy, trivia, word, and others. The report offers insights for advertisers and developers seeking to optimize media buying strategies in the competitive US market.
Analysis of 2022 World Cup mobile data reveals that the tournament's largest engagement window occurs early, with sports entertainment installs spiking 189% and sports news 204% on November 22. Engagement revolves around national team matches, with significant spikes from non-participating markets like China (+1,294% sports entertainment installs). For 2026, brands must adapt in real-time to shifting attention across matches and regions. Adjust's AI-powered attribution and analytics provide the visibility needed to capitalize on these global events.
Ad monetization is a critical yet often overlooked revenue stream for mobile apps. Sensor Tower's new reports provide granular data on ad revenue, network performance, and ad formats. Key insights: 72% of top-grossing games use hybrid IAP+ad strategies, and ad revenue is growing across verticals like News, Ecommerce, and Entertainment. The reports enable benchmarking competitors' ad revenue, ARPMAU, and ads per minute, identifying effective networks, and evaluating acquisition targets using total revenue (IAP+ads). These insights help app developers optimize monetization strategies and maximize profits beyond in-app purchases.
Sensor Tower's Web Insights now covers 4M websites and 12M paths across 56 countries. Three new reports help marketers track user journeys (Traffic Flow), AI platform usage (LLM Market Share), and brand visibility in LLM conversations (Gen AI Brand Mentions). With AI referrals growing, these tools enable smarter traffic acquisition, benchmarking, and content optimization. Spike Analysis automatically identifies traffic anomalies. For ad ops, these features provide actionable data on referral networks, competitive ecosystem, and AI-driven discovery.
Data collaboration platforms are consolidating under ad-centric owners, threatening measurement neutrality. Publicis bought LiveRamp, WPP acquired InfoSum, and LiveRamp absorbed Habu, leaving AppsFlyer as the only major independent player. Brands must vet partners for conflicts: does the platform or its parent benefit from ad spend? Without independence, budget allocation and ROAS calculations may reflect agency incentives over actual performance. Key questions: revenue from ads, cross-channel attribution consistency, data governance, and auditable methodology.
TikTok Market Scope is a full-funnel analytics tool integrating paid, organic, and branded data to map audience journeys from awareness to conversion. Key updates include dual-funnel views for TikTok Shop and web, upgraded Brand Perception with tentpole planning, and IP-level insights for theatrical brands. Data shows consideration audiences drive 1.8x more store visits, 1.5x higher sales response, and 4.2x higher incremental sales than awareness audiences. Actionable for ad ops: leverage Brand Consideration ads to scale mid-funnel audiences and use audience tags for precision targeting.
Email, SMS, and push are high-intent channels, but a structural gap between click and in-app action causes massive drop-off. CTRs of 30-40% often yield only 1-3% in-app conversion. The root cause is ESP link wrapping, which breaks deep link context and attribution. Fixing the handoff through proper deep linking can double purchase rates and unlock channel performance. Brands must treat the link as a continuation layer, not a redirect, and ensure context survives the transition.
AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek are reshaping web discovery, with traffic surging 86% YoY. Mobile now accounts for over half of global visits, yet desktop dominates engagement. Search and social remain dominant discovery channels, but AI users convert at higher rates (e.g., Amazon Rufus shoppers convert nearly 2x). For ad ops, optimizing for AI-driven traffic and cross-platform user behavior is critical.
AppsFlyer MCP connects Claude directly to live attribution data, replacing manual reporting and CSV exports. Gaming teams catch budget anomalies overnight, finance teams compress multi-hour analysis into minutes, and e-commerce teams close the gap between measurement and spend decisions. Setup takes under 60 seconds, enabling real-time queries on channels, cohorts, and ROAS. The key insight is that AI-powered analysis requires live data connections, not stale exports.
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