The State of in-app Advertising

What should you know about in-app advertising in 2020?

Smartphones and mobile apps are a significant part of our lives nowadays. As per App Annie’s report on the state of mobile, the mobile app’s audience grows each year, with consumers downloading a record of 204B applications in 2019. Besides, an average user spent 3,7 hours per day on their phone last year, and that figure is going to grow.

The number of smartphone users is now over 3 Billion all around the world. This is undoubtedly the market you want to get into if you’re going to reach a broad audience. 

How marketers can benefit from in-app advertising

Apart from the stats above, here are a couple of more reasons to invest in in-app advertising:

Users are spending more time on their apps. Back to AppAnnie’s report, people spend 89% of their total time spent on any media on mobile apps and only 11% on the mobile web. 

The in-app advertisement has a higher click-through rate. It’s 0,58% for in-app ads compared to 0,23% CTR for mobile web. Another study shows that in-app ads perform 11,4 times better than common banner ads. 

In-app ads provide precise targeting opportunities. Advertisers have a clear view of their audience when advertising within the apps, as they can pull direct demographic and geo-location data. This makes in-app advertising even more effective, as marketers won’t waste money on showing ads to someone who certainly won’t click on it.

By using in-app ads, marketers can focus on the audience directly and show a more personalized ad, to primarily use their ad budget more effectively.





The state of in-app advertising

In-app is a promising and rapidly growing market that will continue to increase in the coming years. According to the Economic Times, the mobile industry will have contributed $4,8T to global GDP by 2023.

As for app categories that are most popular today, there are, of course, social media and communication apps, travel, business, music industry, and entertainment. Video players and edit software is also a popular category of apps. 

How do in-app advertising budgets grow? It was $190B in 2019, and it is set to reach $240 billion this year. This is more than a 25% increase, and it clearly shows that it’s an up-and-coming area, and marketers should capitalize on this trend. Over-the-top and streaming services have also greatly influenced in-app advertising, making this market even wider. 

What is also thriving in terms of in-app is mobile gaming. Since the lockdown, caused by COVID-19, the mobile gaming industry has seen even more growth. Specifically, there’s a 39% increase in global mobile game downloads in the month.

Apparently, the increasing interest in mobile gaming creates more advertising opportunities. Specifically, according to eMarketer’s prior estimations, ad spend in all games grew 16% in 2019 and will continue to grow by double-digit rates in 2020.

The future of in-app programmatic advertising

The lockdown and working from home trends resulted in people spending more time than ever on their smartphones. Messengers and entertainment apps are getting more popular, and in-app advertising is one of the most efficient ways to get your company through this tough time.

As for the mobile-first trend, mobile-focused companies had a combined $544B valuation in 2019, and that’s 6,5 times higher than companies without a mobile focus. Yet, even without looking at precise figures, we could see during the lockdown, how essential it is to have a mobile presence strategy in place.

Final thoughts

In-app programmatic advertising is a promising piece of the ad market pie. When executed correctly, it gives companies a great outcome while providing a fun and smooth experience for many users. 

The in-app advertising market will continue to grow, and it’s an excellent opportunity for marketers to bear with their audiences, drive engagement and conversions, and increase their revenues. Companies should capitalize on this trend to allocate their ad budgets wisely, and give users a good experience by showing them relevant ads.

Article on behalf of Markpoint DSP