Advanced Mobile Measurement is re-enabled: Singular now supports Meta’s AMM for both iOS and Android

Singular now supports Meta’s Advanced Mobile Measurement, offering increased attribution accuracy and speed on Meta properties including Facebook and Instagram.

Performance marketing OGs will remember Meta’s Advanced Mobile Measurement (AMM), which offers row-level data that makes app install attribution measurement fast and accurate. After a multi-year hiatus Meta’s AMM is back and now at parity with the app ads ecosystem, and that’s great news for user acquisition professionals. 

Any advertisers can accept Meta’s AMM terms, to enable row-level data via an MMP integration. AMM data will include clicks and views, and will be available for both installs and re-engagements. It will also include insights from Advanced AEM, but the datapoints that we have previously reported for Advanced AEM will now be available at a row level.

Advanced Mobile Measurement is going to help you build better:

  • ROAS modeling
  • Cohort analysis
  • Incrementality tests
  • Creative optimization
  • Multi-touch attribution models

As you’d expect, there are restrictions around who can access it and what you can do with it. You’ll have to opt in and accept Meta’s AMM terms for each app you want to use it with.

Data that Meta shares via Advanced Mobile Measurement is intended for internal performance measurement, attribution, and campaign optimization. 

That means you can’t use AMM data for:

  • Audience creation
  • Retargeting elsewhere
  • Cross-platform user profiling
  • Sharing with third parties

That said, this is a big day for mobile marketers. 

Now you can build much more precise ROAS curves per campaign and ad creative than with the previous aggregated data. You can track LTV curves per device type, geo, OS version, or campaign, and use that insight to inform where you allocate more resources. You can run controlled experiments including holdouts for incrementality testing, and you can see whether multiple ad touches and interactions result in higher levels of engagement and/or monetization.

Practically speaking, you’re going to get much faster data, and it’ll be much deeper signal which will enable very fine-grained bid adjustments and scaling decisions.

This is super-valuable particularly for high LTV apps like RPG games, fitness or health subscription apps, or fintech apps where D1 ROAS often isn’t super helpful as a predictor of true value.

Need more information?

Talk to your Singular customer success rep about your next steps, and whether this is right for you.

Top finance apps globally by region: budgeting, payments, wallets, banking, investments, and more

What are the top finance apps on the planet?

It’s pretty clear by now that fintech is the future of finance. New banks, new finance, loan, insurance, and banking apps are growing super fast, and most of the innovation in the personal financial world is being driven by top finance apps. That means a huge number of banking, budgeting, loan, investment, and finance apps are now available. Many of them are following in the footsteps of the biggest Chinese apps and becoming super-apps with many fintech features but also shopping, mini-apps, and much more.

But which are the best?

It’s hard to say, because this is not a small space:

The entire world is rapidly shifting toward digital, mobile-first financial solutions. New technology including instant payments, embedded finance, AI-driven personalized budgeting insights, and cryptocurrency are fueling this seismic shift.

There’s also not a single answer here, or a single set of best fintech apps. Finance is a heavily regulated space, so fintech apps are regional or even country-specific. We’ve looked at the top 100 fintech apps previously, but now I want to look at fintech regionally: what’s hot and happening in fintech, finance, budgeting, and banking apps all around the world.

So here we’re going to review the top finance apps by 7 key regions:

Top finance apps in Africa

The fintech scene in Africa is huge and busy.

Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the world’s most active mobile money region, with 1.1 billion registered mobile money accounts and 286 million active users at the beginning of 2025. 

M-Pesa has been around for years now and has transformed everyday finance, enabling millions of unbanked people to send, save, and receive money on basic phones. The number of mobile money transactions in Africa is enormous, with M-Pesa alone handling 30 billion transactions worth $309 billion in 2024. 

Key growth drivers include a young mobile-first population, high demand for remittances and payments, and supportive policies targeting financial inclusion. Telcos and fintech startups are expanding beyond payments into lending, savings, and insurance, creating fintech super-apps.

Top finance apps in Africa right now

  • M-Pesa (Kenya, East Africa)
    M-Pesa is a pioneering mobile money app that lets users deposit, withdraw, and transfer money via their phones. M-Pesa has over 50 million users in Kenya alone and processes up to 61 million transactions daily. It is hugely popular for peer-to-peer transfers, merchant payments, and utility bill pay. Core features include a mobile wallet, bill payments, airtime purchase, savings (M-Shwari), and small loans, so it’s an all-in-one financial tool for many, including those who were previously unbanked.
  • MTN MoMo (Pan-African)
    The MTN Mobile Money service (“MoMo”) operates in multiple African countries including Ghana, Nigeria, and Uganda via the MTN telecom network. Momo offers a wallet for transfers, airtime, bill payments, and retail purchases. As of mid-2024, MoMo had close to 70 million active users across Africa. It drives inclusion by enabling basic phone users to send money and pay bills, works via USSD menus (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data on GSM networks) or a simple app, and offers a network for cash in/out.
  • Orange Money (West/Central Africa)
    Orange Money is, not shockingly, a mobile money service by Orange, a telecom with a strong presence in French-speaking Africa such as Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Mali. It provides wallet services similar to M-Pesa with instant money transfers, merchant payments, and bank integration, and has 10s of millions of users regionally. It’s known for cross-border remittances and is a key driver of cashless transactions.
  • OPay (Nigeria)
    OPay is a fast-growing super-app and mobile wallet in Nigeria that offers payments, banking, and on-demand services. OPay’s platform enables peer transfers, utility and merchant payments, and even ride-hailing and food delivery as it too approaches “super app” territory. Opay has over 40 million active users in Nigeria and processes millions of daily transactions. Core financial capabilities include savings accounts, debit cards, and micro-loans, which means OPay is working to be a full-service digital bank alternative.
  • PalmPay (Nigeria)
    PalmPay is another popular mobile wallet and payment app. It’s known for its user-friendly interface and financial inclusion focus, and supports P2P transfers, airtime and bill payments, and merchant QR payments. PalmPay has achieved over 30 million customers by 2024, and users praise its smooth transfers and cashback rewards. PalmPay also offers savings services (fixed deposits)..
  • Chipper Cash (Pan-African)
    Chipper Cash offers cross-border payments for free or at very low-cost across 21 African countries and further international destinations such as the US and the UK. Chipper Cash is popular among young professionals and freelancers for sending money between Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and other countries, and has a user base of several million. Chipper Cash also supports crypto trading and investments in-app, along with free no-fee P2P payments, international remittances, bill paying, and a recently launched Visa card linked to the Chipper Cash digital wallet.
  • Kuda (Nigeria)
    Kuda is a leading Nigerian neobank app that offers a mobile-only bank account with no fees. Kuda provides digital checking accounts, free transfers, savings tools, and low-cost loans to around 5 million users, mostly in Nigeria. It has a high app rating due to its clean UI and reliable services. Kuda’s differentiation is in budgeting insights and spending notifications, helping users manage finances. It also issues virtual and physical debit cards and supports bill payments.
  • TymeBank (South Africa, entering other markets)
    TymeBank is South Africa’s fastest-growing digital bank and combines a low-fee bank account accessible via mobile app with an extensive kiosk network for cash deposits. The app offers no-monthly-fee accounts, and a high-interest savings tool, along with SendMoney vouchers to send money to any phone number.
  • Paga (Nigeria)
    One of Nigeria’s earliest mobile money platforms, Paga is now an app with millions of users. Paga allows users to transfer money to any phone number or bank, pay bills, and buy mobile airtime. In-app, Paga offers a multi-wallet experience (for personal or business funds), savings options, and merchant payments via QR codes.
  • Fawry (Egypt)
    Fawry is Egypt’s leading digital payments platform, used by over 35 million Egyptians via its app and agent network. Fawry started as a bill payment kiosk network and evolved into a mobile app for utility bill pay, mobile recharge, government fees, and e-commerce payments . It supports card-on-file and wallet functionality. Fawry’s app is top-rated in Egypt for its convenience – users can scan bill barcodes or select services in-app to pay instantly. The platform has also expanded into banking services, offering micro-loans and savings in partnership with banks.

Top finance apps in Asia

I’m not including China and India in this list: they are massive, ginormous countries that are almost universes to themselves, so even though some include them (especially China of course) in Asia, I think they deserve their own spotlight.

Across Asia fintech adoption has skyrocketed with the rise of super-apps and e-wallets. 

Why? 

In Southeast Asia in particular, a young population coupled with high smartphone penetration have fueled a cashless payments boom.

Some are calling it a golden age, largely because we’re seeing almost 20% growth annually in digital payments that should reach $1.7 trillion by 2029 in Southeast Asia alone. Countries like Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam have jumped straight from cash-heavy economies to mobile-first finance thanks to government support like Indonesia’s BI-Fast and Thailand’s PromptPay.

We’re seeing a huge proliferation of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services, plus increasing integration of crypto and remittances features into wallets. Importantly, Southeast Asia’s super-apps like Grab and GoTo integrate payments with ride-hailing, delivery, and more, providing everyday apps for (almost) everything.

Top finance apps in Asia right now

  • GCash (Philippines)
    GCash is a dominant finance super-app in the Philippines with mobile wallet payments, banking, and more. It has almost 100 million users and covers about 70% of Filipino adults, providing bill payments, bank transfers, QR retail payments, savings accounts, loans, investments, insurance, and even a credit score.
  • Maya (formerly PayMaya, Philippines)
    Another leading Filipino fintech app is Maya, which combines a digital wallet with a digital bank. Maya has tens of millions of users well over 5 million banking customers. It enables P2P transfers, bills, and QR payments like GCash, and also offers a fully licensed digital bank with savings, loans, crypto trading, and a credit card.
  • Grab (GrabPay) – Southeast Asia
    Grab is Southeast Asia’s ubiquitous super-app and its GrabPay e-wallet is among the top payment apps in the region. GrabPay is integrated into the Grab app for ride-hailing and food delivery, but also used at merchants online and offline, sometimes via QR code. It supports P2P transfers, mobile recharge, bill payment, and Buy Now Pay Later (PayLater by Grab). Grab also launched a digital bank (GXS Bank) in Singapore and Malaysia, so the app now includes bank accounts and savings features. With tens of millions of users, GrabPay’s popularity is tied to Grab’s everyday services, loyalty rewards, and tie-ins like insurance and investments accessible from the app.
  • GoPay (Indonesia)
    The integrated wallet in the Gojek super-app GoPay is one of Indonesia’s most popular mobile finance apps, having processed over 100 million payments. It began as a way to pay for Gojek rides and deliveries, and now is used for everything from paying bills and merchants (via QRIS national QR code) to investing in mutual funds (GoInvestasi). GoPay has around 38 million monthly average users and is known for its cashback promotions and extensive offline merchant network. Through its GoPayLater service, it also offers BNPL lending. Security is solid with PIN and biometric features, and the app’s integration with Gojek’s services drives daily engagement.
  • OVO (Indonesia)
    Another top Indonesian digital wallet, OVO is accepted widely for retail payments and was one of Indonesia’s first unicorn fintechs. It has over 60 million users and was the #3 e-wallet by awareness in 2023. OVO’s core is an e-wallet for P2P transfers, QR payments, and loyalty rewards. OVO also offers access to investments (OVO Invest for mutual funds) and insurance in-app.
  • DANA (Indonesia)
    DANA is a rapidly growing Indonesian wallet platform, reportedly reaching 170 million users last year, which would make it one of Southeast Asia’s largest e-wallets. DANA enables fund transfers, bill and e-commerce payments, and has features like escrow for marketplace payments. The company recently introduced a DANA Visa card and offers an installment BNPL service.
  • ShopeePay (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, etc.)
    Shopee is massive in Southeast Asia, and so is its payment functionality, ShopeePay. ShopeePay is used for online shopping checkouts, P2P transfers, and QR payments offline. It often offers generous cashback rewards for use, driving adoption. Key features include free bank transfers in some markets, contactless QR payments, and a seamless link to Shopee’s shopping app. With Shopee expanding into food delivery and travel, ShopeePay is evolving into a general-purpose wallet beyond e-commerce.
  • MoMo (Vietnam)
    Vietnam’s leading finance app, MoMo, has surpassed 40 million active users as of 2025. MoMo started as a mobile wallet and expanded into a more comprehensive super-app with functionality like instant P2P transfers, utility and bill payments, mobile top-up, and offline QR payments at over 100,000 locations. Recently, MoMo has added a marketplace for loans, investments, and insurance where users can invest spare change, buy insurance packages, or get small loans right in the app. It also offers lifestyle services like movie and travel bookings, like other superapps.
  • bKash (Bangladesh)
    bKash is Bangladesh’s leading mobile financial service, with 330,000 agents, 550,000 merchants, and a customer base of nearly 80 million. Initially an SMS-based mobile money service, bKash now offers a full app for sending money, mobile recharges, utility payments, and merchant QR payments, connecting millions of unbanked Bangladeshis to financial services. bKash has also integrated with banks and provides savings schemes and digital loans through partnerships. The app has added new features like an education fee payment portal and in-app remittance receiving options.
  • Easypaisa (Pakistan)
    The first and most popular mobile wallet in Pakistan, Easypaisa has over 10 million monthly active app users. The app enables a full suite of services: money transfers (to any phone or bank), utility bill payments, mobile top-ups, QR payments, and an array of financial products including savings accounts, micro-loans, insurance, and a Visa debit card linked to the wallet.

Top finance apps in China

As 1 of the 2 largest countries in the world by population, China deserves to be broken out. 

China’s fintech environment in 2025 is highly developed and at scale. It’s also more regulated and consolidated than it was just a few years ago. In other words, it’s no longer the wild wild East: this is a mature market now.

Digital payments are utterly mainstream: 9 in 10 Chinese smartphone users make mobile payments, and cash is rare in cities. As most people know, the market is dominated by two super-app ecosystems: Alipay and WeChat Pay, each with over a billion users … which means most people have both. These platforms grew from payments apps into full financial ecosystems offering loans, investments, insurance, and beyond. 

(Plus, of course, since they’re super-apps, they also do much more, offering mini-apps for games, shopping, ordering food … pretty much anything you can imagine.)

Since late 2020, regulators have tightened oversight on the fintech giants to reduce risk in the finance and banking spaces. That hasn’t changed how Chinese people use fintech apps, however: fintech services remain deeply embedded in Chinese life.

One major factor is the launch of the digital renminbi (e-CNY) … a potentially significant development for the future. Undergoing testing as early as 2021, the e-CNY began to be in limited use in 2023.  The goal here is to at least partially replace cash.

Top finance apps in China right now

  • Alipay (Zhifubao)
    The largest mobile finance app in China, Alipay has over 1 billion active users and is, of course, an omnipurpose super-app. Alipay is now used for basically everything: scan-and-go payments at stores, P2P transfers, ride-hailing, food delivery orders, hotel bookings, utility bill payments, and much more with huge numbers of mini-apps from brands that can be used to access thousands of services. Alipay’s core is its wallet linked to bank cards, but it also offers savings, investments, a credit card and BNPL functionality, micro-loans, insurance products, and even credit scoring via Zhima Credit. As a payments platform, Alipay processed an estimated 200+ trillion CNY ($30+ trillion) in transactions in 2024 (including bank transfers and QR payments). It’s hard to overstate Alipay’s ubiquity: “Alipay or WeChat?” is the default question instead of cash or card, which you might have in the West.
  • WeChat (WeChat Pay)
    WeChat is China’s other “everything app. While it started as primarily a social/chat app, it also features WeChat Pay, the second-largest mobile payment system. Called Weixin in Chinese, WeChat has 1.3 billion monthly active users, and most of them use WeChat Pay. Any user can link their bank card to WeChat and start paying friends or merchants, and WeChat Pay is accepted nearly everywhere in China, often via the same QR codes as Alipay. WeChat’s mini-app ecosystem allows for in-app purchases, ride hailing, food delivery, e-commerce, etc., all paid by WeChat Pay. Financial services via WeChat are delivered through WeBank or partners, and people can get micro-loans, wealth management products, and insurance through WeChat’s Wallet section.
  • UnionPay (Cloud QuickPass)
    The official mobile app by China’s UnionPay card network, known as Yunshanfu, UnionPay This app recently had a surge in downloads and is a top global app by virtue of its adoption in China. UnionPay can connect multiple bank cards from different banks and supports UnionPay QR code payments, NFC tap-to-pay, and P2P transfers. Heavily promoted by state banks, it’s essentially a more bank-centric counterpart to Alipay/WeChat. The app also aggregates offers/coupons, bill payments, and transit card features.
  • ICBC Mobile
    ICBC Mobile is the mobile banking app from Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world’s largest bank. ICBC’s mobile app user base is enormous: as of 2024, ICBC had 588 million mobile banking customers, with 260 million monthly active users on its mobile app. (The crazy part: in China, this is almost small compared to the leaders above.) ICBC Mobile allows customers to do all banking transactions (transfers, deposits, credit card management, loan applications) from their phone. In addition, it offers lifestyle services like utility bill payments, investments (ICBC Wealth management products), insurance purchase, and even concert ticket bookings. It’s all part of Chinese banks’ strategy to stay relevant. The ICBC app is consistently ranked first among bank apps in China for its functionality and user experience.
  • Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) Mobile
    ABC is another “Big Four” bank app serving a vast client base, including rural customers. Like ICBC Mobile, ABC has about 500+ million mobile users and is known for a user-friendly interface. The app provides comprehensive banking (transfers, account opening, and loans) and supports payment scans just like the big fintech apps. ABC leverages its network to encourage rural users onto the app, including integrating with the national rural payment network.
  • WeBank (WeBank App)
    WeBank is China’s first online-only bank, launched by one of China’s biggest tech companies, Tencent. Many WeChat users access WeBank’s services via WeChat, but WeBank also has its own standalone app. WeBank provides digital deposit accounts, consumer loans, business loans, and wealth management, serving over 300 million consumers.
  • MyBank (Ant Group)
    Similar to WeBank, MyBank is Ant Group’s internet bank focusing on small and medium-sized businesses, and microloans to people. Its consumer-facing app isn’t super-prominent because MyBank primarily issues loans via partners (like Alipay). However, it has a sizable user base among Taobao merchants and small entrepreneurs, and is piloting innovative services like lending based on commerce data and allowing rural users to open accounts via face recognition on the app.
  • Ping An Pocket Bank
    Ping An Bank’s mobile app is another bank app in China. It provides the usual banking features plus a wealth management supermarket and unique personal finance tools like budgeting and expense analysis. While not exactly a super-app, it also integrates health services from Ping An Good Doctor, blurring lines between finance and healthcare.
  • Ant Fortune
    A specialized investment and wealth management app by Ant Group, Ant Fortune aggregates hundreds of mutual funds, fixed-income products, and insurance from various providers. For users who want more than the basics found in Alipay, Ant Fortune provides advanced tools like fund screeners, community discussions, and robo-advisory portfolios. It has attracted almost 200 million users.
  • JD Finance (JD Digits/JD Pay)
    JD is one of China’s e-commerce giants. It has a fintech arm with an app that combines payments like JD Pay, consumer credit, and wealth management. JD has branched into offline retail and salaries and its finance app has grown significantly.

Top finance apps in Europe

As you’d expect, the European fintech scene in 2025 is fairly mature, though still evolving in southern and eastern Europe, and heavily influenced by regulation. 

It’s increasingly integrated with traditional banking, but digital payments that are ubiquitous in China and other countries are much more rare in Europe, and usage numbers are nothing like China’s or India’s. Traditional financial tools like credit cards are much more common, and of course the population in European countries is much lower.

Key drivers in Europe for fintech include open banking initiatives, with apps like Revolut, Monese, and Emma using bank data to offer holistic money management. Crypto has cooled in the European fintech space, but payments and digital wallets, along with wealth management apps, are on the rise. 

Personal budgeting and financial planning apps are also growing. 

Top finance apps in Europe right now

  • Revolut (UK, EU-wide)
    Revolut is a bit of a European fintech super-app with banking, payments, investing, crypto, travel insurance, budgeting. It has somewhere around 40 million users, most of whom are in Europe, and is well regarded. Revolut offers P2P payments and bill splitting, stock trading, and offers some BNPL services in the UK.
  • PayPal (EU-wide)
    PayPal, while originally American, also operates in Europe as a digital wallet for online payments, P2P transfers, merchant payments. It’s one of the most-used wallets, with perhaps 75 million users in Europe, and a good reputation. It also has P2P payments (pretty much the original use case for PayPal!), and has merchant check-out features, savings in some countries, crypto currency in some as well, and BNPL.
  • Wise (UK, EU-wide)
    Formerly TransferWise, Wise focuses on international money transfers, plus multi-currency accounts, plus a credit card card: the Wise Card. Wise has about 16 million users globally, the majority of whom are in Europe. Wise also offers budgeting tools and peer-to-peer transfers, as well as foreign exchange transfers.
  • N26 (Germany, rest of EU)
    N26 is a digital bank — a neobank if you will — that primarily operates in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and a few other countries. It offers free accounts, credit cards, budgeting tools, savings, and investing options, and has perhaps 8 million users. It also offers crypto trading in some countries.
  • Bunq (Netherlands, rest of EU)
    Bunq is a digital bank with focus on sustainability, multi-currency accounts, and travel. It has perhaps 10 million users, focusing on the Netherlands, is well rated, and offers functionality for banking, P2P payments, savings, joint accounts, a travel card, budgeting, and investments in ETFs. It also offers “Green Goals” and plants trees in return for usage.
  • Lydia (France)
    Lydia is a popular app in France for P2P payments, mobile banking, and credit cards, especially among younger people. It has about 7 million users, handles P2P payments, offers banking accounts, allows users to trade crypto, brokers loans, and offers BNPL services.
  • Satispay (Italy, France, Germany)
    Satispay is an independent mobile payments network competing with PayPal and credit cards. It has about 4 million users, mostly in Italy, and focuses on offline merchants. Capabilities include P2P payments, merchant payments, bill paying, budgeting, donations, and savings.
  • Twint (Switzerland)
    Twint is the dominant mobile payments app in Switzerland, with about 5 million users. It offers P2P payments, QR merchant payments, bill splitting, ticket purchases, loyalty integrations, and transit payments
  • Other payment apps of interest include
    • Trade Republic  is mostly in Germany and does investments, crypto, and savings
    • Bitpanda is in Austria and elsewhere, and focuses on crypto and stocks
    • Emma is mostly in the UK and is a budgeting and financial aggregation app offering bank aggregation, budgeting, subscription tracking, savings insights, plus net worth tracking

Top finance apps in India

India’s fintech ecosystem in 2025 is super dynamic and, along with China, arguably the most advanced on the planet in terms of digital payments and fintech adoption.

The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a real-time mobile payments network that has become a way of life, processing billions of transactions every month. In 2024 alone, India saw 208.5 billion digital payment transactions, largely driven by UPI. Fintech apps in India benefit from this interoperable infrastructure: any UPI app can pay any other, meaning there’s a somewhat level playing field for competition and innovation. 

Over 75% of urban adults and a growing share of rural users now use mobile payment apps. Thanks to India’s massive population and open APIs for KYC, payments, and data sharing, the big apps have hundreds of millions of users. 

These apps are generally shifting towards super apps with many varied offerings. 

India has several homegrown fintech giants, and global players tailor their offerings for India, with Google Pay being a prime example (it’s a very different app in India versus the United States, for instance). India’s consumers benefit from intense competition: almost all fintech apps offer zero fees, instant service, and an expanding suite of capabilities.

Like China, India is piloting a central bank digital currency, and has been experimenting with it since 2023.

Top finance apps in India right now

  • PhonePe
    PhonePe is India’s top digital payments app by volume and reach, having surpassed 500 million users in 2023. PhonePe offers a UPI-based mobile wallet for instant bank transfers, QR code payments in shops, bill payments, and more. Initially focused on simple UPI transfers, PhonePe has evolved into a full fintech platform: people can buy gold (!!!), invest in mutual funds, purchase insurance, pay taxes, and even shop within the app via mini-apps. It’s supported by a huge network of over 35 million merchants.
  • Google Pay (GPay)
    A close competitor to PhonePe, Google Pay in India is very different than Google Pay elsewhere. Leveraging UPI for seamless payments, Google Pay has about 36% of India’s mobile payments market with a chat-like interface, making sending money as easy as texting. Google Pay users can pay anyone via UPI, tap & pay via NFC, pay bills, and recharge phones. Google Pay has also added personal finance features to track spending and bills, and integrated wealth products like stocks. Interestingly, Google Pay has far more success in India than in any other country.
  • Paytm
    Paytm was once synonymous with digital wallets in India. Now Paytm is a broad fintech app with payments, banking, and commerce with over 96 million monthly average users as of 2024. Paytm offers UPI transfers, its own wallet payments, bill payments, movie and travel bookings, and merchant QR payments. Paytm is essentially a bank: users can hold savings and earn interest. It also offers mutual fund investments, stock trading, insurance, BNPL, and Fastag toll payments, making it a financial super-app. 
  • YONO SBI
    YONO (You Only Need One) is the mobile banking and lifestyle app by State Bank of India, India’s largest bank. With SBI’s vast customer base, YONO has a huge user count, with goals to hit 100 million as of last year. The YONO app is differentiated in blending banking with a marketplace, allowing SBI customers to check accounts, transfer funds, open deposits, apply for loans or credit cards, and also check shopping deals and travel bookings. YONO features “YONO Cash,” a cardless ATM withdrawal using the app. As a banking app, it has strong security and now even incorporates budgeting and personal finance management tools.
  • Bajaj Finserv
    Bajaj is an app by Bajaj Finance, which is India’s leading non-bank lender. It has become a top fintech platform for loans, payments, and investments. The Bajaj Finserv app has massive adoption: as we noted, it was among the top 20 fintech apps by downloads globally in 2025. Bajaj users can apply for personal loans, get consumer durable loans, manage their Bajaj EMI card, pay bills via UPI, and buy insurance or invest in fixed deposits.
  • Airtel Thanks
    Airtel Thanks is an app by telecom operator Bharti Airtel that evolved into a combined telco self-care and fintech app. It’s used by a large portion of Airtel’s 360 million subscribers in India for mobile recharges and plan management, and it doubles as the app for Airtel Payments Bank, which offers UPI payments, a savings account, and a digital wallet.
  • CRED
    CRED is a niche but influential fintech app focusing on credit card management and rewards. CRED targets high-net-worth Indians. It has about 13 million monthly active users and allows members to manage and pay all their credit card bills in one place. In return for on-time payments, users get points that can be redeemed for products, discounts, or lottery-style jackpots. CRED has expanded into lending, investment products, and e-commerce with a members-only store.
  • MobiKwik
    One of India’s original mobile wallets, MobiKwik has reinvented itself in the UPI era and still has over 40 million users. The app supports wallet payments, UPI transfers, bill and recharge payments, and it has a large biller catalog. MobiKwik also offers a BNPL product, giving eligible users a short-term credit line for purchases. Additionally, MobiKwik offers mutual fund investments and digital gold.
  • Groww
    Groww makes stock market and mutual fund investing easy for India’s millennials. With over 40 million users, Groww is highly popular for commission-free stock trading, direct mutual fund investments, fixed deposits, and US stock investing, all in one app.
  • Kotak 811
    Kotak 811 is the digital banking app/initiative of Kotak Mahindra Bank, one of India’s prominent private banks. The Kotak 811 app allows anyone to open a zero-fee digital savings account. Users get a full-fledged bank account with a virtual debit card, which they can use for UPI payments, transfers, and online shopping.

Top finance apps in South America, Latin America, Central America

South America, Central America, and Latin America is one of the fastest-growing fintech markets in the world. There’s massive growth in digital payments and transfers, super-app and ecosystem plays that offer multiple fintech solutions in a single app, crypto and alt-currencies, and more. 

Millions of people are getting their first financial account ever via a smartphone app rather than a bank branch, as large populations of unbanked people are gaining access to multiple digital financial tools. Supportive regulations, like Mexico’s fintech law, Brazil’s open banking and Pix instant payment, have helped. 

The result is people increasingly using mobile apps for everyday finance, from paying bills to buying groceries. Some countries in the region also embrace crypto relatively more, driven by inflation and currency instability in countries like Argentina and Venezuela.

Top finance apps in South/Latin/Central America right now

  • Nubank
    Nubank is the poster child of Latin American fintech. Originally a Brazilian digital bank, Nubank has become one of the world’s largest neobanks with over 118 million customers across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. The Nubank app offers a no-fee digital bank account, a credit card, personal loans, investments, insurance, and more. Customers can do instant Pix transfers, earn interest on deposits, and invest in mutual funds or crypto. In Mexico, Nubank has gained millions of users via its credit card under the Nu brand.
  • Mercado Pago
    Mercado Pago is the fintech arm of the e-commerce giant MercadoLibre in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and other countries. Mercado Pago started as an online payment method for MercadoLibre but is now a comprehensive wallet and digital bank with at least 64 million monthly active users. The Mercado Pago app lets users save money, pay at stores via QR code, pay bills, top-up phone plans, and send P2P transfers. It’s widely used by small merchants and offers loans, investments, and insurance products.
  • PicPay
    PicPay is a Brazilian mobile payments and digital wallet app that has become extremely popular with youth, with over 60 million registered users and around 35 million active users. PicPay enables transfers to friends and to merchants, but also offers a digital account with Mastercard, bill payments, an in-app marketplace to buy gift cards and transit tickets, and a lending platform. It also has some crypto trading and an investments hub.
  • PagBank (PagSeguro)
    PagSeguro is a Brazilian fintech known originally for its mobile point-of-sale devices for merchants. The PagBank app has become a full consumer digital bank with over 30 million customers, offering digital checking accounts, a Visa card, Pix transfers, bill payments, mobile top-ups, and other financial services like personal loans and investments.
  • Banco Inter
    Banco Inter is yet another Brazilian digital bank success. Originally an offshoot of a small bank, Inter exploded by offering a free app for banking, investing, and shopping cashback, reaching 35 million clients in 2024. Inter also offers no-fee checking and savings, credit cards, loans, investments, insurance, and — of course — shopping. There’s also an AI-powered financial assistant, and Inter’s strategy of combining finance and e-commerce has increased user engagement: customers can scroll looking for deals and then pay with their Inter card or account.
  • C6 Bank
    C6 Bank is a relatively new but rapidly growing Brazilian digital bank with about 35 million customers by the end of 2024. Similar to Nubank and Inter, C6 Bank’s app offers a range of financial products: accounts, debit/credit cards, a loyalty program, investments, and lending. C6 also offers a toll tag for cars, business accounts, and a marketplace for telecom top-ups and gift cards.
  • Nequi
    Nequi is a leading digital wallet in Colombia with around 22 million users. The Nequi app offers a digital savings account and a chat-based interface for banking. Users can send money, pay bills, get virtual cards for online purchases, save in subaccounts or “pockets,” and get short-term loans. Nequi recently added a marketplace for third-party services and deeper integration with Colombia’s QR payment network..
  • Ualá
    Ualá is an Argentine fintech unicorn offering a personal finance app and prepaid Mastercard. It has over 9 million users across Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia, and allows users to open an account, top up via cash deposits, send bank transfers, and pay with the Ualá card or app. The app has a personal lending product, and Ualá has begun offering investments and BNPL products. Ualá expanded to Mexico in 2020 and more recently Colombia, often targeting youth and unbanked populations. It also offers crypto trading in counties with less stable national currencies..
  • Bitso
    Bitso is the most prominent cryptocurrency platform in Latin America, originating in Mexico and also operating in Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia. Bitso’s user base passed 9 million in 2024, allowing people to buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a variety of local stablecoins (for example, MXN or ARS-pegged tokens). Bitso focuses on real use cases like remittances in crypto, and converting salaries to stablecoins to escape high inflation. The app integrates with local banking systems so users can deposit and withdraw in local currency.
  • Daviplata
    Daviplata is a Colombian mobile wallet launched by Banco Davivienda with about 15 million users. Daviplata allows anyone to open a basic electronic account using their ID, receive and send money, pay bills, and withdraw cash at ATMs or partner stores. It gained massive usage when the government used Daviplata to distribute emergency subsidies to millions during COVID-19. It also offers services for international remittances, contactless payments, and micro-loans.

Top finance apps in North America (US & Canada)

In North America, especially the US, fintech is about innovation but also integration into mainstream finance, which is large, dominant, and mature. Unlike fast-growing regions where fintech apps replace traditional banking or enable banking for those who are previously unbanked, in North America fintech apps augment what the traditional financial marketplace has usually offered, or specialize in something that it has missed. 

That often means apps that focus on budgeting, credit scores, investing, or peer-to-peer payments.

But it also means neobanks, commission-free stock trading apps, and crypto apps. There’s also a large BNPL or “buy now, pay later” ecosystem of providers like Affirm or Klarna, and robo-advisors like Wealthfront or Betterment for managing investments. 

Canada’s fintech scene is smaller, with strong incumbent banks, but apps like Wealthsimple (investing) and Koho (spending and savings with prepaid cards) have gained traction among millennials. 

North American consumers expect convenience coupled with capability, so fintechs tend to partner with banks or get bank charters so they can offer everything digitally. North America’s fintech apps have typically tended to be more siloed or specialized, but the trend now is aggregation … so we may start to see financial super-apps in North America as well as other parts of the world.

Top finance apps in North America right now

  • PayPal
    A pioneer of digital payments, PayPal remains one of the top finance apps in North America with over 400 million global active accounts, including around 80 million in the U.S. The PayPal app lets users send and request money domestically and internationally, pay online merchants, and manage a PayPal balance or linked bank accounts/cards. It also offers PayPal Credit and a Buy Now Pay Later installment option at checkout. The PayPal app is adding more personal finance features like a savings account and crypto trading for Bitcoin/Ethereum.
  • Venmo
    Owned by PayPal, Venmo is the app for peer-to-peer payments among young Americans with about 85 million users. It has a social feed for payments, links to bank accounts or cards to send money instantly, and has a Venmo Mastercard debit card, the ability to pay at online merchants, and check cashing. In 2025, Venmo added teen accounts for young users with parental oversight and Venmo crypto. Venmo processes a huge volume: over $240 billion in 2024. It continues to grow, but it faces competition from Zelle and Cash App, as well as products from Apple and Google.
  • Cash App
    Cash App is a popular finance app with 57 million monthly active users. Users can send or receive money instantly, and they get a unique “$cashtag” ID to share for payments. Cash App also offers a Cash Card, or free Visa debit card, and has expanded into commission-free stock investing, Bitcoin trading, and tax filing. Some people use Cash App as an alternative bank. They can do direct deposit of paychecks into Cash App and receive tax refunds there as well.
  • Zelle
    Zelle is the banking industry’s answer to Venmo … it’s an instant bank-to-bank payment network embedded in most major US banking apps. But it also has a standalone app that allows free instant transfers directly between bank accounts using an email or phone number. Zelle is massive, handling hundreds of billions of dollars of transfers. 
  • Chime
    Chime is the leading U.S. neobank. It’s a fintech company that offers banking services via app without its own banking license by partnering with banks. Users can open a deposit account in minutes with no credit check, get a Visa debit card, and manage money with a focus on low fees (no monthly/overdraft fees). Chime has over 15 million customers and is particularly popular among those fed up with traditional bank fees or who don’t qualify easily for big bank accounts. The app also offers direct deposit for paychecks, automated savings by percentages or round-ups on purchases, and more.
  • Robinhood
    Robinhood remains a top finance app in the US (it’s not available in Canada) due to its role in democratizing stock trading. It has over 22 million funded accounts and provides commission-free trading of stocks, ETFs, options, and crypto, with a slick, gamified user experience. Robinhood also offers a cash account, a retirement product, and social features like seeing what others are trading.
  • Coinbase
    Coinbase is the leading cryptocurrency exchange app in North America. During the crypto peaks it topped download charts, and as of 2025 it still has a strong user base of around 100 million verified users globally. As you’d expect, the Coinbase app enables buying, selling, and holding of dozens of cryptocurrencies. It also supports features like recurring buys, crypto staking, and a Coinbase Card to spend crypto.
  • Mint
    Mint is a long-standing budgeting and personal finance management app. It’s an OG in the budgeting and finance sectors, having launched way back in 2007. Mint remains highly popular for aggregating all of a user’s finances in one place. It connects to bank accounts, credit cards, loans, and investments, and updates balances and transactions automatically. Mint also provides budgeting tools and credit score monitoring, bill reminders, and tips on saving.
  • Credit Karma
    Both Mint and Credit Karma are owned by Intuit, and Credit Karma is an app focused on credit score monitoring and credit product recommendations. It gives users weekly updates of their TransUnion and Equifax credit scores, along with the full credit report details. With over 110 million members in the U.S. and Canada, Credit Karma is very popular. Credit Karma essentially acts as a personalized financial marketplace, showing users offers for all kinds of financial tools, products, and services. The app also features a high-yield savings account and tax filing.
  • SoFi
    SoFi (short for social finance) is a U.S. fintech that started in student loan refinancing and has become a broad-based financial app … essentially a modern bank + brokerage + lender, all in one. SoFi offers checking and savings accounts, stock and ETF trading, robo-advisory investing, crypto trading, credit cards, personal and student loans, mortgages, and even insurance, making it something of a financial super-app. It has a member base of over 5 million users. 

Finance planet: so much innovation

So we’ve looked at finance app trends globally, divided in 7 key regions:

  • Africa
  • Asia
  • China (broken out from broader Asia)
  • Europe
  • India (also broken out from broader Asia)
  • North America (US & Canada)
  • South America/Central America/Latin America (with Mexico)

What can we say about the big picture?

1. Mobile finance is the new default

Apps are the primary channel for financial services, even in traditional and cash-heavy countries. Whether it’s digital wallets like M-Pesa in Africa, Paytm in India, or Cash App in the U.S., of just e-transfers from any bank app, consumers now expect 24/7 financial access from their phones.

2. Super apps are pretty super (and growing)

Super-apps that combine banking, payments, investing, and more are dominant in many markets. We see Revolut and Paytm in Europe and India, WeChat and Alipay in China, Nubank in Latin America, even SoFi in the United States.

But how they’re built varies.

In China, super apps are part of mega-ecosystems from huge tech companies. In Europe and North America, they’re built through modular features or integrations with multiple companies. And in Africa and parts of Asia, super apps often combine digital features with physical, human agent networks for cash-in/cash-out.

3. P2P payments are foundational

Peer-to-peer payments are the key building block for fintech apps. Globally, we expect instant, free, social money transfer as a core function, whether it’s Venmoor Zelle in the U.S., Lydia in France, bKash in Bangladesh, or Twint in Switzerland.

Or, of course, red envelopes in China.

4. Savings, credit, and budgeting tools are everywhere

Inflation, high interest rates, and economic uncertainty have pushed many of us toward savings automation, loan access, and budget visibility. That might mean saving pots, or pockets, in India, LATAM, or Africa. It could mean microloans. It could also mean credit scores in North America.

5. Wealth and investing features are going mainstream

Everyone can be banked. Everyone can invest. Everyone can save. Everyone can buy crypto. Everyone can budget.

Basically, everyone can access almost every kind of financial tool they want, all via mobile.

6. Crypto is stabilizing

Crypto functionality hasn’t disappeared, but it’s less hyped. And it’s more carefully integrated with other financial tools.

We see that in Revolut, PayPal, N26, Bitpanda, Coinbase, and Lydia. It’s less speculative, more regulated, with limited asset classes: crypto is now a checkbox in app portfolios, not a growth rocket.

Or a get-rich-quick-scheme.

7. Agent networks remain critical for inclusion in some markets

In regions like Africa, South Asia, and parts of LATAM, digital finance still relies on agent-assisted infrastructure.

We see M-Pesa, Fawry, Easypaisa, Paga, and other top fintech apps real-world agents for onboarding, cash handling, and trust along with their digital tools.

8. Open Banking and API connectivity fuel smarter apps

Especially in Europe, India, parts of Asia, and parts of LATAM, Open Banking standards like PSD2, UPI, and Open Credit Enablement are powering account aggregation, credit scoring, and smart lending and personalized recommendations.

9. Localization matters

Almost everywhere, the top fintech apps are deeply localized to cultural, regulatory, and infrastructure realities. It’s hard — though possible in Europe, Southeast Asia, and LATAM in particular — to build 1 app that serves multiple countries, languages, and regulatory environments.

10. Trust, security, and regulation shape everything

This is finance. It involves money.

Trust is essential for everything.

Globally, users are concerned about fraud, privacy, and misuse of financial data. And regulators are tightening up regulations. We see that in the EU with PSD3, the AI Act, and the Digital Markets Act. In India, we’re seeing stricter KYC and data localization. And in LATAM we’re seeing new central bank mandates for fintech licenses.

This is still a massively growing space.

There is still tons of opportunity.

To turn these global trends into scalable success, it’s crucial to have a unified view of your marketing data. See the analytics platform built for the world’s leading finance apps

Talk to your data: Singular launches instant AI-powered insights with top LLMs, starting with Claude

Palo Alto, CA, June 13 — For the first time ever, marketers can use the full power of the world’s best LLM AI engines to query every detail of their live marketing campaigns. Singular is announcing a first-to-market integration with Claude, Anthropic’s LLM, with other major AI platforms like ChatGPT to follow. The result is that marketers can simply talk to their massive multi-gigabyte databases with detailed information on campaigns, creative, and conversions, and get all the answers they need.

  • Which creatives are showing signs of fatigue?
  • Which ad partners are driving the most ROI?
  • Which adsets are working best on Meta?
  • What campaigns are most effective?
  • Which ad partners should I consider dropping?
  • Where is my cost per install increasing fastest?
  • What ads are most profitable?

Take a look:

Claude first, thanks to Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP)

This new first-to-market integration is made possible by Anthropic’s just-released Model Context Protocol (MCP), which provides a secure, fast connection between all the AI power in Claude and all the rich data in Singular. MCP is a secure interface protocol: think “USB-C port for AI.” OpenAI is building MCP as well, as are other major LLMs like Microsoft’s Gemini, and Singular will support each as it becomes available.

“Speed wins in marketing,” said Gadi Eliashiv, CEO and co-founder at Singular. “By connecting our analysis-ready data to world-class LLMs, we’re giving marketers a new level of intelligence and agility.”

Ease of use is just as critical as speed.

Most organizations suffer from a “data divide.” They have data that can inform decision-making, but it’s only in a few hands. Or, getting it requires technical skill and specific tools that only a few have. Democratizing access to data by allowing everyone with data privileges to simply ask natural language questions is a game-changer to ensure the entire organization makes smarter decisions and better investments.

No code. No dashboards. No complex queries.

Just plain spoken or typed language.

Thanks to Singular’s Model Context Protocol integration, all Singular clients have access to a secure, scalable method for enabling LLMs to interact with enterprise-grade datasets.

Claude can now:

  • Access fully unified marketing data across platforms and channels
  • Analyze creative-level performance tagged by AI
  • Reflect live campaign changes within hours, not days
  • Deliver accurate insights using normalized, governance-ready pipelines

It’s incredibly easy to use and marketers can get started in minutes by adding Singular MCP as a data source in Claude’s integrations screen. Once they authenticate, they can simply talk to Claude to access their data. Claude will build charts, comparisons, suggest actions, all based on Singular’s standardized, normalized, and enriched datasets.

The integration is available today, and it’s a first of its kind in the measurement and analytics space.

True ROI, powered by Singular (and now Claude)

Singular unifies cost, attribution, creative, and engagement data to deliver what modern marketing teams need: true ROI. The platform supports over 1,200 data connectors and includes advanced features for SKAN modeling, cross-platform attribution, fraud prevention, and creative performance tracking.

This latest integration builds on Singular’s track record of delivering smarter tools for faster growth.

About Singular

Singular is the only end-to-end marketing analytics platform that uncovers True ROI by unifying cost, performance, and engagement data across every marketing channel. Trusted by growth leaders at LinkedIn, Rovio, EA, and Nike, Singular helps teams optimize smarter, scale faster, and eliminate wasted spend.

Now you’re a data genius too: get instant AI-powered marketing insights from top LLMs, starting with Claude

Today Singular is announcing global availability for a first-ever deep integration with Anthropic’s Claude, soon to be followed by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and more. For the first time ever, you can get instant AI-powered marketing insights using the full power of the world’s best AI engines. 

Your data shouldn’t be locked away in spreadsheets or trapped in dashboards. Getting the insight you need should be as simple as asking the right questions.

Like Kramer and MoviePhone:

Claude LLM marketing data

 

Now it’s just that simple. And you’re automatically a data genius.

Bonus: you don’t even have to learn SQL or Python.

You and your team have a huge amount of rich marketing data in Singular. Now you can have it in your head, simply by talking or typing a super-simple natural-language question.

AI-powered marketing insights for the asking, straight from Claude and other LLMs

What do you want to know about your marketing campaigns? Now you just need to ask:

  • Which creatives are showing signs of fatigue?
  • Which ad partners are driving the most ROI?
  • Which adsets are working best on Google?
  • What campaigns are most effective?
  • Which ad partners should I consider dropping?
  • Where is my cost per install increasing fastest?
  • What ads are most profitable?

Don’t use Claude? You’re a ChatGPT subscriber? 

No worries: more integrations are coming soon.

This is the first shipping solution from an MMP that uses Anthropic’s just-released Model Context Protocol (MCP), a secure, fast interface between your own rich data in Singular and the superintelligence of the world’s smartest AI engines. But MCP is an open standard for connecting data sources to LLMs, and both OpenAI and Google have committed to releasing their own MCP interfaces as well. 

As soon as they’re available, Singular will support them.

Speed AND ease of use

This new AI integration with your Singular data is a game-changer for at least 2 reasons. The first is speed, and the second is ease of use.

“Speed wins in marketing,” said Gadi Eliashiv, CEO and co-founder at Singular. “By connecting our analysis-ready data to world-class LLMs, we’re giving marketers a new level of intelligence and agility.”

Ease of use is just as important.

Maybe you’re not deep into SQL. Maybe you aren’t a Tableau expert. Maybe you’ve used Singular’s dashboard 10,000 times, but there’s still more functionality that you keep finding. Or maybe you’re just busy, and you’d like the machine to do some work while you take care of other tasks.

The solution is simply to ask.

AI-powered marketing insights deliver.

Connect Claude and Singular, get AI-powered marketing insights

Anyone with approved data privileges can securely connect Claude to their Singular account and start getting answers. What campaigns are working: done. What creative is generating the highest CTRs: easy. Which ads need to be freshened up: no problem. 

Claude won’t just answer your questions. If you wish, Claude will also chart, graph, and diagram the answers so you can visually see what’s going on in near real time, and share the results with your team for their input.

Here’s an example on (very) dummy data:

Claude AI-powered marketing insights

 

Anything Singular measures for you, Claude can access.

That includes complex tasks as well as simple ones:

  • Access fully unified marketing data across platforms and channels
  • Analyze creative-level performance tagged by AI, when you’re using Creative IQ
  • Reflect live campaign changes within hours, not days
  • Deliver accurate insights using normalized, governance-ready pipelines

It’s incredibly easy to use and marketers can get started in minutes by adding Singular MCP as a data source in Claude’s integrations screen. Once they authenticate, they can simply talk to Claude to access their data. Claude will build charts, comparisons, suggest actions, all based on Singular’s standardized, normalized, and enriched datasets.

The integration is available today, and it’s a first of its kind in the measurement and analytics space.

On LLMs and privacy

Note that by default, most LLM prompts and answers can be used by an LLM to improve its own AI model. 

However, you can turn off training on your conversations and data. Go to Settings >> Data Controls and turn off training contributions to ensure your valuable marketing data stays secure. If you have Claude Team, you can turn off data use for training at the organization level, and if you have Claude Enterprise, it’s off by default.

The good news: 

Singular’s MCP integration with Claude uses the Claude API, and Anthropic does not use API data to train models. This is the safest, most secure, and most enterprise-friendly route.

Get started today …

Chat with your Singular customer success representative if you have any questions. But we also suggest that you chat with your BI and security teams just to ensure they’re A-OK with connecting an LLM to your data that Singular holds in trust for you.

Once they’re good with it: go to town.

The days of waiting for reports, wrestling with complex dashboards, or learning SQL just to answer simple marketing questions are over. The days of everyone having the data they need to do their job are here.

Step 1: talk to your data.

Step 2: grow faster!

iOS 26: Everything privacy-related Apple announced at WWDC 2025

We already know about the 5 big AAK updates at WWDC 2025, but there’s definitely more to talk about. Some privacy updates were prominently featured in Apple’s WWDC keynotes and sessions. Others arrived quietly in the developer documentation released alongside iOS 26.

(Yeah, Apple operating systems are now being labeled by year: the year after they’re actually released. So the next iOS is iOS 26.)

Here’s everything privacy-related that Apple announced at WWDC … and 1 thing they didn’t exactly announce.

Advanced fingerprinting protections in Safari for iOS 26

Safari 26 now includes default-on protections against browser fingerprinting in both normal and Private Browsing modes.

Yep.

Good for people, tough for marketers.

Safari will block website access to common fingerprinting APIs, including:

  • Screen dimensions
  • CPU cores
  • Speech synthesis voices
  • Apple Pay capability
  • Web Audio readback
  • 2D Canvas rendering details

Safari will also prevent suspicious scripts from using localStorage and cookies to store and check identifiers, and it will strip tracking-related query parameters from the document.referrer.

Browser-based fingerprinting is going to get a lot harder.

I’m not sure this impacts mobile-specific and UA marketers that much. Sure, we’re using web2app a lot more these days, and web landing pages, but I’m not sure many are using fingerprinting extensively in these types of campaigns or journeys.

Apple is still serious about making tracking people across websites and apps hard if not impossible. In Safari 26, Apple will expand Link Tracking Protection.

For Private Browsing, Safari will strip out known tracking parameters from URLs (think utm_source or gclid from Google). That will also happen for links clicked inside Mail and Messages, regardless of whether someone is in Private Browsing mode or not.

Common tracking and measurement parameters that Safari will likely strip:

  • Utm_source: Campaign source (Google Analytics)
  • Utm_medium: Marketing medium (Google Analytics)
  • Utm_campaig:n Campaign name (Google Analytics)
  • Utm_term: Paid search keywords (Google Analytics)
  • Utm_content: Ad content identifier (Google Analytics)
  • Gclid: Google Ads click identifier
  • Fbclid: Facebook click identifier
  • Mc_cid: Mailchimp campaign ID
  • Mc_eid: Mailchimp encrypted email ID (user identifier)
  • Msclkid: Microsoft Ads click identifier
  • Dclid: Google Display Network click identifier
  • Igshid: Instagram link sharing ID
  • Vero_conv: Vero (email marketing platform) conversion ID
  • Wickedid: Wicked Reports tracking ID (attribution platform)
  • trk_*: Various generic tracking parameters (common in B2B marketing platforms)

And, as you saw above, document.referrer will also be scrubbed of these parameters.

If you rely on UTM parameters or click IDs in email campaigns, Safari’s new protections will disrupt how much you can track. Your open rates won’t change, but your measurement of click-to-conversion funnels and your attribution in Google Analytics and ad platforms will degrade when users click email links on Apple devices.

  • Campaign source may not be attributed correctly
  • Clickthrough rate (CTR) tracking in email platforms like Mailchimp, Hubspot, Klaviyo will degrade
  • Personalized funnel analysis won’t work
  • Cross-channel and multi-touch attribution chains break
  • Post-click segmentation becomes incomplete or inaccurate
  • Retargeting performance drops

This isn’t a death sentence: not everyone uses Apple’s own Mail app. Many use Gmail or other email apps, which won’t strip parameters like this. But perhaps a third of iOS users do use Mail, meaning there will be measurement degradation.

Of course, email is not a major mobile user acquisition channel, though it has become more interesting in recent years.

An important note:

Just because you can’t measure something doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

Remember after iOS 14.5? People didn’t stop watching and clicking on ads on iOS … it just became harder to measure. While performance marketers need measurable datapoints to optimize, assuming nothing is happening just because you can’t measure it in 1 particular way is self-defeating.

Believe it or not, some top-notch technical and modern marketers still swear by “where did you hear about us” type surveys for new users or customers.

My point: there are options.

Phone and messages privacy features

This isn’t as relevant for marketers, but it’s something privacy-related that Apple announced at WWDC 2025.

Apple introduced several new privacy-preserving intelligence features in iOS 26 for communications:

  • Live Translation for Phone calls, FaceTime, and Messages runs entirely on-device using Apple Intelligence models, so audio and content stay private
  • Call Screening provides real-time transcripts of unknown calls locally … so again, no cloud processing required
  • Hold Assist allows users to mute hold music and get alerted when an agent joins … yep, all processed on device

On-device AI, including visual intelligence in iOS 26

In a similar vein, not super-relevant for marketers. But, indicative of Apple’s overall direction and focus.

Apple’s new Foundation Models API in iOS 26 will let developers use Apple Intelligence models for text and image processing on-device, so that app interactions stay private.

  • Apps can process content locally without sending data to Apple servers
  • This enables AI-driven features like summarization, visual intelligence, and more while keeping user data safe

Additionally, Visual Intelligence will let users interact with on-screen content privately, without sending screenshots or visual data to the cloud. That includes things that could be relevant for marketers, including the ability to copy text, shop, or create calendar events based on what’s visible on-screen.

AdAttributionKit updates

While I covered them in detail here, these are the big AAK privacy updates from WWDC:

  • Overlapping re-engagement windows
  • Configurable attribution windows
  • Configurable attribution cooldown
  • Country codes in postbacks
  • Easier testing for AAK integrations

Overall, this makes AAK much better and easier to use, but … as I mentioned in my blog post, none of that matters if there’s no industry adoption of AAK.

Note: these are being released with iOS 26 but aren’t tied to a specific mobile operating system.

Declare age range API

Finally, something that Apple didn’t explicitly mention at WWDC 2025 but did share to the developer documentation repository for iOS 26 is Age Range API

This is probably in response to existing and pending legislation in Australia and US states like Utah, Texas, Louisiana, Nebraska, and New York that will require app stores to verify users’ ages and require parental consent for minors for certain kinds of content. There’s also the new federal App Store Accountability Act in the US. Reintroduced in Congress on May 1, 2025, this act would mandate that app stores verify age and get parental consent for minors. It has bipartisan support and is backed by many advocacy groups.

Here’s how the Age Range API in iOS 26 would work:

  • Apps can request a parent-verified age range for a user (e.g. 13–15, 16–17, 18+)
  • Parents must confirm the child’s age range via system-level controls
  • Apps receive only the age range, not a birthdate or exact age, which complies with child protection laws and preserves privacy

If the device was set up in Family Sharing as a child’s device, the parent or guardian configures the child’s Apple ID and birthdate. Apple then knows the child’s true age and can automatically provide an age range (e.g. “12 or under”) to apps that request it via the API.

Note: parents can also choose whether to allow this age range to be shared with apps.

Of course, like all things technical, there’s a massive truck-sized loophole.

When anyone sets up their own device, they will be able to declare an age range in some way. They will not need to give a birthdate, only the range. But but but …  this is self-declared, so an adult pretending to be 13 would technically be possible unless platform-level enforcement is added. 

And, of course, a kid pretending to be an adult is just as possible.

For app marketers, expect to be required to support some technology around this in multiple jurisdictions around the world, especially if your app is in a sensitive category like dating, gambling, or adult content.

Summing it all up: privacy at WWDC 2025

As expected, there were a bunch of new privacy features at WWDC 2025, mostly for iOS 26. Some of them will likely require some extra work on your part, such as the Declare Age Range API, and possibly some of the fingerprinting and tracking protections.

Others, like AAK updates, will only matter if the wider ecosystem of ad networks decides they are important enough to support.

WWDC 2025: 5 great updates for Apple’s AdAttributionKit, but there’s a catch

As expected, WWDC 2025 brought a few key updates to AdAttributionKit, the new SKAdNetwork. Big picture, AAK is going to be more flexible, more accurate, more useful for understanding geo data on your installs, and easier to test.

Here are the 5 critical updates:

  1. Overlapping re-engagement windows
  2. Configurable attribution windows
  3. Configurable attribution cooldown
  4. Country codes in postbacks
  5. Easier testing postbacks

What do you need to know? Let’s dive into each, and then we’ll talk about the catch.

1. Overlapping re-engagement windows

Currently, you can only have one re-engagement conversion window. In iOS 18.4 and beyond, you’ll be able to have multiple overlapping conversion windows

Why on earth would you want this?

WWDC 2025 AAK configure postbacks

 

Maybe you’re running multiple re-engagement campaigns. Maybe you’re using multiple re-engagement partners. 

Now you can use a “conversion tag” to keep these re-engagements separate. And now you can know which re-engagement effort was successful.

2. Configurable attribution windows

Currently in AAK you can have a 30-day click-through attribution window or a 1-day view-through attribution window. 

In iOS 18.4 and above, as Apple shared at WWDC 2025, you’ll be able to specify your desired attribution window length. You can do that:

  • Per ad network
  • Per interaction type (click or view)
  • Globally

Interestingly, you can also ignore some interaction types. So you could theoretically ignore all view-through ads from a specific ad network, at least for the purposes of attribution.

Important note: this is only for installs, not re-engagements.

Why?

Because, as Apple says, re-engagement ad interactions and conversions happen right after each other with no time gap in between. 

Now you’ll have more precise control over what gets attributed to your ads: perhaps shorter windows for performance-focused campaigns, and longer for more brand-oriented ads.

3. Configure attribution cooldown

Right now, if conversions in SKAN or AAK happen very quickly, signals can be misattributed. For example: an install and a quick re-engagement.

In 18.4 you’ll be able to configure an attribution cooldown to block subsequent conversions from competing for attribution. You can set that per conversion type (both installs and re-engagements). For example, you might set a 6 hour cooldown for installs, and a 1 hour cooldown for re-engagements.

Here’s how Apple sees it:

After an ad network serves an ad, and the ad-driven conversion happens, the window for advertisers to measure user engagement opens. We refer to this window as the conversion window. Advertisers can measure the value of the conversion based on activities people take in their app, such as subscription and In-App Purchase, by invoking the updateConversionValue API.

In reality, many of these ad attributions might be happening simultaneously for the same advertised app on the same device. And the conversion windows may overlap, in which case, a measurement might not get accorded to the most appropriate conversion.

Configurable attribution cooldowns prevent that, ensuring that the right ad receives credit for valuable post-conversion events.

4. Country codes in postbacks (!!!)

This is huge!

In SKAN and the first versions of AAK, there was no default geo information, meaning that if you wanted it, you needed to spend some conversion values for it … and hope that your ad campaign targeting accurately predicted where all your ads would be seen.

Now postbacks can include an optional country code which is derived from the App Store itself.

While it is subject to crowd anonymity for privacy reasons, assuming you surpass the privacy thresholds, you’ll get geo data by default when this is turned on. This will allow for better geo-targeting, optimization, and campaign analysis.

5. Easier testing postbacks

iOS 18.4 adds a development postbacks tool in Developer Settings which allows you to test your AAK attribution set-up much easier.

With this, you can:

  • Generate development postbacks without needing a live publisher app / ad flow
  • Manually configure:
    • Conversion type (install or re-engagement)
    • Country code
    • Data granularity
  • Send postbacks to your test server
  • Update conversion values via API calls during tests
  • Manually transmit postbacks or allow them to be sent automatically

This will make it easier to validate your server pipeline, and you won’t need to run a complete ad-to-install flow for testing.

WWDC 2025 summary: new AAK features and benefits

Here’s a quick overview of the new AAK feature and benefits from WWDC 2025:

Feature What’s new or improved? What’s the impact or benefit?
Overlapping re-engagement windows Multiple windows with conversion Tags More granular re-engagement measurement
Configurable attribution windows Custom per-network and per-type Fine-tuned attribution behavior
Configurable attribution cooldown Block overlapping attributions Improved attribution accuracy
Country code in postbacks Optional geo field with privacy Better geo-targeting & reporting
Improved testability in settings Dev postbacks tool in iOS Settings Easier, faster testing

But there’s a catch, right?

All of this is genuinely good. Maybe even great, in some cases. 

But the problem with AAK is the same as SKAN 4. As you can see on our SKAN adoption board, adoption of SKAN 4, which was released all the way back in October 2022, is not even at 50% adoption yet.

Most of the big players are still on SKAN 3. Only TikTok is mostly on SKAN 4, while Meta, Google, and Snap are all basically SKAN 3. AAK was first released over a year ago in March of 2024, and there’s barely been a shift towards adoption. Apple Ads, which just started supporting Apple’s own attribution methodology, is also still on SKAN.

Instead of using Apple’s framework and tech, all the big players are doing different things in attribution and measurement, mostly around internal modeling based on more touchpoints, and sharing more information with MMPs for attribution purposes:

So the catch is this: it doesn’t matter how good AAK is if the ecosystem doesn’t support it. And it sure doesn’t look like a priority to most of the players right now.

AI adpocalypse: what are marketers going to do in the age of AI ads?

Just 4 days ago AdWeek said that Meta wants to allow brands to create, run, and target ads using AI by the end of next year. It’ll be the era of AI ads, sure, but also maybe AI advertising, AI marketing, and possibly even AI everything for growth, customer acquisition, and user acquisition.

Last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he was changing everything, and that these technologies would result in “a redefinition of the category of advertising.”

Here’s the full quote:

“We’re going to get to a point where you’re a business, you come to us, you tell us what your objective is, you connect to your bank account, you don’t need any creative, you don’t need any targeting demographic, you don’t need any measurement, except to be able to read the results that we spit out.”

As visionary statements go, it’s kind of in line with the phrase often erroneously attributed to World Economic Forum CEO Klaus Schwab: “You will own nothing and you will be happy.” It’s a bit of an H-bomb for the industry, and by extension for hundreds of thousands of people working in the advertising ecosystem.

It’s so explosive that The Verge says “Mark Zuckerberg just declared war on the entire advertising industry,” which is a characterization that I’m sure the Meta PR team absolutely loves.

But what does it actually mean? And what will we all do in a couple of years? What about 5 years?

Literally I have the Cops theme song running through my brain, but twisted:

Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do?

Whatcha gonna do when they AI comes for you?

So … what are you going to do? What am I going to do?

Let’s think about it together …

AI ads, AI everything: what are we talking about here?

It’s hard to pin down 1 event that “changes everything.” We’re kind of like the frogs in a slowly warming pot (or quickly warming): we’re just getting more and more AI added to everything we do, and it’s hard to see when that actually produces a phase shift in the industry, the ecosystem, and our own lives.

But Meta’s new push to have brands create and target ads using AI by the end of 2026 is kind of a big deal. 

Adweek says advertisers would simply provide an image, budget, and campaign objective, and Meta’s AI would then do everything else:

  1. Automatically generate ad creative (imagery/video and copy)
  2. Deploy it across Facebook or Instagram
  3. Optimize targeting
  4. Provide measurement

This end-to-end AI advertising approach will be amazing for small and mid-sized businesses that don’t have dedicated advertising teams, but you can see larger orgs taking advantage of it as well … and therefore needing fewer people to manage any given amount of ad spend. 

We know that 97% of Meta’s revenue comes from ads. Anything that grows advertising, therefore, is good for Meta. And so Meta is betting big that AI will lower barriers, attract more advertisers, and ultimately attract bigger budgets by simplifying everything about building and operationalizing an ad campaign.

That means it’s now a good time to look at the implications of fully AI-driven advertising and AI ads, in both the short term and the long term.

And I want to do that for 3 different groups in the ecosystem:

  • Creative professionals
    Copywriters, designers, content creators
  • User acquisition specialists, media buyers, customer acquisition marketers
    Performance marketers, marketing managers
  • Measurement, analytics, and other adtech tools
    MMPs, analytics providers, assorted martech platforms

AI ads and creative professionals: copywriters, designers, content creators

Let’s start with creative professionals.

Yeah, we’re all using ChatGPT or Claude or Perplexity or DeepSeek to get information, compose replies, kickstart ideas, and in some cases, “write” entire blog posts or reports.

No, current LLMs are not perfect, but they’re pretty freakishly good, and they’re getting better almost daily.

So what’s the future look like?

Short-term outlook: next 18 months

AI is a powerful assistive tool for creatives. It’s not yet a replacement. 

81% of creative professionals are already experimenting with generative AI in their workflow, according to Adobe. That includes tools like DALL-E, Midjourney, or Stable Diffusion, but it increasingly includes purpose-built marketing suites with generative AI capabilities. 

What are we using them for?

For a lot of us, it’s brainstorming and first drafts, leading to efficiency gains. Most of us would agree that using generative AI reduces the time we spend, and boosts our ability to be creative. We also see teams using AI to generate mock-ups, make variations of ad copy, produce multiple design iterations instantly, or translate copy. 

However, adoption is still somewhat cautious and measured: we’re taking the scenic route, according to Martech

We’re also often in an experimental phase, exploring AI’s capabilities, but not necessarily transforming our processes immediately. (That takes longer.) And we have concerns about quality and originality. AI churns out content quickly, but does it have the spark of human insight? Is it just generic re-hashed copy? 

(Short answer to the first question: mostly no. To the second: mostly yes.)

So currently, the best stuff is still typically human-generated, although increasingly it’s human-currated. Core creative ideas and decisions around campaigns and brand voice are still human-led. But we can see changes coming.

Long-term outlook: 5ish years

Those changes are increasingly radical, and AI is only getting smarter and faster. (I mean, it is almost handling text properly in images now … almost!)

As that growth continues, creative professionals will likely experience a more profound evolution of their role. 

Routine creative production and low-level content tasks will be heavily automated. Even this year, we’re seeing predictions (maybe reports?) that over 70% of digital ads will use at least some form of AI, whether in content generation, art generation, targeting, or optimization.

This trend will only deepen toward 2030. 

We’re now seeing predictions that by 2030 AI will eliminate or radically reshape two-thirds of creative jobs at agencies, with basic copywriting and simple design work most at risk. That means doing more with less: more work, fewer humans. Meta’s working towards this in 2026 as we saw above, so clearly by 2030 generative AI will be able to make entire ads (text, imagery, video), tailored them to different audiences, and distribute them at scale.

Micro-segmentation: here we come.

Thanks to AI ads, we’ll be able to generate thousands of ad variants customized for various micro-segments in dozens of markets … something unimaginable with purely human teams. 

Note: this is a good example where AI will enable more work that we don’t or can’t do now. This kind of automation doesn’t reduce employment: it adds productivity. 

Not all AI will be like this, though.

So what about the people?

Creators will have to shift into higher-value roles: strategic ideas, brand storytelling, AI oversight to ensure AI-generated output is compelling and on-brand. It’s likely that human creativity, along with its unique, original concepts that make campaigns memorable, will remain in demand. 

Honestly, as AI makes generic content ever-easier to produce, truly novel creative ideas become an even more valuable differentiator. And actual personality in writing and imagery should stand out even more. 

This, at least, is the hopeful view. You can already tell AI to tell a story or write an ad in different tones and with different personalities, and those capabilities will not lessen over the next 5 years.

Most likely, however, the roles of copywriter and designer will morph into something like “AI creative director” or “content curator.” We will 100% need creative pros who can write the right prompts, choose the best AI outputs, and inject the right brand personality. I think — and hopefully I’m not just being too rosy-tinted here — that human judgment will be critical to avoid homogeneous, “one-size-fits-all” content that any AI might produce from same-old same-old training data. 

We’ll likely also see some new creative specializations, like prompt designers, AI ethicists, and the like.

But we’ll probably see fewer junior entry-level positions and more of an expert-oriented AI-assisted flat workforce that has tremendous amounts of output compared to a few years ago, or even today.

How do you adapt and stay relevant?

So what do you do? How do you adapt and thrive in this emerging reality?

  • Embrace AI as a creative partner
    Use generative AI tools (for text, image, video) to augment your workflow. Master these tools to produce more ideas and iterations quickly, then refine the best ones. Creatives who use AI are able to both deliver work faster and focus more on high-level creativity.
  • Focus on higher-order creative skills
    Double down on uniquely human aspects of creativity: storytelling, concept development, and understanding of audience emotions. AI is great at remixing existing patterns, but humans are great at original idea generation and narrative. Grow skills in campaign conceptualization and brand strategy.
  • Develop an “editor’s eye”
    If more content becomes machine-generated, creatives have to become curators and editors. Learn to critically evaluate AI outputs, then fine-tune them to fit brand voice and quality standards. Knowing what to approve, what to tweak, and what to toss into the trash will be critically important.
  • Stay on top of AI trends and ethics
    So you’re not a technologist? Tough luck: the creative industry will need leaders who understand AI’s capabilities and limitations. Keep learning about new AI creative tools. Become the expert … the go-to person in your team for leveraging AI.
  • Carve out your personal style and your specific deep domain expertise
    In a world where everyone has access to AI tools, you need a way to stand out. Cultivate a distinctive creative perspective. Build niche expertise. Whether it’s deep understanding of a certain culture, industry, or creative medium, your unique human perspective can set your work apart from AI-generated generic content. You need to bring something extra, and ideally something extraordinary.

AI ads and user acquisition specialists, media buyers, performance marketers

What about performance marketers and UA pros who set up campaigns, optimize partner mix, and drive growth?

In some ways, this future looks even more grim than creative professionals because this job is essentially math: applying the creativity that creative pros have provided to the task of spending money most effectively to generate the highest return.

Let’s dive in …

Short-term outlook: next 18 months

Well, as I just alluded to, the day-to-day work of media buyers and UA specialists is already being transformed by AI-driven automation. 

Meta and Google feature highly automated campaign management software like Advantage+ and Performance Max that handle many tasks traditionally managed by media buyers. And while there’s clear challenges with each of them — they can make some spectacular mistakes — there’s also huge advantages and benefits. All the other big platforms, and many of the independent ad networks are working on similar technology.

Their promise is simple:

Upload ads, insert money, relax. 

Pretty soon, just: insert money, relax.

Eventually: upload money.

Advantage+ can automatically find the best audiences and placements for an ad, dynamically allocate budget, and even generate simple ad creatives. And advertisers are buying in hard: Meta reported that Advantage+ Shopping campaigns saw 70% year-over-year growth and reached a $20 billion annual run rate. 

More than 4 million advertisers were using Meta’s generative AI tools early this year, quadruple the number from six months prior. 

In other words, performance marketers are leaning in to AI tools. 

It’s important to note that, like in creative work, there’s new work being done here that was never done before: extra targeting specificity, more adset rotation, more creative rotation, more everything. And in this sense, like in creative industries, this kind of automation doesn’t take jobs away: it does more jobs, and it makes jobs get done better. 

UA specialists are letting AI handle more of the optimization grunt work. Things like manual bid management, granular audience targeting, and A/B testing many creative variants are hard, manual, tricky, and easy to get wrong. They’re increasingly getting automated. 

That means UA teams are spending more time on front-end strategy like setting campaign objectives, and defining target outcomes. They’re then feeding the machine with good inputs: creative and copy that AI can mix and match. They still monitor performance, which is critical, but their role is shifting from micromanaging campaign settings to overseeing and guiding AI systems. 

In education there’s the well-known saying that AI is encouraging the evolution of the teacher from the “sage on the stage” to the “guide on the side.”

In marketing, and specifically performance marketing, we might see the move from athlete — running the race, deciding on strategy, adjusting tactics second-by-second — to pilot: controlling, advising, suggesting, correcting, and ultimately commanding where necessary. 

Performance marketers will set destinations (goals and KPIs) and they’ll supervise, but they’ll only take over if absolutely necessary.

Long-term outlook: 5ish years

The automation isn’t going to decrease, is it? Increasingly, we’re going to live and work in AI-first organizations. Some orgs will be tiny, with AI experts handling multiple roles with the help of AI agents.

You have to think that in the long run, the role of UA and performance marketing is going to change dramatically at a minimum, and probably shrink dramatically as well. The grunt work of spinning up new campaigns, testing creative, testing copy and calls to action, and all of that is likely going to massively decrease.

Smart people are predicting that by 2030 “80% or more of all media planning and buying will be done without human intervention.” 

That’s ad budget allocation, bid adjustments, audience selection, and much more across all digital channels, soon to be handled by AI agents. We’re talking semi or fully autonomous campaign systems that optimize in-platform and probably also across platforms in real-time far faster than our tiny meatspace brains can handle. 

UA specialists, performance marketers, and customer acquisition managers better get good at strategy, oversight, and cross-channel orchestration rather than hands-on tweaking.

And, as that happens, there could be an integration or consolidation of roles in creative and in performance: 1 team or even 1 person delivering both strategic direction and creative ideas. Essentially, the strategists and the creators need to work hand-in-hand. Maybe that means a future UA specialist operates more like a “marketing AI strategist” or “growth strategist,” setting high-level campaign strategy like target personas, budget split by regions, and messaging angles, and then configuring AI tools to execute. 

(AKA, prompt them appropriately.)

Performance marketers will also need to focus on multi-platform coordination, ensuring that AI-driven campaigns on Meta, Google, TikTok, etc. are all aligned with the brand’s goals and not working at cross purposes. There will be orchestration tools or platforms, but each massive marketing platform will have its own AI and own goals, and managing them towards a common goal will likely continue to be a challenge, because the problem here is not technological but competitive.

Another long-term factor is cost and efficiency.

AI-driven advertising promises to find pockets of efficiency (cheaper impressions, best-performing creative for each micro-audience) that humans would miss. Whether that’s true or not remains to be seen. The big must-have platforms like Meta, Google, TikTok, and Apple Ads all want to hit your targets but not be too efficient or too effective: why would they consistently give you MORE than your money’s worth? It’s better for them to mix top-performing AI ads and placements with others to deliver just the performance you demand, or slightly better, and keep the ad dollars flowing.

(Increased competition could impact that, of course.)

All of this will likely compress margins for agencies or teams that traditionally earned their keep through manual optimization labor. And it could result in far fewer people being needed to manage the same or more ad spend. We’re seeing estimates that two-thirds of marketing agency roles, for instance, could be cut. 

Of course, some new roles will emerge: AI ads specialists who train and audit marketing AI algorithms, experts in leveraging first-party data to feed the AI (a crucial task in a privacy-first world), and those who are good at using AI to get what a brand wants. 

How do you adapt and stay relevant?

  • Become an AI-augmented marketer
    Dig in to AI. Start using the AI-based campaign tools now to get hands-on experience. Learn how to feed these algorithms the right inputs and how to interpret their output. Know when to trust them, and when to distrust them.
  • Shift from execution to strategy
    Grow up not down. Expand your skills in marketing strategy, consumer psychology, and analytics. As routine buying gets automated, there will be more value in setting the right strategy. That means you need to understand customer journeys, you need to define campaign objectives/KPIs, and you need to craft creative briefs. Also: develop your ability to think across channels (omnichannel campaigns) and to align advertising with broader business goals (like LTV, brand equity). The more you can connect the dots strategically, the more you will be able to harness the tactical efficiency of AI.
  • Build technical and data literacy
    This might hurt a bit, but many performance marketers are already pretty technical. AI can help you do some light coding, but it helps to know what the code does, and how to fix it. Get familiar with analytics tools, attribution modeling, and data feeds. Being able to audit or tweak an AI model’s performance will be super valuable.
  • Emphasize creative collaboration
    If creative and performance roles converge, collaboration skills with creative teams will be huge. Creative knowledge of your own will be as important, even if you can’t execute your vision in legacy tools. A strong UA specialist in the AI era will likely understand deeply how to guide AI-driven or AI-enhanced creative production with performance insights. At the low level, AI will handle that. At the high/brand/strategic level … perhaps not so much.
  • Stay agile and keep learning
    If you’re in performance marketing or mobile UA, you’ve been doing this your whole career. The tools and algorithms are continuously evolving, and that’s only going to accelerate. As per usual, commit to continuous learning: workshops, AI updates, experimentation, podcasts. It’s harsh, but we all kind of have to be prepared to adapt … or die out.
  • Find a way to keep a human touch
    Just like in creative, sometimes a human hunch, insight, or brainwave will make all the difference. And sometimes knowing your own reactions — and the reactions of others — to specific types of messaging or creative will help you avoid catastrophic blunders that AI would otherwise blindly commit.

MMPs, analytics providers, and other tools in the adtech space

It may come as a shock, but Singular is an MMP. So I kinda feel like I have to say something about analytics and measurement partners.

Of course, most MMPs including Singular are more than the term originally meant. Singular does measurement, but it’s not just mobile anymore. Singular also does deep linking and PC/console and CTV and web. Plus there’s ETL and — wouldn’t you know it — ELT

And of course we’ve just added Creative IQ.

So there’s a lot more to an MMP than just mobile or just measurement, even though those are core. Much more, and increasingly more.

What happens to all of this in an AI-dominated ecosystem?  

Short-term outlook: next 18 months

AI is already here, and it’s embedded in almost everything: measurement, fraud detection, predictive analytics, creative optimization … you name it.

The wider adtech ecosystem, including agencies, analytics and measurement firms, and martech vendors, is already reshaping itself around AI. Already last year literally more than 9 in 10 agencies were already investing heavily in AI capabilities. Some are building their own custom AI models and tools; others are using off-the-shelf models. 

For analytics and measurement providers, short-term impacts involve using AI to make more sense of the deluge of data and the complexity of AI-driven campaigns. We’re not generating less data in the era of AI: quite the opposite. And as we micro-target and start to generate thousands or 10s of thousands of ad variants where previously there were just 5 or 50 or 500, you need smarter and smarter analytics to keep up.

You don’t always want to just trust the metrics that your ad networks are giving you either: if you want to analyze from creative all the way down to ROI — as our new Creative IQ platform does — you need, need, need to be able to see the whole picture, including what happens with owned data. That needs to be combined with network data, and for the best insights, you sometimes want to see what creative, messaging, or calls to action resonate across all your partners, not just inside each silo.

So we’re offering increasingly AI-powered dashboards that can digest multi-channel performance data and highlight anomalies or opportunities. 

And we’re making measurement smarter in an increasingly complex world with better attribution that mixes data sources for a more complete picture. That includes MMM to an extent, and incrementality for sure, and AI can help with both.

Independent analytics providers, like Singular, can continue to carve out their niches by offering neutral, cross-platform measurement that advertisers can trust. And, we always want smarter and smart insights to peek inside the big platform black-box algorithms so that marketers truly benefit from the learnings that they fund with their ad dollars.

In the broader adtech and martech space, everyone is adding AI features everywhere. 

That’s generative AI for writing emails, push notifications, and landing pages funnel copy, that’s predictive analytics for user/player/customer churn, that’s smart engagement strategies targeting ever smaller and tighter audiences. 

This is almost literally an arms race with everyone from Adobe to Salesforce to Braze to CleverTap to RevenueCat and thousands of other companies. AI copilots, assistants, agents: we’re seeing all of them emerge and grow every day.

Long-term outlook: 5ish years

5 years from now when we hit 2030, the adtech value chain might look very different. 

Companies that reinvented themselves around AI will have a great chance to succeed. Those who completely buck the trends, go anti-AI, and stay radically human might survive, if they’re incredibly exceptional, but run huge risks of extinction. 

Others caught in the middle will likely just fade away.

New competitors could emerge too … management consulting firms like Accenture or Deloitte are investing in marketing AI and could take clients from traditional service providers by offering end-to-end AI-powered marketing solutions. New AI-focused startups hit the adtech space pretty much daily.

For analytics and measurement providers, long-term survival is dependent on innovation, incredible service, and trust. Brands and marketers who remain need to know, understand, and trust the data they’re getting, and only the best partners will win that business.

As AI gets embedded everywhere, advertisers will still need independent measurement and verification. 

We’ll still need things like holistic attribution across walled gardens, and AI can help us stitch together data from Meta, Google, Amazon, TikTok, and more, perhaps even better than we do now. 

We’ll probably also see closer collaboration between brands and measurement companies to build custom AI models using the brand’s own data. For instance, a big gaming publisher could have a proprietary AI model predicting marketing outcomes using its first-party data combined with platform data, and informed with the unique take on marketing, and a unique mix of channels and partners that it has. Custom models are getting easier and easier to spin up, so this could probably go down-market over time as well for even midsize or smaller brands.

We’re also need smarter measurement than we currently have. As industry analyst Eric Seufert recent said:

“As audience boundaries are eliminated within platforms, measurement becomes more of a challenge, creating the need for better and more sophisticated attribution modeling and incrementality analysis.”

Whatever happens, long-term analytics players simply have to be at the cutting edge of AI themselves to be able to deliver foresight — predictive analytics, scenario planning, budget planner — rather than just hindsight, where we all started. 

There will likely be new AI-calculated metrics too: more complex mixes of KPIs that perhaps humans don’t see so easily in the data.

And there’s likely to be consolidation. AI is a data game, and the more data you have, the better your odds of using it wisely to build the smartest models. That means there’s an inherent advantage to scale.

The survivors will probably be the giant hubs (Salesforce, Adobe, Microsoft, others) or niche players with unique AI tech. All of the systems will become more autonomous, which means they all need all the tech in the full marketing stack to be able to get everything done efficiently and effectively. AI will have a hard time optimizing campaigns without high-quality and near-realtime (and therefore first-party) ROAS data.

By 2030, expect all of the platforms to emphasize privacy and ethical AI as selling points too, offering compliance with global and local AI regulations out of the box.

So we’ll see convergence.

We’ll see reinvention.

And we’ll see some new hybrid entities emerge that blend creative savvy, tech infrastructure, and AI prowess.

How do you adapt and stay relevant?

  • Analytics and measurement companies need to invest in AI and re-skill talent
    Everyone needs to proactively build AI into their DNA. This means building tech, but it also means training staff in AI tools, hiring data scientists and engineers, and encouraging creatives and strategists to work alongside AI rather than in competition with it. 
  • Differentiate with cross-platform transparency
    Every ad platform and network will offer measurement. To remain relevant, analytics providers need to focus on what the big ad platforms don’t and in fact can’t give marketers: neutral, unified, and deep measurement. That means developing AI that can ingest data from many sources and providing clear, explainable insights across a customer’s full journey. 
  • Focus on integration and ease of use
    As AI becomes as common as electricity, analytics and adtech tools need to excel in how well they integrate with others and how easy they make complex tasks for customers. Simplification and support are critical.

AI ads … so where does that leave us?

Meta’s vision of fully AI-driven advertising by 2026 is not an isolated thing.

Instead, it’s a bellwether for the entire advertising industry. 

The Verge might be guilty of being just a tad dramatic when it said that “Mark Zuckerberg just declared war on the entire advertising industry,” (OK, a lot dramatic) but it’s a good wake-up call.

The times, they are a-changing.

Right now and increasingly in the short term, AI is our helper, our copilot, our superpower. It’s enhancing efficiency, lowering costs, and empowering even the smallest advertisers to create stunning, effective campaigns. Marketers who are embracing AI tools are finding they can do more with less, focusing their energy on creativity, strategy, and higher-level decision-making. 

In the long term, AI is perhaps not quite as subservient. It’s getting better and better, doing more and more. And that means that the industry will undergo a transformative rebalance. 

Work won’t look the same.

Teams won’t look the same.

The competitive landscape won’t look the same.

Many traditional tasks will be automated, and some job roles will evolve or even get phased out. There will be new opportunities for those who can marry human insight with AI capabilities, however. Adaptability will be the key. 

Jim Lecinski from the Kellogg School of Management put it this way:

“Like electricity did to steam, AI has the opportunity to reshuffle winners and losers and remake businesses, industries, categories and brands.”

For creative professionals, this means leveraging AI to unlock new powers in creativity and output. For performance marketers, it means transitioning into strategists and orchestrators of marketing AI. For all marketers, it’s a call to elevate our roles and use AI to extend what we can do.

And for analytics and measurement providers, there’s an AI-driven demand to innovate or die, risking irrelevance by failing to build the tools, frameworks, and trust needed in an AI-first advertising world.

Everything is changing. 

The next years will belong to those who can blend art and science, human and machine.

Inside Creative IQ: Singular’s new AI-powered creative optimization suite

In advertising, if you win in creative, you win. Period, full stop, end of story. You can screw up targeting, you can fail in campaign creation, you can mess up SKAN measurement, you can pick suboptimal ad partners, but if you absolutely kill it with amazing images, videos, or playables that absolutely demand attention and irresistibly drive action, it’s almost impossible to fail.

That’s why I was so pumped to spend 30 minutes with Lisi Gardiner, Singular’s director of product and the product manager most responsible for Creative IQ, Singular’s new AI-powered creative optimization suite.

Check it out here. Push play, and keep scrolling …

High-level, what does Creative IQ do?

Everyone knows that creatives are the lifeblood of advertising and mobile user acquisition. The problem now is that they’ve never been harder to manage. 

Because AI can now generate thousands of assets in minutes, the challenge isn’t just making great ads anymore — although that’s still the biggest problem — it’s also testing and optimizing the assets you have.

Creative Gallery - dimensions dropdown

Creative IQ helps. Big picture, here’s how. 

Creative IQ is a full-stack creative analytics platform that offers:

  • A super-cool gallery view of everything
    • Shows all your ads in 1 place
    • Loads performance data so quickly beta testers prefer Creative IQ over internal DBs and ad network dashboard
    • Includes support for video and playables
  • Built-in AI tagging
    • Automatically tags ads across dimensions like audio, visuals, text, characters, and languages
    • Enables structured performance analysis to pinpoint what’s actually driving results
    • Supports custom client-specific tagging needs (e.g. “dragon theme” vs “forest theme” in gaming)
  • Cross-partner fragmentation solutions
    • Unifies your view of creatives and performance data across all ad networks
    • Shows how the same asset performs across Google, Meta, TikTok, etc.
    • Eliminates siloed views, black boxes, and inconsistent naming conventions
  • Collaboration tools for your whole team
    • Shares insights for UA teams, design teams, execs, even agencies.
    • Offers visual-first reporting for better communication across all users
  • Creative-level ROI
    • Shows creative along with ROI and engagement metrics
    • Support upper funnel and post-install metrics
  • Per-partner placement intelligence
    • Offers a cheat sheet on what placements are available from which partners, which is super varied and super detailed … now you don’t have to learn or remember all those details
  • Benchmarks
    • Shares cross-network creative benchmarks (coming)
  • Creative insights
    • Suggests how many creative to run at various stages of your campaigns (coming)

In other words: this is a big deal.

1 creative suite, multiple perspectives

Creative IQ is a single suite, but it works for your whole team … and beyond. Creative IQ bridges the gaps between three often siloed teams, plus external partners:

  1. Executives can get a high-level overview
  2. UA teams can get granular views with detailed metrics and source-level breakdowns
  3. Design teams can get a visual-first experience, with actual videos and images paired directly with ROI stats
  4. Agencies can get what you choose to share with them

Creative is a team game. Your creative optimization suite needs to play along.

See inside the black box

Naturally, every ad network has its own siloed reporting: they just see what you’re doing on their platform. But many major networks hide some asset-level combinations of ads behind black boxes.

So marketers not only can’t get all their data together, they also often don’t know which creatives are actually being shown … or why they’re working.

And that means you don’t have all the insights you need to optimize creative and campaigns across all your partners.

Creative IQ solves this by aggregating and normalizing creative data from all partners. Singular’s deep integration stack allows it to pull in image and video files even if some partners don’t have them, and thanks to our data governance and naming conventions, also allows it to pull some of your performance data out of the black boxes and into your hands.

Creative Optimization Reporting

The result? 

A truly unified, normalized view of performance across channels, networks, and formats.

You’re still going to likely optimize per partner, and that’s totally fine. But it’s super-useful to have the big picture as well, and incredibly valuable to get hidden details out of the dark and into the light.

ROI and creative side-by-side … because science

I’m not even a designer or artist, but I like visual information. Most likely, so do you. And there’s a good reason for this … a science-based reason. 

Because visuals are brain-friendly.

So there’s a widely-cited claim that suggests the brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text. That’s more of a myth than a fact, but it’s hinting at a deeper truth. We are super-fast at processing visual information. In fact, a study by MIT neuroscientists found that the brain can identify images seen for as little as 13 milliseconds. In contrast, reading just a few words (a “fixation” in science jargon) takes about 200–250 milliseconds, or even up to 500 milliseconds. 

That’s easily 1800% slower.

And it’s for just a few words.

So yeah: 60,000 is a myth, but we process visual information much faster than textual information.

That’s why Creative IQ shows your ad creative side-by-side with your ROI:

“ We want to dummy proof this,” says Lisi. “This report makes it easy for all the teams … UA, executives, design, marketing … everybody can use the report and it runs really fast. And you have easy-to-understand … this is the video, these are the stats, impressions, clicks, ROI … and we’re gonna be adding more post-install events in there as well.”

Everything you need to know. Simple. Fast. Effective.

Launching this month

Creative IQ has been in development for over a year. Lisi’s talked to dozens of UA teams and designers and marketers to get the exact details of what they need, and it’s been in private beta for months.

We announced it last month, and it’ll be launching this month.

Keep your eyes peeled here for the full release announcement, and talk to your Singular rep about when you can start using Creative IQ.

More in the full podcast

As usual, there’s much more in the full podcast. Check it out on YouTube or any major audio podcasting channels. 

Here’s what you’ll find:

  • 00:00 Introduction to the New Gallery View
  • 00:37 The Evolution of Creative Testing
  • 01:27 Understanding the Problem
  • 04:15 Creative IQ Features and Benefits
  • 08:22 AI Tagging Explained
  • 12:35 Creative ROI and Gallery View
  • 14:07 Cross-Functional Collaboration
  • 14:57 Early Feedback and Future Plans
  • 18:05 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Top 30 mobile games for summer 2025

What are the top 30 mobile games for summer 2025? We’ve just updated the list with all the hottest game that have the most downloads and the highest revenue.

A quick recap, based on Sensor Tower’s recent State of Mobile report. Last year, we collectively:

  • DOWNLOADED 258,000 apps per minute
  • SPENT $285,000 per minute
  • USED 13 minutes of every waking hour for apps and games
  • ENJOYED an average of 7 apps each day

We spent $80 billion in games alone, and 4 games became billion-dollar games: more than $1 billion in revenue in a single year. So which ones are looking hot for 2025?

Welcome to the top 30 games for summer 2025, based on global data from Apptopia.

  • We’ll list the most downloaded games
  • We’ll also list the highest revenue games
  • We’ll do it separately for iOS and Android
  • Then we’ll combine the lists to give us the biggest games across both platforms

Let’s get started with the top 10 best of the best … and what’s changed since early 2025.

Top 10 most downloaded mobile games in Q2 2025: what’s changed?

So far, according to Apptopia data, the top games for summer 2025 by downloads include some familiar names but also some new ones.

On Android, the leaders are:

THIS quarter

LAST quarter

1

Block Blast!

Roblox

2

Roblox

Block Blast!

3

Ludo King

Free Fire x NARUTO SHIPPUDEN

4

Subway Surfers

Subway Surfers

5

Dream11: Fantasy Cricket App

Mini Games: Calm & Relax

6

Free Fire: 8th Anniversary!

Horror Spranky Beats

7

Free Fire MAX

Free Fire MAX

8

Cricket League

Cat Chaos: Prankster

9

Pizza Ready!

My Talking Tom 2

10

Brainy Prankster

Ludo King

New entries include Dream11: Fantasy Cricket App, Free Fire: 8th Anniversary, Cricket League, Pizza Ready, and Brainy Prankster. Games that dropped out of the top 10 on Android include: Mini Games: Calm & Relax, Horror Spranky Beats, Cat Chaos: Prankster, and My Talking Tom 2.

On iOS, the top 10 games so far by downloads are:

THIS quarter

LAST quarter

1

Block Blast!

Block Blast!

2

Color Block Jam

Township

3

Township

Squid Game: Unleashed

4

Roblox

Roblox

5

Last War: Survival

Pokémon TCG Pocket

6

Subway Surfers

Last War: Survival

7

Kingshot

Perfect Tidy

8

Royal Kingdom

Whiteout Survival

9

Vita Mahjong

Subway Surfers

10

Royal Match

8 Ball Pool

New entries this quarter include Color Block Jam, Kingshot, Royal Kingdom, Vita Mahjong, and Royal Match. Dropouts include Squid Game: Unleashed, Pokémon TCG Pocket, Perfect Tidy, Whiteout Survival, and 8 Ball Pool.

Plenty of churn? Sure …

That’s a decent amount of churn in the top 10 mobile games from quarter to quarter: 5 new games on iOS, and 5 new games on Android. In each case, half of the top 10 changed.

On iOS, Block Blast, Last War: Survival, Township, and Roblox stayed impressively steady in the top echelon of games downloaded. On Android, Block Blast, Roblox, and Subway Surfers maintained high ranking, while Ludo King jumped all the way from 10th to third.

But … are the top 10 most downloaded games really the best?

Each of these mobile games has millions of downloads in the last 90 days, but number of installs isn’t everything, right? Sure: getting a lot of installs is important for a game to be on top — but engagement and active players and actual usage is probably more important.

Maybe 1 good measuring stick for that: do players buy stuff in those games?

So a good way to figure out what are the top games of 2025 so far is a combination of both: 

  • Installs
    How many downloads a game gets
  • Revenue
    How much money a game is generating

That combination is important. 

A top game should still be relevant to new players: it should be adding new people, or else it’s just slowly dying. Maybe that’s OK for a big studio: they’ve made their money. But it certainly takes them out of the top games sweepstakes. In addition, a top game should also keep existing players engaged, interested, and having fun for at least months, and preferentially years.

That makes it fresh enough for newbies, and still interesting for veterans.

Top games: iOS first, then Android, then combined

First, we’ll look at iOS.

Sure, iOS accounts for about only about 30% of global devices and maybe a quarter of all app installs. But iOS still gets more than half of all in-app mobile revenue … mostly because Apple owns market share in typically richer countries and among richer demographics even in poorer countries.

Then we’ll look at Android, where about 75% of all global app and game installs happen, especially in massive Android-centric countries like India and China.

And finally, we’ll combine scores to arrive at an overall list of top 30 games of 2025 so far.

Note: this is global data. And I’m weighting the scores about 2:1 in favor of revenue as a stronger engagement metric than pure downloads or installs.

iOS: top 30 games for summer 2025 so far by downloads AND revenue

Here are the top 30 mobile games on iOS by downloads and the top 30 by revenue for summer 2025:

Top iOS games: downloads

Top iOS games: revenue

1

Block Blast!

Honor of Kings

2

Color Block Jam

Game for Peace

3

Township

Last War: Survival

4

Roblox

Pokémon TCG Pocket

5

Last War: Survival

Whiteout Survival

6

Subway Surfers

Royal Match

7

Kingshot

GeoGuessr

8

Royal Kingdom

Frozen City

9

Vita Mahjong

MONOPOLY GO!

10

Royal Match

Dungeon & Fighter: Origin

11

Bus Escape: Traffic Jam

Candy Crush Saga

12

Cookingdom

Teamfight Tactics

13

Screwdom

eFootball™

14

Whiteout Survival

CrossFire: Legends

15

Delta Force: Hawk Ops

Monster Strike

16

Goods Puzzle: Sort Challenge

Pokémon GO

17

Delta Force

Love and Deepspace

18

8 Ball Pool™

Fantasy Westward Journey

19

Word Search Explorer®

Honkai: Star Rail

20

Gardenscapes

Gardenscapes

21

Pokémon TCG Pocket

Room Escape Game-EXiTS-

22

Pizza Ready!

Coin Master

23

Honor of Kings

Puzzle & Dragons

24

Candy Crush Saga

Township

25

Magic Tiles 3: Piano Game

SD Gundam G Generation Eternal

26

Free Fire: 8th Anniversary!

Blackbox

27

Car Jam: Escape Traffic Puzzle

Toon Blast

28

Clash Royale

Gossip Harbor®: Merge & Story

29

Among Us!

Brawl Stars

30

Call of Duty®: Mobile

Professional Baseball Spirits A

Only 8 games show up in both the top downloads and top revenue lists:

  1. Township
  2. Gardenscapes
  3. Pokémon TCG Pocket
  4. Whiteout Survival
  5. Royal Match
  6. Candy Crush Saga
  7. Honor of Kings
  8. Last War: Survival

Games that are in the top 30 for downloads only tend to be casual or hyper-casual games, maybe puzzle games. They tend to be monetized more by ads than in-app purchases, and they tend to have lower player spend. That includes games like Roblox, Subway Surfers, Magic Tiles, and so on.

Games that are in the top 30 revenue list tend to be more midcore or hardcore games. They tend to be RPG or strategy games with a heavy live-ops focus and a hybrid monetization strategy with in-app purchases as well as ad revenue. They may have collector-driven monetization, and are targeted at higher-paying players.

Android: top 30 games for summer 2025 so far by downloads AND revenue

Here are the top 30 mobile games on Android by downloads and the top 30 by revenue forn summer 2025:

Top Android games: downloads

Top Android games: revenue

1

Block Blast!

Last War:Survival Game

2

Roblox

Whiteout Survival

3

Ludo King®

Royal Match

4

Subway Surfers

Pokémon TCG Pocket - Card Game

5

Dream11: Fantasy Cricket App

Fate/Grand Order

6

Free Fire: 8th Anniversary!

Roblox

7

Free Fire MAX

Uma Musume: Pretty Derby

8

Cricket League

Honkai: Star Rail

9

Pizza Ready!

Coin Master

10

Brainy Prankster

Candy Crush Saga

11

FPS Strike Ops : Modern Arena

Monster Strike

12

My11Circle Fantasy Cricket App

Pokémon GO

13

SD Gundam G Generation Eternal

14

My Talking Tom 2

PUBG MOBILE

15

Snake Clash!

RF Online NEXT

16

EA SPORTS FC™ Mobile Soccer

MONOPOLY GO!

17

Mini Games: Calm & Relax

Gossip Harbor: Merge & Story

18

Extreme Car Driving Simulator

Gardenscapes

19

Vita Mahjong

Genshin Impact

20

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang

Dragon Quest Walk

21

I Am Cat

Township

22

100+ Offline Games No WiFi Fun

Puzzles & Survival

23

Car Race

Toon Blast

24

Word Search Explorer

eFootball™

25

I Am Security

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang

26

Stickman Party 234 MiniGames

GODDESS OF VICTORY: NIKKE

27

Spider Fighter 3: Action Game

Wuthering Waves - 1st Anniv.

28

Zupee Ludo Online Games

Dark War Survival

29

8 Ball Pool

Free Fire: 8th Anniversary!

30

My Talking Tom Friends

Seven Knights Re:BIRTH

While on iOS there’s almost a 27% overlap between top downloads and top revenue, on Android there’s only a 10% overlap. Only 3 games appear on both lists:

  1. Roblox
  2. Township
  3. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang

Again, most of the top downloaded games op download games are hyper-casual or casual titles, and rely on ads for monetization, not in-app purchases (examples: Block Blast, Cricket League, Pizza Ready).

Games that dominate the Android highest-revenue lists tend to be gacha, RPG, strategy, or competitive multiplayer games like Fate/Grand Order, Genshin Impact, and Monster Strike. These games encourage repeat spending to level up or collect the best items, and often have rare or collector items.

(Gacha games use a randomized reward mechanic similar to toy vending machines called “gachapon” in Japan. Players spend in-game currency to receive random virtual items like characters, weapons, or upgrades.)

Combined iOS and Android: top 30 mobile games for summer 2025

At last, here are the top 30 mobile games for summer 2025 so far based on their performance on both Android and iOS for number of installs plus total recent revenue, a proxy for players, usage, and engagement.

THIS quarter

LAST quarter

1

Whiteout Survival

Pokémon TCG Pocket

2

Royal Match

Roblox

3

Roblox

Last War:Survival

4

Candy Crush Saga

Whiteout Survival

5

Last War: Survival

Royal Match

6

MONOPOLY GO!

Candy Crush Saga

7

Monster Strike

Monster Strike

8

Honkai: Star Rail

Honor of Kings

9

Honor of Kings

Fate/Grand Order

10

Pokémon GO

MONOPOLY GO!

11

Pokémon TCG Pocket

Gardenscapes

12

Township

Game for Peace

13

Coin Master

 Block Blast!

14

Block Blast!

 eFootball™

15

Last War:Survival Game

 Pokémon GO

16

Gardenscapes

Coin Master

17

Game for Peace

Honkai: Star Rail

18

Pokémon TCG Pocket - Card Game

Dungeon & Fighter: Origin

19

Subway Surfers

Gakuen Idolmaster

20

Fate/Grand Order

Township

21

eFootball™

Subway Surfers

22

GeoGuessr

Genshin Impact

23

Uma Musume: Pretty Derby

Golden Shovel Battle

24

SD Gundam G Generation Eternal

GeoGuessr

25

Frozen City

Free Fire x NARUTO SHIPPUDEN

26

Dungeon & Fighter: Origin

CrossFire: Legends

27

Teamfight Tactics

 8 Ball Pool™

28

Free Fire: 8th Anniversary!

Endless Winter

29

Vita Mahjong

Uma Musume Pretty Derby

30

CrossFire: Legends

Pizza Ready!

There’s a lot of overlap: good games tend to attract loyal players. 21 games out of the 30 appear in both quarters. That’s a 70% overlap, which suggests strong franchise durability and consistently high performance.

Some notable evergreen games include:

  • Roblox (#2 → #3)
  • Royal Match (#5 → #2)
  • Whiteout Survival (#4 → #1)

Others that have strong monetization models and consistent long-term engagement include Candy Crush Saga, Monster Strike, Honor of Kings, Pokémon GO, and Honkai: Star Rail.

Some games that ranked last quarter dropped out. Some of these were event-driven titles or did not sustain monetization. Some may have made the the list briefly due to spikes rather than sustained success, although it’s possible we’ll see a return of any or all of them.

  1. Gakuen Idolmaster
  2. Golden Shovel Battle
  3. Free Fire x NARUTO SHIPPUDEN
  4. Endless Winter
  5. Pizza Ready!
  6. Genshin Impact
  7. 8 Ball Pool™

Some games that made the list this quarter but not last quarter or jumped higher in the standings include:

  1. Whiteout Survival: #4 → #1
  2. Royal Match: #5 → #2
  3. Township: #20 → #12
  4. Pokémon TCG Pocket – Card Game
  5. Subway Surfers
  6. GeoGuessr
  7. Uma Musume: Pretty Derby
  8. SD Gundam G Generation Eternal
  9. Frozen City
  10. Teamfight Tactics
  11. Vita Mahjong

The top of the list is increasingly dominated by monetization-optimized games with live ops, while high-download, low-ARPDAU games rarely crack the top 10 unless they also monetize well (such as Royal Match or Whiteout Survival).

Games that dominate tend to include:

  • Strong revenue-heavy games
    Usually RPGs/strategy like Honor of Kings, Monster Strike, Honkai: Star Rail, Fate/Grand Order, Uma Musume, or SD Gundam
  • Strong blend games
    Like Roblox, Whiteout Survival, Royal Match, Township, or MONOPOLY GO!
  • Strong download-driven games
    Monetize via ads or volume like Block Blast!, Subway Surfers, or Vita Mahjong

As always, top games are doing something very impressive. It’s super-challenging to rank among the best in the world.

Closing thoughts on the top games for summer 2025

My current favorite game is now 8 years old and didn’t make the list, although I see the publisher has a new game on the top list for 2025. So if your game didn’t make the list, you’re in good company.

I’m there too.

There are plenty more ways to find and list the top games of any year, including 2025. This is just one of them. A good option would be to check all the game reviews of the year and see which ones are the highest rated by reviewers on Google Play and the App Store. 

It’s also interesting to think about why a game might make the most downloaded but not the most profitable lists, and vice versa. Top-grossing games, for instance, might be in a monetization phase: they’ve gathered a huge number of players, and now they need to make some money back for all their development and marketing. And top games by installs that don’t hit the top-grossing list might just be in a category that doesn’t monetize super well — casual games, I’m looking at you — or might be focusing on scale rather than revenue.

In any case, if your favorite game didn’t make the list, that’s probably because with so many millions of games in Google Play and the iOS App Store, there’s a lot of choice. There’s something for everyone.

And that’s probably a good thing!

These games show what’s possible when creativity meets great execution. Behind every chart-topping title is a deep understanding of user acquisition, monetization, and ROAS. See the analytics platform top game studios use to get a competitive edge

CTV targeting gets 2-5X better with video-level targeting

How can you boost CTV targeting to get better ad performance?

It’s pretty obvious: CTV isn’t going anywhere. 88% of U.S. households own at least one connected TV device, and in the U.S. alone, the number of connected TV users will surpass 200 million this year. CTV ad spend hit $35 billion last year, and it’s growing fast.

But targeting is still an issue, as is measuring performance.

Do you really want to target a household, or do you want to target a male teenager? Trying to get the kid but actually getting grandma is a big miss.

That’s been challenging with channel or DMA-based CTV targeting, but there is an emerging solution: video-level targeting. Video-level CTV targeting uses AI intelligence to understand more about what a specific video is actually about. And it turns out that this knowledge boosts the effectiveness of CTV ads in 3 significant ways:

  1. 2x lift in brand awareness
  2. 3x lift in ad recall
  3. 5x lift in brand favorability

I chatted with Upwave CEO Chris Kelly about these results in campaigns with Iris TV, and — perhaps shockingly — they’re relevant to performance marketers as well as brand marketers. If there’s even a difference.

Check it out:

CTV targeting: from generic audience data to content intelligence

Historically, CTV targeting has relied on household demographics along with other high-level contextual data: a significant downgrade from mobile or web ad targeting. 

But video-level targeting allows advertisers to target based on actual content. And because you can infer a lot about an audience based on what they’re watching, that significantly helps.

Grandma’s probably not watching Jackass, for instance. People watching fishing shows are probably good candidates for fishing gear ads, as well as fishing games. People watching streaming eSports competitions are probably gamers themselves. And others who are watching American Gladiator are probably interested in fitness and might be a good fit for a health and wellness app, or fitness supplements.

This isn’t guesswork. It’s real-time analysis of show genre, theme, and even scene-level context — powered by AI and video-level metadata.

Relevant for performance marketers?

Naturally, any performance marketer worth their salt views brand stats like awareness, recall, and favorability with significant, perhaps even extreme prejudice. And I get it: no performance marketer gets paid to “drive awareness,” which inherently feels like an incredibly wishy-washy fru-fru thing that doesn’t accomplish anything real and is the last refuge of the incompetent marketer who can’t boost tangible business results like sales.

Yep, been there.

So, first, cards on the table. In my opinion:

  • All performance marketing is also brand marketing
  • All brand marketing is also performance marketing

Some performance marketing is really crappy brand marketing because it puts the brand in a really bad light. Sometimes performance marketers get away with it (or think they do) because they think brand doesn’t matter because they’re tiny. And some brand marketing is really crappy performance marketing because it doesn’t move any needles.

The ideal best is obvious: brand marketing that performs and performance marketing that brands.

Which, of course, is easier said than done.

CTV targeting brand vs performance marketing

 

Don’t believe me? Take it from Hannah Parvaz at Aperture, who recently said her agency spend million on ads in the last year, and 1 thing that did NOT work was “big brands spending nothing on awareness.”

Chris Kelly uses the apple orchard analogy to explain the role of brand marketing in long-term business growth:

“ If all you do is pick apples off the trees, then you’re not going to grow.”

Picking apples, of course, is performance marketing: capturing existing demand, driving immediate sales or conversions. And planting seeds is brand marketing: generating both current and future demand by building brand awareness, favorability, and consideration.

Picking all the apples is great, but there’s a limit. Eventually you run out of trees because the orchard has died off, and you’ve killed the golden goose. Short-term metrics matter, but if you plan to be around for a while and grow to a significant size, brand-building matters.

Getting it right on the brand side with accurate targeting delivers real performance results, according to a study that Upwave and Iris TV, the targeting partner, did with Carl’s Jr.

The campaign beat 99% of all fast food campaigns they had previously worked on.

That’s impressive.

“When marketers are paying a premium for targeting,” Kelly says, “ They want to know that it’s building their brand and driving the outcomes that they want to measure.”

That’s good news for marketers looking for fresh channels and marketing partners. But of course it’s something that needs to be tested for your app or product or service, just like anything else.

Much more in the full podcast

As always, check out the full Growth Masterminds podcast for more on both YouTube and all the audio channels.

Here’s what to expect.

  • 00:00 Welcome to Growth Masterminds
  • 01:07 Understanding Contextual Targeting in CTV
  • 03:51 Measuring Brand Outcomes with Contextual Targeting
  • 09:04 Performance Branding vs. Performance Marketing
  • 12:47 The Importance of Brand Building for Businesses
  • 16:43 Connecting Brand Metrics to Sales
  • 21:58 The Role of Advertising in Consumer Behavior
  • 25:09 Conclusion and Final Thoughts