Author: John Koetsier

Live: Singular’s integration with Protected Audiences in Privacy Sandbox for Android

Singular’s integration with Protected Audiences in Privacy Sandbox for Android is now live in beta and will be entering real-world testing with multiple partners over the next months. Internal end-to-end testing is complete and operational, and we’re actively working with partners to standardize workflows and data transmission to make everything just work for marketers and ad networks.

The goal, just as we had with SKAdNetwork on the iOS side over the past few years, is that Singular customers will be up and running with as little disruption as possible when Privacy Sandbox becomes fully implemented and GAIDs are scarce or nonexistent.

Refresher: what is Protected Audiences again?

Remember FLEDGE? That’s what Protected Audiences was originally called. While you can get the full rundown on what Protected Audiences is and how it works here, it’s essentially a privacy-safe on-device way of creating groups of people that advertisers can target ads to. 

One thing Google said way back in 2022 was that “adtech platforms will need to prepare to have some parts of their current auction and ad selection logic deployed and executed on the device.”

With GAID being freely available, marketers today can assemble device IDs of their best users, ship them off to ad networks or platforms, and ask for more like that. From the massive device graphs that pretty much every ad network has built, partners can assemble lists of lookalike devices and dynamically target ads to them as they pop up in RTB/programmatic/exchange ad auctions, or outsource that responsibility to an exchange or SSP. 

Alternatively, the big platforms like Meta and Google can find users on their platforms that look and act similar to that collection of GAIDs.

Under Privacy Sandbox, however, audience information will be stored on-device. That means the Privacy Sandbox code running privately on individual devices will essentially take notes about what people do in various apps (Topics API) and use that data for targeting. 

Protected Audiences works in a similar on-device way, but it is for remarketing/retargeting and custom audience use cases. Ad networks will be able to present ads to the Privacy Sandbox code running on-device, indicating what kinds of people or users they’re appropriate for, and Privacy Sandbox will match users to ads based on what audiences a user is part of.

As Google says:

“The Protected Audience API on Android (formerly known as FLEDGE) includes the Custom Audience API and the Ad Selection API. Ad tech platforms and advertisers can use these APIs to serve customized ads based on previous app engagement that limits the sharing of identifiers across apps and limits sharing a user’s app interaction information with third-parties.”

Singular’s implementation lets ad networks do what they do best

On August 16 of last year, Google released the Custom Audiences Delegation, which supports the creation of custom audiences for ad networks or marketers that do not have an SDK present on a device. 

Since then, Singular has been fully integrated with the released endpoints.

What this allows Singular to do is to create custom audiences on behalf of buyers using the new ‘fetchAndJoinCustomAudience’ endpoint, which has multiple checks and failsafes that will log issues and attempt to prevent fraudulent activity.

Singular’s implementation is designed to let MMPs do what they do best and let ad networks do what they do best:

  1. Ad networks create and manage audiences
  2. MMPs handle app events and adding/removing users from audiences
  3. Ad networks handle the ads and bidding processes, as they always have

As mentioned above, however, this primarily happens on-device so that users’ exact identity and activity is protected. Singular won’t have access to the on-device data showing which audiences a user is part of, and neither will an ad network.

Singular’s implementation also lets advertisers do what they do best

Protected Audiences is built right into Singular’s existing Audiences product. That means marketers will be able to segment their users just as they always have and distribute them to ad partners just as they always have.

Of course, the technology will work quite differently on the backend, as will the data transmission (or lack thereof for privacy reasons). But ideally the effect will be the same. The goal: integrate the new Protected Audiences API with our existing product in a way that makes everything seamless for our customers.

In other words, the nice big easy button that Singular CTO promised in a recent Privacy Sandbox webinar with partners including Google, Gameloft, and Tinuiti.

So you want to test Protected Audiences …

If you saw what happened in the first six months of SKAdNetwork, you probably don’t want to see that again. Getting ahead of the curve and testing Privacy Sandbox for Android now while you also have the GAID to grade your own work is a good idea. We’re running tests for both customers who are on the Singular SDK and customers who prefer server-to-serve (S2S) integrations.

If you’d like to be part of the ongoing testing, talk to your Singular account executive about getting on the list.

Ad networks in particular: Privacy Sandbox means significant changes for you. We encourage you to reach out and chat with us about getting ready for the eventual switchover.

External iOS payments for in-app purchases now live: 3 big problems

External iOS payments for in-app goods are now available in the U.S., thanks to the 2021 Epic Games lawsuit against Apple. But don’t expect big savings. In fact, expect everything to cost more, while conversion rates go down, and users/players/customers get frustrated.

In September of 2021, Epic won a part of its lawsuit against Apple when U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Apple must allow developers to provide third-party payment options in apps. Until yesterday, that judgment was tied up in further legal wranglings. But as of today, Apple has complied with the court’s ruling and is opening up iOS for external payment providers.

Sounds good for developers, right?

Wrong.

Why? Three reasons:

  1. The massive drop-off in conversions you’ll see
  2. The massive amount of extra work you’ll have to do
  3. The massive commission Apple will still charge you to go through all the hassle and pain of setting up your own app payments system

External iOS payments: almost guaranteed lower conversions

Look at the screen you’ll have to show users/players/customers before they leave to send you money on your own website or payment provider:

external-iOS-payments

If you thought the ATT wording was scary and fear-mongering, here’s its best friend. “You’re about to go to an external website,” the massive bold text blares. “Apple is not responsible for the privacy or security of purchases made on the web.” 

Every time you want to allow someone to make a purchase, your app must call the StoreKit External Purchase Link API. Then it will surface a system disclosure sheet like the one above, which tells your user that their App Store payment method won’t be available, refund requests won’t be handled by Apple, and Apple can’t verify any pricing or promos.

And that’s just the beginning.

Once someone clicks through that (and notice neither of the 2 options — Continue or Cancel — are prioritized or highlighted as the default) then they have to go through the hassle of setting up a credit card and account with you and/or your payment provider.

Conversion rate optimization experts know: every extra hoop you ask a customer to jump through drops your conversion rate. Setting up an account, providing personal information like an address and credit card number … all of this takes time, is tedious, and is easy to mess up on a mobile device. Worse, if you’re not a major known brand like Rovio or Uber or Lyft or LinkedIn, people are likely to be wary of trusting you and your level of security with all their data.

It’s not hard to imagine conversion rates dropping so much you lose more than the 30% you’re paying Apple for in-app purchases now: a 3-second process that most iOS users do without any problem.

External iOS payments: so much extra work

Does paying 30% or less of your revenue to Apple or Google kinda suck? 

Sure.

You know what sucks more?

Doing all the work to handle payments yourself.

First there’s setting up the systems, finding a payment processor, maybe negotiating on fees if you’re big enough to have some clout. Then there’s record-keeping and accounting to manage. Perhaps worst of all, there’s refunds and customer service. And while you can’t really satisfy customers when they buy via IAPs — because essentially they are Apple’s customers — when they buy from you, you need to have systems, processes, and people to handle complaints, concerns, failed deliveries, or refunds.

And you thought you were a mobile app developer? 

Now you’re running a customer service division.

But that’s not all. To set up external iOS payments for in-app purchases, you have a lot of work to do with Apple and your app:

  • Request a StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement from Apple
  • Configure and enable the entitlement in your app 
  • Change your development and publishing processes, most likely (because this is US-only right now, so you’re likely doing more work to create a custom app bundle)
  • Tell Apple where your external purchase will happen (and if that changes, you’ll have to resubmit your app with a new link)
  • Check whether a user can buy things by calling the canMakePayments API every time before sending a user to your payments page
  • Follow no fewer than 9 requirements when actually implementing the link out, including 1 that limits how often and where you can show the link
  • Follow Apple’s design guidelines

It might not be rocket science, but it’s not exactly easy either.

External iOS payments: subject to a massive 27% commission

After all that work, you might be tempted to crack a beer and yell FREEDOM!

But you’d be fooling yourself, because Apple’s pound of flesh is still getting collected.

“Apple’s commission will be 27% on proceeds you earn from sales (“transactions“) to the user for digital goods or services on your website after a link out (i.e., they tap “Continue” on the system disclosure sheet), provided that the sale was initiated within seven days and the digital goods or services can be used in an app,” Apple says. “If you’re a participant in the Small Business Program, or if the transaction is an auto-renewal in the second year or later of an auto-renewing subscription, the commission will be 12%.”

And if it’s a subscription, “each subsequent auto-renewal after the subscription is initiated is also a transaction.”

So you’re doing all the work, you’re paying the processing fee, you’re supplying the labor and infrastructure for customer support, and you’re getting a tiny discount on Apple-facilitated in-app purchases.

In other words, at this commission rate, external iOS payments are a non-starter. 

But it gets better. As 9to5Mac reports, Apple reserves the right to audit you.

“To help ensure collection of Apple’s commission, developers are required to provide a periodic accounting of qualifying out-of-app purchases, and Apple has a right to audit developers’ accounting to ensure compliance with their commission obligations and to charge interest and offset payments.”

But you could try to play fast and loose, and Apple admits its options are limited:

“Although developers are contractually obligated to pay the commission, as a practical matter, with hundreds of thousands of developers with apps on the U.S. storefronts for the iOS and iPadOS App Stores, collection and enforcement will be exceedingly difficult and, in many cases, impossible.”

I’d advise against that. 

It’ll likely work until Apple sets up something to monitor calls to the APIs that facilitate external iOS payments and start joining that data with commission data to look for high volume API calls not associated with significant commission revenue.

And then it’ll all blow up in your face.

So what’s an app developer or publisher to do?

Wait.

First of all, with the EU’s Digital Markets Act, Apple’s going to have to provide something similar in Europe. Other nations are looking at similar legislation. So there might be something better coming.

Secondly, replacing a 30% commission with a 27% commission while doing less work is clearly abiding by the letter of the law while thumbing your nose at the spirit of the legal ruling. Somebody — maybe Epic, unless their legal war chest is exhausted — will challenge this at some point.

Apple will likely have to adjust this in the future, at which point publishers can take another look at their in-app purchase options and reassess.

Update January 18: Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney says Epic will challenge this:

“Epic will contest Apple’s bad-faith compliance plan in District Court.”

So: the court battles will continue!

Top 50 mobile games of 2024 (so far)

What are the top 50 mobile games of 2024 so far? I thought you’d never ask! We’ve just updated the list for January.

Globally we downloaded almost 300 billion mobile apps in 2023, according to Statista, and more than half of them were games. That’s up almost 50 billion app installs from the previous — an almost 20% increase in mobile app downloads — and we might be in for an additional jump in 2024. While apps recently finally surpassed games in the U.S. for the first time ever in terms of revenue — thanks to streaming media and subscriptions — the reality is that both globally and in both the U.S., games are both the vast majority of smartphone downloads and massively significant in terms of mobile revenue. 

All of which means: it’s time to share the top 50 games of 2024 so far. Note: these are U.S. numbers.

Most downloaded mobile games so far in 2024

So far, according to Data.ai data, the top games of 2024 (so far) by downloads include some familiar names, but also some new ones.

On Android, the leaders are:

  1.  Monopoly Go!
  2.  Help Me: Tricky Story
  3.  Roblox
  4.  Match Frenzy: 1 Line Draw
  5.  Block Blast!
  6.  Traffic Escape!
  7.  Royal Match
  8.  Dice Dreams
  9.  Last War: Survival Game
  10.  Wood Nuts & Bolts Puzzle

 

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

  1.  Monopoly Go!
  2.  Twisted Tangle
  3.  Royal Match
  4.  Wood Nuts & Bolts Puzzle
  5.  Roblox
  6.  Last War: Survival
  7.  Block Blast!
  8.  Outlets Rush
  9.  Call of Duty: Mobile
  10.  We Are Warriors!

Note that these are the most downloaded games right now in early 2024. That’s a list that can be pretty volatile as different game publishers spend more or less to advertise their games to new players. It will change over time. But it’s still a major accomplishment to appear on this list.

Perhaps the biggest accomplishment: Monopoly Go! is a game just created and released in 2023, and right now very early in 2024 it’s a top game on both the App Store and Google Play. Another big one: the Wood Nuts & Bolts Puzzle game is just over a month old, and it’s already a top game by downloads. We’ll have to see if it keeps its momentum.

Important question: are the most downloaded games really the top ones?

Each of those mobile games has a lot of downloads, but number of installs alone can’t be enough to make the list of the top 50 mobile games of 2024 so far. Scale is good — getting a lot of installs is completely necessary for a game to be on top — but engagement and active players and actual usage is probably much more important. And probably most important is: are these games good enough and interesting enough and addictive enough to make players pull out their metaphorical credit cards and buy stuff? (Or, yes, allow Apple or Google to take a chunk out of your bank account.)

As we’ve built these lists over the years, we’ve felt the best way to determine the top games of 2024 so far is a combination of both: 

  • how many installs a game received
  • how revenue 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.

The reality is that it is only the very unusual, extraordinary game that gets released years ago — even a decade ago, Subway Surfers! — and is still big. It’s an even more extraordinary game, like Clash of Clans, Roblox, or Call of Duty, that is still at or near the top of the revenue charts years and years after its initial release.

iOS, then Android, then combined

First, we’ll look at iOS.

iOS might seem small. After all, it only accounts for about 20% of global downloads: about 60 billion app installs for 2023 versus 240 billion for Android. But even so, iOS still takes credit for more than half of all in-app mobile revenue … thanks largely to the geographies where Apple owns market share: typically richer countries in North America, Europe, and certain parts of Asia.

Then we’ll look at Android, where the vast majority of app and game installs happen, especially in massive Android-centric countries like India. (And China, but data is hard to come by there thanks to the proliferation of third-party app stores.)

And finally, we’ll combine scores to arrive at an overall list of top 30 games of 2024 so far.

Note: the data will be US-centric. For installs, I’m looking at recent data from Data.ai: games that are hot right now, but the top grossing component of the score will bias towards games with some track record. And I’m weighting the scores about 2:1 in favor of revenue as a stronger engagement metric than pure downloads.

iOS: top 30 games of 2024 so far by downloads

Here are the top 30 mobile games on iOS by downloads.

1

Monopoly Go!

2

Twisted Tangle

3

Royal Match

4

Wood Nuts & Bolts Puzzle

5

Roblox

6

Last War: Survival

7

Block Blast!

8

Outlets Rush

9

Call of Duty: Mobile

10

We Are Warriors!

11

Township

12

Happy Match Cafe: Draw & Find

13

My Perfect Hotel

14

Subway Surfers

15

Dice Dreams

16

Tetris

17

GTA: San Andreas - NETFLIX

18

Match Factory!

19

Magic Tiles 3: Piano Game

20

Among Us!

21

Fishdom

22

8 Ball Pool

23

Whiteout Survival

24

Travel Town - Merge Adventure

25

Candy Crush Saga

26

UNO!

27

Wordscapes

28

NYT Games: Word Games & Sudoku

29

Epic War: Unlock Screws

30

Woodoku - Wood Block Puzzles

Note that 1 is from Netflix (GTA San Andreas) and 1 is from The NY Times … both nontraditional game publishers. We’ll likely seem more of that as we go further in 2024.

Also interestingly, many of these top iOS games by downloads are very familiar:

  • Roblox
  • Subway Surfers
  • Fishdom
  • Wordscapes

Android: top 30 games of 2024 so far by downloads

Here are the top 30 mobile games on Android by downloads so far in 2024:

1

Monopoly Go!

2

Help Me: Tricky Story

3

Roblox

4

Match Frenzy: 1 Line Draw

5

Block Blast!

6

Traffic Escape!

7

Royal Match

8

Dice Dreams

9

Last War: Survival Game

10

Wood Nuts & Bolts Puzzle

11

Subway Surfers

12

Magic Tiles 3

13

Geometry Dash Lite

14

Stumble Guys

15

Tetris

16

Weapon Master: Gun Shooter Run

17

Tile Family: Match Puzzle Game

18

Build A Queen

19

Candy Crush Saga

20

Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat

21

Melon Maker: Fruit Game

22

My Perfect Hotel

23

We Are Warriors!

24

Township

25

Paper.io 2

26

Nobody's Adventure Chop Chop

27

Word Search Explorer

28

Bluey: Let's Play!

29

Wordscapes

30

Toca Life World: Build a Story

No fewer than 7 of the top 50 games on Android are casino/Vegas/gambling games, compared to 5 on iOS.

More striking, perhaps, is the overlap between iOS top games and Android top games. Exactly half — 15 of the top 30 games — are tops in downloads on both the iOS and Android games lists:

  1. Monopoly Go!
  2. Roblox
  3. Royal Match
  4. Block Blast!
  5. Last War: Survival Game
  6. Wood Nuts & Bolts Puzzle
  7. Subway Surfers
  8. Dice Dreams
  9. Township
  10. We Are Warriors!
  11. Candy Crush Saga
  12. Magic Tiles 3
  13. Tetris
  14. My Perfect Hotel
  15. Wordscapes

That makes sense on a lot of levels: good games rise to the top, big marketing budgets help make both the iOS and Android versions of a game to get popular, and everyone releases for both major platforms. Also, for battle games that require a critical mass of players to form clans or teams, or to match up in fights, being big on one platform tends to help a game get big on the other. Plus, of course, when a game gets popular it starts to generate its own buzz, and both people and platforms tend to start promoting it.

This is kind of a big deal. It means most big studios that publish in the U.S. market are publishing for both Android and iOS, and they’re experiences similar levels of success on both platforms, at least for their biggest games.

We’re also seeing a good amount of genre diversity, including strategy (Monopoly Go!), puzzle (Candy Crush Saga, Tetris), action (Roblox), and simulation (Township). Note: genres are hard to identify these days, as many games have many different elements of gameplay that bear little relationship to what category they’re actually published in.

And, clearly, while we’re seeing existing long-term leaders like Subway Surfers, Tetris, and Candy Crush Saga, we’re also seeing some newer games like My Perfect Hotel and Dice Dreams.

Top games on iOS by revenue

Revenue is an entirely different animal than downloads. You need downloads to get revenue, but you need much more: engagement, passion, longevity, and great gameplay.

Here are the top games on iOS by revenue in 2024 so far:

1

Genshin Impact

2

Candy Crush Saga

3

Royal Match

4

Roblox

5

Gardenscapes

6

Marvel SNAP

7

Coin Master

8

Pokemon GO

9

Township

10

Clash of Clans

11

Homescapes

12

Call of Duty: Mobile

13

Evony

14

Jackpot Party - Casino Slots

15

Fishdom

16

Bingo Blitz

17

Candy Crush Soda Saga

18

Rise of Kingdoms

19

Puzzles & Survival

20

Age of Origins: Tower Defense

21

Lightning Link Casino Slots

22

Solitaire Grand Harvest

23

Toon Blast

24

Cashman Casino Las Vegas Slots

25

Clash Royale

26

Slotomania Slots

27

DoubleDown Casino Slots Game

28

Project Makeover

29

Top War: Battle Game

30

Star Trek Fleet Command

Interestingly, no fewer than 21 games are on the top revenue list but NOT on the top downloads list. In many cases, that’s because they are games that have been around for years, have a devoted following, and make huge revenues without having to spend massive amounts of marketing dollars. In others, it’s because casino and strategy/battle games have very high earning potential compared to more casual or hypercasual titles.

  1. Candy Crush Saga
  2. Pokemon GO
  3. Coin Master
  4. Gardenscapes
  5. Toon Blast
  6. Clash of Clans
  7. Homescapes
  8. Age of Origins: Tower Defense
  9. Jackpot Party – Casino Slots
  10. Evony
  11. PUBG Mobile
  12. Puzzles & Survival
  13. Candy Crush Soda Saga
  14. Project Makeover
  15. Cashman Casino Slots Games
  16. Lightning Link Casino Slots
  17. Clash Royale
  18. RAID: Shadow Legends
  19. DoubleDown Casino Vegas Slots
  20. Free Fire: Winterlands
  21. Triple Match 3D

Top games on Android by revenue

1

Monopoly Go!

2

Royal Match

3

Candy Crush Saga

4

Coin Master

5

Roblox

6

Township

7

Jackpot Party Casino Slots

8

Solitaire Grand Harvest

9

Pokemon GO

10

Bingo Blitz: Bingo Games

11

Evony

12

RAID: Shadow Legends

13

Gardenscapes

14

Whiteout Survival

15

Candy Crush Soda Saga

16

Fishdom

17

Call of Duty: Mobile

18

Cashman Casino Las Vegas Slots

19

Dice Dreams

20

Clash of Clans

21

Homescapes

22

Toon Blast

23

June's Journey: Hidden Objects

24

Slotomania Slots Casino Games

25

Lotsa Slots - Casino Games

26

Genshin Impact

27

Last War: Survival Game

28

Lightning Link Casino Slots

29

Puzzles & Survival

30

Doubledown Casino Vegas Slots

While 21 games are on the highest-revenue but not most-downloaded for iOS, only 17 are in the same scenario on Android:

  1. Candy Crush Saga
  2. Coin Master
  3. Jackpot Party Casino Slots
  4. Solitaire Grand Harvest
  5. Bingo Blitz: Bingo Games
  6. RAID: Shadow Legends
  7. Cashman Casino Las Vegas Slots
  8. Clash of Clans
  9. Homescapes
  10. Toon Blast
  11. June’s Journey: Hidden Objects
  12. Slotomania Slots Casino Games
  13. Lotsa Slots – Casino Games
  14. Genshin Impact
  15. Lightning Link Casino Slots
  16. Puzzles & Survival
  17. Doubledown Casino Vegas Slots

Combined iOS and Android: top 30 mobile games of 2024 so far

At last, here are the top 30 mobile games of 2024 so far based on Android and iOS and number of installs plus amount of revenue, which is a proxy for players, usage, and engagement. The combined score is based on their ranking in both top downloads and top revenue lists, with revenue being weighted 2X as much as downloads.

1

Monopoly Go!

180

2

Royal Match

168

3

Roblox

160

4

Candy Crush Saga

130

5

Township

123

6

Coin Master

102

7

Pokemon GO

96

8

Whiteout Survival

92

9

Call of Duty: Mobile

90

10

Gardenscapes

80

11

Fishdom

72

12

Evony

68

13

Dice Dreams

63

14

Toon Blast

60

15

Clash of Clans

60

16

Homescapes

56

17

Candy Crush Soda Saga

54

18

Block Blast!

50

19

Wood Nuts & Bolts Puzzle

48

20

Jackpot Party Casino Slots

48

21

RAID: Shadow Legends

48

22

Solitaire Grand Harvest

46

23

Last War: Survival

45

24

Bingo Blitz: Bingo Games

42

25

Subway Surfers

37

26

Age of Origins: Tower Defense

34

27

Tetris

31

28

Last War: Survival Game

30

29

Jackpot Party - Casino Slots

30

30

Twisted Tangle

29

New apps for 2024 that did NOT appear on the top apps of 2023 list include:

  1. Monopoly Go!
  2. Whiteout Survival
  3. Dice Dreams
  4. Block Blast!
  5. Wood Nuts & Bolts Puzzle
  6. Last War: Survival
  7. Twisted Tangle

Congratulations to those games for cracking the list. But a lot of games that were top performers in 2023 are still top performers so far in 2024, which is also deserving of congratulations:

  1. Royal Match
  2. Roblox
  3. Candy Crush Saga
  4. Coin Master
  5. Township
  6. Gardenscapes
  7. Pokemon GO
  8. Clash of Clans
  9. Bingo Blitz
  10. Homescapes
  11. Call of Duty: Mobile
  12. Candy Crush Soda Saga
  13. Fishdom
  14. Evony
  15. Jackpot Party Casino Slots
  16. RAID: Shadow Legends
  17. Jackpot Party – Casino Slots

Interestingly, 7 of the 30 highest-revenue games on Android were gambling games, while 5 of the same list on iOS were. Clearly, there’s a lot of money to be made here, and game publishers are pursuing it aggressively.

Closing thoughts on the top games of 2024

My current favorite game is now 7 years old and didn’t make the list, although I see the publisher has a new game on the top list for 2024. So if your game didn’t make the list, you’re in good company.

There are plenty more ways to find and list the top games of any year, including 2024. 

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. I think I’ll try that sometime.

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 10 million apps 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.

Steve Jobs was right: this 1 ad creative change boosts revenue by 15%

Getting ad creative right is incredibly important. Most marketers instinctively know that, but the data has backed it up for decades too. In fact, up to 75% of an ad’s ability to make a brand impression is due to creative, and ad creative is responsible for as much as 49% of all sales lift. That is absolutely huge, and it means that getting ad creative right is mission-critical for marketers.

But could there be one small change that makes a huge difference?

Ad creative study

According to a recent study published in the Journal of Consumer Research … absolutely yes.

And that change is ridiculously simple: adopting a curvy, flowing design style rather than one with sharp angles. According to principal researcher Dipayan Biswas, a professor of marketing at USF Muma College of Business, curvy designs are perceived as friendlier and more approachable. And that, he says, leads people to subconsciously prefer things, including digital ad designs, that are soft-edged and curvy.

 “According to research from different disciplines, our natural instincts send us signals that sharp angles usually denote danger and that we’re more likely to get hurt,” Biswas says. 

Steve Jobs knew it

It’s almost as if Steve Jobs knew this about 4 decades ago.

In 1981 when a young Jobs was designing the first Macintosh, and the iPhone was on absolutely no-one’s radar, Apple developers had just managed to get Mac OS to draw circles and ellipses. (Sadly, this counted as a significant innovation in the 1980s.) Jobs was happy about that, but in true Jobsian fashion, he wanted more. He wanted windows and dialog boxes in the emerging Macintosh operating system to have curved corners.

Rounded rectangles, he told the Mac developers, were everywhere: tables, street signs, cars … but not computers.

ad creative

Apple’s software engineers figured out how to make windows with curved corners, and that one small difference ended up making a big sales difference:

“Buttons and windows became rounded,” DesignModo says. “These helped define the ‘safe’ interface of the Macintosh. To customers, Mac had a softer, more welcoming appeal, which sat in contrast to the intimidating aura of both IBM and Microsoft’s products.”

The results, as they say, are history.

15% better revenue

In ad creative, something similar is true. To capture his data, prof Biswas used an eye-tracking study and 3 different field experiments, all testing curvy design in online advertising. The twofold result: better CTR and higher revenue.

“We studied a hotel search button and we consistently found the click rate was higher when the elements were curved,” Biswas said. “It translated to an increase of nearly 15% in total revenue.”

Higher CTR is one thing. It’s a very nice impact, and no marketers will say no to it, but the fact is that CTR is top funnel. You would expect better ad creative to enhance your clickthrough rates. But seeing an significant impact in revenue as well is the real deal … and 15% is not just incremental.

Ad creative has subconscious impact

The results show, Biswas said, that this one ad creative change both enhances visual appeal and leads to greater ad viewer motivation to both click and convert. Some of what people do is based on conscious thought, but a lot of the impact of ad creative is subconscious.

“For shoppers, this means when you’re browsing the web on a holiday shopping spree, you become most susceptible to subliminal tactics, such as design elements,” says USF.

In other words, we’re all more inclined to connect and engage with things that we like and that we feel safe around … including ads.

This study, of course, was done on the web. My guess, however, is that mobile is not significantly different. If you look at the shape of the phone in your hand, after all, odds are pretty good that it’s a rectangle with curved corners.

Just like Steve Jobs designed it.

Creatives that convert: webinar

Singular’s doing a creative optimization webinar at the end of this month. We’re bringing together creative experts from Craftsman+, Liftoff, Mobile Action, and Singular to share what’s hot in creative, what’s changing, what’s making the most impact, and where current ad creative trends are heading.

Join us?

Sign up here!

Organic + viral: how a budding super app is growing in India

How do you grow a mobile app? There’s a pretty well-known formula in the west, and it involves a lot of paid user acquisition along with some app store optimization. A well-funded new super-app for seniors in India, however, is using traditional viral marketing and offline organic growth for something different: growing in India. We recently chatted with Ayush Choudhary, a senior product manager at GenWise, to find out how.

Hit play to start the conversation, and keep scrolling:

While it’s true that there’s a pretty standard playbook for growing a mobile game, exceptional brands and marketers generally look for something different to give them an edge. For GenWise, being different is a table stakes for getting in the growth game to begin with, because their core customer demographic is barely active in digital. Plus, growing in India is just different.

But how they’re solving their growth challenges might just provide hints and tips for opportunities that other apps for different demographics in other countries could use too.

Growing in India: a different marketing strategy for a different kind of app

GenWise is an app for seniors that offers social, health, entertainment, emotional, financial, and personal assistant features. That includes AI features for conversation, real human beings who can help with technical challenges, and online social events such as yoga sessions or tech training.

The goal is helping lonely seniors with low tech literacy access services and support, bank safely, take medications when needed, and connect with others for socialization and emotional connection.

This makes GenWise tough to market: its core demographic isn’t very accessible via traditional mobile or web ads. And even if they were, their lack of technical ability could easily prevent them from successfully downloading, finding, accessing, using, and paying for a mobile app.

Which makes growing in India challenging.

The solution: organic, viral, and offline marketing

The marketing solution?

  1. Target seniors’ kids with digital marketing, mostly organic
  2. Target potential 45+ customers on Facebook, which has an older demographic
  3. Use viral techniques to expand reach within extended families
  4. Reach older seniors directly where they are: at offline community events

“There are some digital channels, like Facebook,” Choudhary told me. “However, we do a lot of physical events as well.”

That translates to awareness via Facebook, and in-personal real-world marketing at resident welfare associations: events for seniors mediated by third-party social organizations. One avenue is offering insight on a common digital senior challenge: fraud.

“We organize events where we tell people how do you protect yourself against … frauds and scams,” says Choudary. “These are very informative, educational sessions, and those have also worked out very well for us in terms of getting user traction and getting people to come on the app and use it, because we have all those services on how to protect yourself on the app as well.”

There’s a lot of organic growth as well which is driven by viral mechanics.

The GenWise team is pretty much all young and digitally savvy, spreading their message via organic social media. The target audience for that is not seniors but other people like them: young professionals with elderly parents and relatives. And that plugs into a specific product feature designed for virality.

“On the product end … we have built this family feature where you can just add your family and you can set medicine reminders for your parents,” says Choudhary. “Or you can talk to them, or screen share and teach them if they want to learn something.”

Some users have added as many as 50 of their friends and family members to the app so they can all connect and support each other. 10-15% of GenWise’s traction comes from this mechanic: young people adding their parents and siblings, Choudhary says, and I wouldn’t be shocked if that is a particularly valuable segment of users because they’re connected to their family from the very beginning.

Monetization: also different when growing in India

The way GenWise is building out monetization is aligned to its core market: India. Subscription isn’t a huge model here: the vast majority of Indian mobile phone owners use a prepaid model, with telecoms like Circle B at 95% prepaid.

That aligns with how Indians pay for many products and services:

“It might not work that way in the western countries, but in India, if you have a retail store in your society, you go to them, you get your stuff, and they write it in their diary,” says Choudhary. “And then you pay at the end of the month … you go to the person who sells vegetables and he or she is going to give you this slip or something, and then you come at the end of the month and you pay that bill.”

It’s a physical habit that Indians have, Choudhary told me, which is not easy to break.

So rather than try to boil the ocean or change a whole society’s habits, GenWise operates on a similar transactional model.

Service starts for free. If a customer likes it, they prepay a minimal fee, like $2 for around 300 minutes of calling someone for emotional support and conversation. Regular users get better deals, and GenWise is seeing good traction on this model. 

They will explore a subscription model in the future, Choudhary says, but in India the existing prepay models are likely to remain popular into the foreseeable future.

More in the full podcast!

As always, there’s much more in the full podcast. Skip over to our Growth Masterminds homepage to find out how you can connect to the podcast on a platform you prefer.

8 things SKAN 4 provides that you can’t get from SKAN 3

What does SKAN 4 provide that SKAN 3 doesn’t?

We are finally seeing sustained SKAN 4 growth again. It’s steady but slow, with SKAN 4 postbacks hitting the 20% threshold for the first time since the SKAN 4 CV reset bug in July of 2023. And while it’s slow, as big players adopt SKAN 4 this year, we’ll see massive jumps. Reddit was the most recent, and at some point in Q1 or Q2 of 2024, Meta will take the plunge (again), Google will slip a switch, TikTok will toggle a setting, and we’ll very quickly approach majority SKAN 4.

skan 4 provides

That’s why 66% of iOS marketers are working on or testing SKAN 4 right now, according to the survey numbers from one of our recent webinars. 

(Take the number with a grain of salt: this is not a representative audience, necessarily. But it’s likely indicative: everyone knows SKAN 4 is coming.)

Testing SKAN 4

But what are 8 things SKAN 4 provides that actually give you what SKAN 3 does not? We asked 5 experts in a recent SKANATHON webinar to dig into SKAN 4 in 2024:

  • Richard Eiseman, DraftKings
  • Mollie Sheridan, Tinuiti
  • Eran Friedman, Singular
  • Itai Kafri, TikTok
  • Matthew Ellinwood, Liftoff 

Here’s just a small slice of what a few of them had to say:

1. SKAN 4 fixes SKAN 3’s volume limitations

Crowd anonymity is better for returning data than privacy thresholds: ad campaigns with lower volume get more data back.

“Basically any advertiser who just has initial budgets, they’re very familiar with the fact that they can’t get enough conversion values because they don’t pass the privacy thresholds,” says Singular CTO Eran Friedman.

SKAN 4 makes that better.

That makes optimization faster, and it reduces the need to consolidate spend into fewer and fewer campaigns, allowing marketers to test better.

“I think that the things that were missing in SKAN 3 were addressed to some extent, and they are mostly around the loss of cohorts and long-term conversion funnels,” says TikTok’s Itai Kafri.

2. SKAN 4 adds a longer data collection time frame

SKAN 3 offers 1 postback which most people opt to get within 24 hours. That makes cohorts hard to compare and user value hard to compute.

“The big limitation that I hear all around from customers is just the limited time window to really understand the value of the user,” says Friedman.

SKAN 4 offers 3 postbacks for fast feedback plus updates around a week and a month, depending on whether you lock conversion values to get them earlier or not. That provides much more data to model cohort behavior, engagement, and revenue.

“With SKAN 4, you will have a longer attribution window or multiple attribution windows up to 35 days,” says Kafri. “That’s a huge change on its own. That change is so significant because the golden standard used to be a seven-day ROAS or seven-day CPA, and that was taken away a long time ago. We are now finally getting it back to some extent, and we can go back to that golden standard.”

3. SKAN 4 provides better creative optimization insight

SKAN 3 offers so little data it’s almost impossible to do creation optimization, forcing ad networks, agencies, and mobile marketers to rely on upper-funnel network metrics and reducing insight into creative’s impact on lower-funnel goals, conversions, and revenue.

“When you want to get to the creative level, now you need to do much more modeling or not really rely on SKAN as much, to be honest,” says Friedman.

At high levels of crowd anonymity under SKAN 4, the new source identifier will offer 4 digits of data on elements like publisher, placement, geo, language, and — if you wish — creative. That offers an opportunity to make SKAN relevant for creative optimization for the first time ever, really.

4. SKAN 4 provides data for more effective ad network optimization

Data for marketers is good and necessary. But attribution data is the end of the line. 

To make mobile marketing better, ad networks need to be able to optimize live campaigns for targeting, reach, interest, engagement, and action. Without data, that’s hard to do, and top-funnel metrics aren’t always enough.

SKAN 4 provides what’s needed:

“Now that we have some adoption, we can already see how this can impact not only the reporting side, but also the delivery side and also the optimization and so on,” says TikTok’s Kafri. “And definitely, the accuracy of the modeling. So, there’s a lot of things that we’ve been able to add with SKAN 4 with all the additional data that we have.”

When ad networks have more signals, they have more data. More data means better and faster optimization.

5. SKAN 4 provides better measurement of reality

Measurement needs to measure reality. If it doesn’t, it’s either useless or misleading. And bottom line, rubber meeting road, SKAN 4 does a better job of measurement than SKAN 3.

Perhaps 17% better, says TikTok:

“After a big analysis that we’ve done, we’ve seen an increase of more than 17% in the number of conversions that we can capture because of the longer attribution windows, the threshold changes, and all that,” says Kafri. “And that is a huge differentiator.”

We always knew SKAN 3 was missing conversions, partly due to privacy thresholds and partly due to short measurement windows. SKAN 4 will be leaky too in that sense … but not quite as leaky.

6. SKAN 4 is more complex (yeah, not everything on this list is a positive)

On the downer side, SKAN 4 is more complex and harder to learn and implement. One of the early adopters I’ve talked to says SKAN 4 requires you to completely rethink iOS attribution after SKAN 3 … not necessarily a pleasant prospect.

“It’s an increase in complexity,” says Liftoff’s Ellinwood. “It’s just become much more challenging to handle an entirely new framework and an entirely new set of signals. So, I’d say it’s mostly good news, but with the good news comes some effort.”

So the silver lining doesn’t come without the cloud.

The good news is that there’s an easy button, sort of.

“Our focus is to build that big easy button, like you said, right?” says Singular’s Friedman. “So, anyone who’s just starting with SKAN, just click a button, you know, configure their initial conversion model, and boom, they get the reports as they expect to get them, seeing all your campaigns, any additional granularity that the networks would be able to provide, bits of the hierarchical ideas as we’ve mentioned, basically seeing all the costs, the installs, the KPIs, the events that you’ve done, and, of course, the cohorted rows that you’re used to across any cohorts that you’re trying to aim for.”

Singular is, he says, trying to “bring 2019 back” for mobile marketers.

7. SKAN 4 offers better reporting for subscription apps

Thanks to #2 in this list, SKAN 4 is just better for subscription apps … and any apps with a long conversion window.

“We’ve heard from many advertisers who are pretty excited about SKAN 4 because they’ve been struggling with the previous versions and it kind of opens up opportunities for them,” Friedman says. “Especially the ones who usually monetize after longer cohorts.”

8. SKAN 4 offers better reporting for low-user-count apps

Some apps are built on aggregating audiences of millions or billions and then making fractions of a penny off each individual user via advertising. Other apps are built on a small number of high-value users.

Think construction apps. Vertical-specific apps. Perhaps marketplace apps … apps where you might have just hundreds or thousands of customers, but each represents thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in value.

SKAN 4’s coarse conversion values could be their savior:

“There’s also cases we’ve seen of business models in which they don’t have such a high volume of users,” Friedman says. “I remember, speaking with a marketplace app, for example … they’re selling pretty expensive types of products, and they can’t pass the privacy thresholds with the required volume … with the coarse conversion values, they’ve been testing and seeing great success.”

Thanks to #1 on this list, these types of mobile developers and publishers are potentially back in the game.

Much more in the full webinar

As usual, there’s much more in the full webinar. Check it out (and the other SKANATHON webinars) right over here. 

There’s a ton of insight we haven’t been able to share here that you can get on-demand, right now. In particular, Mollie Sheridan from Liftoff and Richard Eiseman from DraftKings shared insights on other, related topics. 

Check out all their insights in the full webinar.

GPT-4 for building SKAN 4 conversion schema

Can AI help you with your SKAN 4 conversion schema? Absolutely, thanks to the custom GPT that Lucas Moscon trained for building out SKAN 4 conversion models. Check it out in our recent Growth Masterminds episode. Hit play and keep reading.

We know SKAN 4 will be the default attribution methodology on iOS at some point in the future. 

That’s likely to be fairly soon: this quarter or the next. SKAN 4 postbacks jumped as a percentage of all SKAdNetwork postbacks in November as Reddit made the switch from SKAN 3, and the trend is continuing in the new year. The Trade Desk, Unity, Persona.ly, Smadex, AppLovin, and Twitter are others who are driving SKAN 4 adoption.

Singular’s SKAN 4 adoption dashboard currently shows a definite if slow upward trend over the past few months:

skan 4 adoption dashboard

The challenge for busy mobile marketers is how to get started. 

Yeah, this isn’t always easy

For many, building out your SKAN 4 conversion schema from scratch is super-challenging. 

Part of the problem is that SKAN 4 is new and complex, and part of the problem is that many just haven’t been able to dedicate the significant amount of time needed to dig into SKAdNetwork and understand it in detail yet.

“We are more than 2 and a half years since SKAN was introduced into the industry and maybe more than 90% of people working here don’t get the fundamentals yet,” Moscon says.

Lucas Moscon is a senior user acquisition manager for Monkey Taps. He led performance at Goin, worked at Winclap as a performance specialist, and was a professor of paid media at Coderhouse. He’s also recently been building tools for mobile marketers, including an ad monetization hub that offers templates and scripts for remote controlling your ad monetization setup.

(Moscon credits that with 2 to 3Xing his ad revenue in specific apps. Check out the whole episode above to get all the details.)

Prepping for SKAN 4 can be hard when you’re also managing partners, building campaigns, commissioning creative, crunching numbers, and worrying about where your next pocket of growth will come from. It is definitely not easy managing everything.

But AI can help.

A custom GPT for building your SKAN 4 conversion schema

Everyone knows about GPT-4. 

Not everyone knows that if you’re an OpenAI subscriber, you can customize GPT-4 for your own needs and even release that version to the public. These specially-trained versions are called GPTs, and Moscon trained one for building out SKAN 4 conversion schema.

Check it out here.

The SKAN 4.0 Builder is super simple:

  1. Tell it to build your SKAN 4 conversion schema
  2. Give it some key information:
    1. App category
    2. Free trial (yes or no)
    3. Daily ad spend
    4. Business objective (revenue, sign-ups, etc)
  3. And that’s it …

SKAN 4 builder

Pretty much instantly, the SKAN 4.0 Builder comes back with a starting point for your SKAN 4 conversion schema. Here’s what it gave me for a health app with a free 7-day trial that I’m “spending” $4,500/day on with a primary goal of driving sign-ups.

SKAN 4 conversion schema

Is it perfect? Absolutely not.

I might have some different events going on in my app because it’s structured a bit differently. And I might want to spend my fine postback bits on more events because I’m pretty sure that I’ll achieve 64 possible values most times in postback 1 due to my reasonably high volume of ad spend and dedication to not spreading it amongst too many separate campaigns.

But …

It’s a good starting point. And that’s what most people need: a starting point to kick off their SKAN 4 journey and help them build out a SKAN 4 conversion schema that makes sense.

“I realized that people go to different webinars or podcasts … but they don’t visualize the schema in some way,” Moscon says. “They need it in their face to understand the starting point from where they can build different models.”

It also shows how to align the initial fine postback and subsequent coarse postbacks so that your measurement stays focused on your core goal and you get valuable information from which you can extrapolate cohort value for evaluating ad partners and individual campaigns.

Next levels would involve working with your ad partners to ensure you hit tier 3 levels of data as often as possible for all your SKAN 4 campaigns:

  • 4 digits of Source Identifier
  • Source app info
  • Maximum data in your fine conversion value for postback 1
  • And data for postbacks 2 and 3

No more excuses to not get started

Since you can now outsource at least the starting point, there’s no more excuse to not get started. Check out the SKAN 4 Builder, see what it returns for you, and ping Singular if you have questions or concerns.

The very good news right now is that Singular’s built SKAN 4 support so that it’s completely backward compatible with SKAN 3, because you’re going to have both versions of SKAN for at least 2024, and possibly into 2025. That’s partially due to partner adoption, but the SKAN version also depends on the user’s iPhone model and software update level. 

You want to maximize signal where possible with SKAN 4, while not missing out on SKAN 3 when that’s all that is available. And now with a GPT to help you build out your SKAN 4 conversion schema, it’s easy to start.

Much more in the full podcast

We also chat about ad monetization for subscription apps and how to double or triple ad revenue with smart ad management. We discuss what admon teaches you about your users, and why hybrid monetization is so critical in subscription apps.

And, of course, much more.

Subscribe in all the usual places including YouTube: find them all at our Growth Masterminds home page.

Crush mobile measurement on iOS and get CPIs 40% under benchmark: How to win on SKAN

How do you crush mobile measurement on iOS under SKAdNetwork? And how do you get 40% cheaper app installs on TikTok? There’s probably a lot of answers to that question, but one of them is having the right partner for mobile measurement. And another just might be having the right attitude.

“You just need to be brave,” says Carry1st’s senior manager for ad monetization and user acquisition Claire Rozain.

(First step: check out everything she said by signing up for SKANATHON and watching the third episode first. The insights here are extracted from a recent webinar in the SKANATHON series.)

Being brave on iOS … and using every data point possible

Even now, coming up on 2 years since Apple upended the mobile measurement space with SKAdNetwork, there’s a lot of fear, anxiety, and stress about mobile app install attribution without the IDFA.

Is making everything work again as simple as just being brave?

Let’s put it this way: it’s the first step.

It’s the first step because the initial step of faith starts a new journey for marketing optimization, measurement, and attribution. There are some challenges and minefields on the path. But without the first step, you’ll never arrive at the destination. And the destination, says Claire and others who have arrived, is very much worth the trip.

Crush mobile measurement on iOS …

Step 1 is taking the first step and trying. Step 2 is grabbing every privacy-safe datapoint you possibly can.

Singular VP Victor Savath explains how to achieve “full-fledged iOS reporting:”

“One of the key premises is that SKAdNetwork data cannot operate in a silo. It’s not operating in a vacuum. We still need to rely and lean on all the other adjacent data types to make the best use of the SKAdNetwork framework.”

What data is he talking about?

  • SKAN data
  • Network-reported data, including impressions and delivery
  • Cost data
  • First-party device-level data
  • IDFV data

SKAN is critically important, but especially in SKAN 3 with very strict privacy thresholds, you’re going to be missing key insights. That’s where first-party data comes in: if half of the IDFVs who complete task A turn out to be high-value customers/players/users, you can apply that assumption to your SKAN data as well. The same applies for any other data you can capture.

“From our SKAN reporting layer, we have some of the key campaigns, sub-campaign publisher-level data sets,” says Singular customer success expert Nabiha Jiwani. “But at the same time, we are pulling in your network-reported clicks, impressions, cost alongside your postback and conversion value counts to really show you a full-fledged iOS summary report.”

Add in the IDFV data and identify which events are truly meaningful to help segment users and estimate the value of individual cohorts and campaigns.

Making your app work for SKAN

Measurement methodology matters, but making SKAN work for you rather than against you could also require some changes in how you design your app and the funnels you create for users.

There are so many events and such a limited set of data SKAN can return that some get a little flustered, says Jiwani.

“There’s so many different options that I think sometimes folks can get a little bit overwhelmed. So, going back to the drawing board with your marketers, with your UA team, and figuring out what is the user journey and what model makes the most sense is something that can really influence and help enrich your SKAN reporting from the get-go.”

E-commerce apps she’s worked with often want to track big events like registration or add to cart or checkout completed. But there may not be enough of those events relative to the 50 or 75 or 230 users you acquired in Campaign 892 to optimize around them. So you need to find trigger events: antecedents to the big wins that offer predictive insight into those most-desired actions.

Sometimes that may require reconfiguring flows or rearchitecting apps.

“You need a product that is aligned with your model,” says Rozain. “And to have a product aligned with your model, you also need to know your audience and what kind of people you want to target at first from the start.”

Carry1st uses Singular for marketing measurement, of course, but also additional in-app analytics programs to deeply understand user behavior, segment users, and score them. 

“I feel like it’s something that is overlooked, especially on SKAN,” she adds. “And when a lot of people gave up on getting whales … some didn’t.”

The implication is that Carry1st is able to use its multiple datasets and smart data science team to still find whales — extreme high-value users — even under SKAN, when theoretically (according to many) that ability died when IDFA became scarce.

Making it all make sense with hybrid measurement

Data science is great, but how do you trust modeled data? There are so many different sets of modeled data now: 

  1. Network modeling to try to recapture conversions obscured by SKAdNetwork
  2. MMP modeling to reconstitute censored data
  3. MMP modeling to make predictive insights into cohort value beyond D1 or D2

Number 2 is fairly easy: if you’re getting the event that you’ve titled conversion value 20 about 50% of the time in your actual user base, Savath says, you can assume that the same is true in your SKAN data, even if 25% of the values are censored. Number 3 is getting easier under SKAN 4 and additional postbacks from longer timeframes. 

(And the good news is that Singular reports confidence intervals, so you always know the range of possible values.)

To make the data you’re working on better and better, Singular’s building hybrid measurement.

“It’s this idea of how we collect all the different signals,” Savath said. 

“We’re going to get Privacy Sandbox data sets coming … more modeled metrics from the various partners … the iOS SKAN 4 data … iOS SKAN 5 data … App Store information.”

And more, of course:

  • Network KPIs
  • Cost data
  • Optimization KPIs
  • MMM for broader insights
  • First-party data
  • And much more …

The magic is in both collecting all the data, using each data type at the right time and for the right purpose, and also using each dataset to in essence sanity check other datasets. The goal is that mobile marketers who understand they don’t have complete deterministic data and never will have that … can still have confidence in their overall performance and metrics.

The goals is also to crush mobile measurement on iOS.

So much more the full webinar

Check out the full webinar for all the insights, including more details into how Carry1st is achieving best-in-class results.

Get instant access here.

Unveiling Singular’s first ever Quarterly Trends Report: Q4 2023

I am super-excited to unveil Singular’s first ever Quarterly Trends Report. If you follow mobile marketing at all, you know that Singular is well-known for its annual ROI Index. Now we’re unveiling a new industry insights report that we’re going to update much more frequently.

And this inaugural edition is chock-full of insights.

The Singular Quarterly Trends Report is based on a huge amount of data across essentially every country on the planet and every vertical on Google Play and the App Store:

  • Trillions of impressions
  • Billions of dollars of spend
  • Tens of billions of clicks
  • Billions of installs
quarterly trends report

Massive change needs massive insight

Everyone knows that marketing and advertising is in the middle of a massive shift right now. 

We’re moving from deterministic last-click tracking using cookies and mobile ad identifiers like the IDFA and GAID to a broad mix of marketing measurement techniques we call hybrid measurement. As we go through this massive shift and turn to SKAN 4 and Privacy Sandbox and MMM and first-party data and modeling and more, you need easy access to up-to-date insights on the mobile ecosystem.

Accompanying this massive change is the continual growth and expansion of mobile globally.

QTR mobile data

So we’ve packed our first Quarterly Trends Report with insights sliced by operating system, geo, and verticals on:

  • The growth of mobile
  • ATT opt-in rates
  • CPI: cost per install
  • CTR: click-through rate
  • IPM: installs per thousand ad impressions
  • The hottest verticals for installs
  • Ad networks: top gainers for ad spend
  • Ad networks: top gainers for advertisers
  • Ad networks: top non-traditional user acquisition platforms for growth
  • Share of spend:
    • iOS
    • Android
    • Web
  • Paid versus organic installs
ATT opt-in rates quarterly trends report

Plus, we’ve added contributions from partners that round out the Quarterly Trends Report with insight from different angles of the complex mobile marketing landscape:

  • Appvertiser shares growth hacks for 2024 in 5 areas:
    • Paid user acquisition
    • Creatives
    • SKAN and attribution
    • ASO and organic growth
    • Bonus insights
  • AppSamurai shares global gaming and monetization trends with insights on:
    • Gaming spend
    • Gaming spend forecasts
    • Monetization strategies
    • Rewarded ads and real-world rewards
  • Bidease shares targeting insights:
    • Share of device language by country
    • Expanding into new markets without spending huge sums
    • Growing the fastest-growing region on the planet
  • Craftsman+ shares insights on the most popular ad types by platform:
    • Google
    • YouTube
    • Meta
    • TikTok
    • Other ad networks

We want to share what Singular’s seeing in the mobile marketing space as a resource for user acquisition and brand marketing professionals. 

Our intention is that this Quarterly Trends Report dataset will continue to grow and that the insights we share from it will expand from quarter to quarter. We’re also hoping to increasingly share insights from partners as well to provide the best possible dataset and insight.

We have huge plans for the future of this platform.

Check out the full report now.

And, keep checking back as we update it regularly.

Planting trees versus picking fruit: CTV and user acquisition

Where does CTV fit in your user acquisition strategy?

Performance marketing is picking apples off a tree, says Upwave CEO Chris Kelly in a recent Growth Masterminds podcast. They’re there, they’re ripe, they’re ready to go: they just need a little nudge and BOOM … you have a new user or customer. Brand marketing, however, is about planting baby apple trees that you can nourish and tend and eventually be able to harvest at some point in the future. While some businesses can survive off pure performance marketing because they reap existing demand fueled by basic human needs, long-lasting trends, or markets built by other companies, many also need to nurture seeds before they can pluck the produce.

So where does CTV fit? Hit play and keep reading …

CTV and user acquisition: AVOD growth

It’s pretty obvious that connected TV is growing fast. 

Streaming hit record highs this summer with almost 40% of all TV watching in July while broadcast and cable were both down. CTV is clearly on a path to 50% plus and eventual dominance, and AVOD (ad-supported video on demand) is a growing chunk of connected TV as Disney, Netflix, Max (former HBO), and Amazon Prime are all joining YouTube, Hulu, Peacock, Roku, Pluto, and others in offering discounted product tiers with ads.

streaming CTV record

But CTV is still only getting a fraction of the ad spend that traditional linear TV is getting. In 2023, Insider says CTV captured less than half the TV spend of linear TV.

  • CTV ad spend: $25 billion
  • Linear TV ad spend: $61 billion

When will the two converge? Possibly not until 2028 or later. That said, there’s an increasing amount of inventory in ad-supported CTV, and that means opportunity today. And, since AVOD is growing as a percentage of streaming while streaming is itself growing as a percentage of TV, the opportunity is growing fast.

CTV-based mobile user acquisition: opportunity?

That said, is there opportunity in CTV for mobile user acquisition? Clearly to some degree yes: we’re seeing it being used that way already. But it’s not a slam dunk for everyone, because by nature, CTV is less of a direct-response ad medium than a brand-building ad medium. 

“The lazy reputation that most people would have about mobile is … it’s great for lower funnel, it’s great for direct response: get someone to click here and download, click here and make the purchase,” says Kelly. “Whereas CTV is being used more now … for upper funnel because of that storytelling ability, that immersive full screen storytelling ability … it’s very powerful for upper funnel.”

Of course, no-one is arguing that CTV can’t also be used for lower funnel as well.

In fact, Amazon’s betting on it. 

The company announced in September that “starting in early 2024, Prime Video shows and movies will include limited advertisements,” which subscribers can opt out of by paying an additional $3/month.

But Amazon is already showing ads today on Amazon Prime.

Just a week ago, Amazon Prime showed me this when I logged in to catch the new season of Reacher: a QR code direct-response ad for Christmas gift shopping on Amazon. So you can bet that Amazon wants Prime Video to be a down-funnel step for its own customers, regardless of whether it’s the very last purchase point or not, and probably a point of instant purchase.

Amazon Prime CTV ads

Roku thinks this is the future too, having just rolled out a buy now button (ok, “place order”) in Roku Action Ads, a collaboration with Shopify. The experience will be reminiscent of Amazon: see an ad, click OK on your remote to learn more, and check out using Roku Pay. It’s an impressive integration, though Shopify is not nearly as powerful a partner as Amazon.

Of course, not all direct response is mobile user acquisition or app install: most of the above examples are retail. But we are seeing apps grow on CTV campaigns in Singular as well. Not all of those are looking for an immediate install, which makes sense.

“We think about the funnel like a football field actually, where we think it’s silly if marketers think that the success of every campaign is getting a sale,” Kelly says. “That would be like in an NFL context saying every play needs to get in the end zone and I’m just gonna look at my list of plays and see which one’s got me the end zone and only run those plays.”

In other words, not every ad should be a quarterback sneak. 

Or a tush push/brotherly shove.

Targeting is a challenge, but not as much as it used to be

Targeting has been a challenge on CTV, with one study suggesting almost half the data used for CTV ad targeting is wrong. It’s getting better, however, Kelly says. And there are options in CTV targeting that old-school linear TV marketers, who basically operated off of age and demo, would kill to have.

“CTV brings what you’d expect from a digital first platform,” says Kelly. “So you do see advertisers using third party audiences … just like you would for a web campaign … you see people bringing their first party audiences.”

That means you can target people who are like those that you already have in specific ways, you can target people who have engaged in specific behaviors, you can do look-alike audiences, and that you can — if your first-party audience is big enough — retarget or remarket. 

Plus, of course, all the demographic age and context data that comes along with specific audiences for specific shows.

But there is one key difference specifically in targeting on CTV versus mobile: person-to-household.

“Two [things that] are really interesting if you juxtapose mobile versus CTV as channels: one is reaching people versus households and the other is what part of the funnel you’re trying to move the consumer down, right?” says Kelly. “Mobile’s the most intimate device we have that’s right there to one person, one screen, and one person’s face.  Television is not that case … you have a big CTV screen hanging in your living room and there could be 2, 3, 4, 5 plus people watching.”

Which means, of course, measurement has the same challenge.

Brand impact: higher than mobile ads?

There’s some research that suggests 1 CTV ad has similar brand impact to 6+ mobile ads, Kelly says. 

That makes sense in some ways. When you’re watching AVOD, you get 3-4 sets of ads in an hour, and typically each set has just 1 or 2 ads in it. (This will probably change over time and become closer to linear TV’s current ad-fest!) That ad takes 15 to 30 seconds to watch, and you’re back to your content. Many mobile ads, on the other hand, might just whizz by in seconds or milliseconds, if they are banners or videos. 

(Of course, rewarded ads and interstitials would be the exceptions to this rule, since they require your attention for at least a few seconds.)

That investment in brand marketing is a good idea, Kelly says.

“People don’t wake up in the morning and just know what your brand is,” he says. “CTV may not get you to click on the ad and download the app as fast as mobile … but that increased awareness is going to pay off.”

Which means, if you’re going to try CTV ad campaigns for mobile user acquisition, you better do them in concert with lower-funnel campaigns. The idea is to both generate and satisfy demand in a surround-sound marketing campaign that makes it feel like your brand is everywhere … while also making it easy for people to take action.

CTV ad campaigns: affordable to start

TV advertising makes me think of Super Bowl ads and millions of dollars per second. Of course, not all linear TV ad space is that expensive, but it’s generally significantly more expensive than CTV ads.

Which is good: brands can try them without breaking the bank.

“The barriers to entry to CTV are lower,” Kelly says. “So if you’re an advertiser coming from buying Facebook ads or buying Google ads, you’re gonna start CTV before you’re starting linear in most cases.”

Think 5-figure entry fees, not 6 or 7 figures.

The upshot: CTV ads for UA

So is CTV good for user acquisition? Sure, but there’s some nuance here.

From a branding perspective, bigger apps with larger campaigns who need multiple brand touches to generate high-LTV users/players/customers will find it easier to fit CTV into their marketing strategy. Smaller apps that are spending less: it’ll be harder to justify even taking a look at CTV as you haven’t even come close to maximizing your existing channels yet.

But even small apps could find utility and profitability here. Smaller apps that are in a very specific vertical and meet a very specific need that they can target on CTV could probably go very low-funnel on a CTV ad and generate near-immediate conversions.

Plus, there are certain apps that need to appeal to a number of different audiences to be effective. Kids’ apps for instance, need kids to be interested but also need adults to be aware before they can convert. CTV could provide an interesting opportunity to target households here that mobile ads can’t easily replicate.

So much more in the full podcast

Check out the full chat with Upwave CEO Chris Kelly on YouTube, or get our audio podcast on whatever podcasting platform you prefer.

We chat about:

  • CTV ads
  • CTV targeting
  • CTV measurement
  • Limitations of CTV
  • Accessibility and affordability
  • Optimization on CTV
  • Performance vs brand marketing