John Koetsier, Author at Singular

Ad spend up, tariff impact in USA, global UA trends: The Q2 2025 Singular Quarterly Trends Report

Ad spend is significantly up in the new Singular Quarterly Trends Report for Q2 2025, but not for the Shopping category in the United States, where we’re seeing a massive slump that correlates with the new tariffs on China and other nations.

We’re releasing the new QTR today.

Singular’s Q2 2025 Quarterly Trends Report: what’s inside?

The Q2 report is the most comprehensive we’ve ever released in this seventh iteration of the Singular quarterly trends report. Here’s a brief overview of what you can expect:

Global ad spend trends
U.S. tariff impacts on e-commerce ad spend
Changes in ad spend by vertical
Monetization distortion: why iOS matters so much
Hottest app genres with the most installs
iOS-specific metrics around ATT and SKAdNetwork
Global trends in
- Cost per install
- Click-through rates
- Cost per mille (thousand ad impressions)
- Installs per mille
Platform-specific metrics
Region-specific metrics
Ad network share of spend
Which ad networks are growing fastest
Best regional and vertical-specific ad networks
And much more …

Plus, we also have some stellar contributions from data partners for this report, including:

Adkiteev
Aarki
InMobi
Appier

Ad spend changes: quarterly trends

There has been a ton of activity in the mobile ecosystem in early 2025. A few of the biggest changes include Apple being forced to open up third-party payments and tariffs rocking not just the offline world, but digital commerce as well.

Here are some of the key quarterly trends ad spend changes we see.

Note: this is normalized based on the year-ago quarter, so 100% is flat, under 100% is a drop, and over 100% is an increase.

Mobile game user acquisition spend is down, as is Shopping or e-commerce.

But by isolating US-only data, we can see that e-commerce app user acquisition ad spend is down massively: 44.9% year-over-year and 45% quarter over quarter. Again, this is normalized to the year-ago quarter:

This makes sense, as others have noted. There are fewer dollars being pumped into retail app growth:

Temu dramatically reduced — and eventually stopped — spending on Google Shopping ads between April 9 and 12, 2025. Shein is following a similar pattern, having cut its Google Shopping ads investment on April 15.

In other words, Shein and Temu and others dropping ad spend because of tariffs and the revocation of the “de minimis” rules that exempted lower-value individual purchases from tariff impact is a real thing. Retail app user acquisition spend dropped massively this past quarter.

Overall ad spend is up though, especially Entertainment and On-demand

However, there are some highlights where ad spend is significantly up.

Fintech apps as well as the On-demand, Travel, Entertainment, and Education categories saw a boost in ad spend. The biggest was Entertainment, where ad spend more than doubled year over year. This is not shocking if you saw our recent top 10 entertainment apps post for key countries such as USA, Brazil, Japan, India, Germany, UK, and Korea: there’s an intense battle for subscribers here.

Education did as well, but it’s a much smaller category in terms of app installs and user acquisition spend.

Spend on On-demand app marketing was up 56% year over year: also impressive after years of growth already.

Overall, ad spend by Singular customers was up 40.3%, an impressive jump.

Hottest app and game categories

Year over year, Match and Puzzle games grew over 150% in popularity on Android. On iOS Action, Educational, Card, and Simulation games grew over 150%.

Interestingly, gambling games grew over 136% on iOS.

There’s an interesting dichotomy between Android and iOS in terms of most popular app categories right now.

Android: On-demand apps rule
iOS: Entertainment apps are tops

On-demand and travel are second and third on iOS; Entertainment is second on Android.

Plus, all the metrics updates

We’ve got the latest quarter trends data on ATT acceptance by vertical, plus global trends on CPI, CTR, CPM, and IPM.

TLDR: it’s getting more expensive to find new mobile app users.

We also break down a lot of these metrics by vertical and geo, focusing on the following regions:

China
Japan
Rest of world
Tier 1 East: Korea, India
Tier 2 East: Taiwan, Indonesia, Turkey, Thailand, Philippines
Tier 1 West: Canada, France, Germany, UK
Tier 2 West: Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Poland
United States

Get instant access to the Singular Q2 2025 Quarterly Trends Report

Get instant access to the new QTR.

Simply click here to get the QTR. We will ask for your name, email address, and a couple of other details.

Research: using 6+ ad networks correlates with higher ROI, lower CPI, higher retention

In a recent webinar, I asked marketers how many ad networks they had for their growth campaigns. 7 out of 10 said they were currently using fewer than 6 ad partners. Based on data we recently pulled, that could be a core reason why they’re getting less ROI, paying more for each install, and seeing less retention than more sophisticated performance marketers who are using more than 6 ad networks.

Just 13% of the marketers we talked to use between 6 and 10 ad networks, and under 6% use more than 10.

It’s not easy to scale ad partners. When we asked the same set of marketers about their top performance priorities for Q3 and Q4 this year, those who used 5 or fewer ad networks said they had significant challenges around scaling.

Their core issues:

Scaling budget efficiently
Optimizing ROAS
Testing new networks
Improving creative performance

None of those are trivial problems with simple solutions. My suggestion, however, for those who find themselves in similar situations is to work on each of them, assuming you have a reasonable amount of capital to deploy in search of growth. Outsized rewards await those who can scale to 6 or more ad partners.

Here’s the data …

Scaling to 6+ ad networks: what does it do?

We recently checked Singular’s data on thousands of marketers, tens of billions in ad spend, and hundreds of billions of app installs and other conversion events.

The goal: what core differences can we find between those who:

Use 5 ad networks or less
Use 6 ad networks or more

Here’s what we found …

1. More ad networks = higher ROI

Companies using 5 or fewer ad networks had less ROI than those using 6 or more.

In games, those with more ad networks achieved 47% higher ROI. For other kinds of apps, the difference was even more significant: 59%.

2. More ad networks = lower CPI

Advertisers using 5 or fewer ad networks paid more for app installs in both games and apps.

For games, those using more ad networks achieve app installs for 49% less cost. For apps again, the difference was even bigger: 75% less cost.

3. More ad networks = same or higher retention

The difference is not as universal when it comes to retention, but more ad networks at minimum does not hurt retention.

That’s actually a significant finding, because when you add more partners and channels you tend to move out from the blue-chip stocks of user acquisition and performance marketing … the Googles and Metas and Apple Searches of the advertising world. In other words, you’re expanding out of quality for quantity and you’re not always certain you’re maintaining quality. However, that doesn’t appear to be a negative for number of ad partners, based on this data.

For games, retention was dead even. For apps, retention was 74% higher for those using more ad partners for growth.

3X ROI in on-demand verticals

We see the correlation between more partners and more ROI in a number of verticals, but nowhere more than in on-demand verticals.

I’m talking Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Postmates, Instacart … all that massively growing space where users can request and receive goods or services almost instantly via mobile apps.

Here we’re seeing almost a 3X jump in ROI from those using 5 or fewer ad networks to those using 6 or more. It’s a massive, jaw dropping difference.

I can’t pin down exactly why that is right now, but I suspect it has at least something to do with retail media: being asked in context for things that make sense. For example, a food delivery app could run ads on Instacart targeting people searching for frozen meals or snacks, offering a faster alternative with a first-time order discount.

More on this as we continue to explore …

Caveats and cautions: adding ad partners

All things being equal, these results indicate that you should immediately add ad partners if you’re using just 2 or 3 or 4 ad networks right now.

Umm … no.

All things are NOT equal.

You don’t have the same amount of growth capital as everyone else. You don’t have the same team as everyone else. You don’t have the same knowledge or expertise as everyone else. Note that I’m not saying you have less, just that these things are not equivalent everywhere. You might have more knowledge, a better team, and greater expertise.

The key point is that if you can’t spend at least some thousands of dollars a month with each ad partner at a bare minimum, you may not have the scale to unlock the same efficiencies as some of the big players.

You need the technology and tooling to optimize campaigns, and you need enough quantity of growth capital to deploy with individual partners to scale efficiently. Otherwise you’re just spending too high a percentage of your budgets on training and testing.

Ideas on what that level looks like vary, but I’d think in and around $5K per month would be what you’d want to allocate to each at minimum. More however, if you have massive variety in campaigns, creative, or goals which each require optimization.

Yes, there are things you can learn across all your campaigns with all your partners. But each partner has its own optimization AI and algorithms that need to be trained, and that costs budget.

So what do you need to do?

If you have the capital to use more growth ad partners, do it.

But first, ensure you have the tools — starting with an MMP — to measure and optimize your results. Work on a testing methodology for bringing on new ad partners, with detailed steps and go/no-go decision points that you’ve mapped out previously.

(We talk about how to do that in this webinar, by the way.)

And work with your the ad partners you use, sharing your plans and go/no go KPIs. They’ll work with you to figure out how to achieve the results you need on their platforms. Not sure where to start? We just updated our Singular ROI Index, which shows the highest-quality ad networks on the planet.

Because, as the data shows, there’s huge value in spreading your growth campaigns around.

Talk to us today. We’ll get you started.

Brutal, flexible, global: How top marketers are unlocking outsized ROAS right now

How will you unlock outsized ROAS in your performance marketing campaigns? You stop playing it safe, you start going global, and you stay flexible about exactly how and where you are going to get your wins. At least, according to 5 experts who see thousands of campaigns and their results every week.

We recently asked 5 smart people in mobile marketing to share their top tips for boosting ROAS. (Check out our full conversation here.)

And we also shared the result of our new Singular ROI Index, with unprecedented insights for winning in mobile marketing this year.

Here are the 5 experts:

Rebecca Nzelle Ewang, MobileAction
Beth Berger, Moloco
Joseph Iris, Persona.ly
Bartosz Pezinski, Liftoff
Rachel Glazier, Reddit

Our goal: unpack what’s driving performance today, plus what’s going to matter tomorrow. Here’s a brief summary of what we learned …

Outsized ROAS: brutality & flexibility are driving advertising performance

For one, marketers are going from safe to surgical.

Even brutal.

“Partners we’ve been working with for years that usually have stable budgets per month have started to be more brutal with their choices,” says Joseph Iris from Personal.ly. “ They’re doubling down on what works and they’re cutting down what doesn’t work completely. And this isn’t behavior we saw before.”

In other words: patience is a commodity in very limited supply in the performance marketing community in 2025.

Like, unobtainium limited.

But boosting ROAS isn’t just about making fast, brutal decisions to kill underperforming campaigns. It’s also about flexibility. It’s about being even more adaptable. UA and re-engagement budgets are increasingly fluid, shifting seasonally, monthly … even weekly.

“We also see differences between the balance of UA and reengagement budgets with parts of the year going for UA exclusively, parts of year are going to more reengagement,” Iris added. “Everything still becoming more expensive everywhere is forcing advertisers to be more flexible in their planning and the reaction times should be faster.”

Key takeaways:

Shorten the leash on campaigns
Once they’ve had enough spend or impressions to demonstrate performance, make a decision
Kill underperforming campaigns, creative, hooks, CTAs
Pivot to new options, but also new channels, new partners
Try more
Fail fast

Cheat code to boost ROAS: yes you can go global even at your size or budget

So your app is in English with maybe some AI-translated languages just in case, and you know you appeal more to American needs than, maybe, app users in Korea or Spain.

Doesn’t mean you need to limit your targeting via geo anymore.

“We’ve seen a shift towards globally focused campaigns and more user-level targeting like device language, even within broader geos,” says Bartosz Pezinski from Liftoff.

There are English speakers all over the globe, not just in the US, Canada, UK, NZ, or Australia. And they might be perfectly happy to use your app, watch ads in it, maybe subscribe to it.

Here’s the kicker:

Targeting them via device language is a cheat code for potentially super-cheap installs that are super-valuable. Think about it: maybe they’re digital nomads, earning a high salary from a western tech company while living cheap in Thailand or Portugal or the south of France.

Finding them via language is 1 thing; adding devices is another. Because, of course, device types are proxies for how wealthy someone is, and therefore for how likely they might be to buy, subscribe, or watch expensive ads.

Someone with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5, which retails for about $1,800 USD, is likely not very hard up for cash. Same with the iPhone 16 Pro Max, even if you find it in a low-cost-of-living country.

Thing of the ROAS if you can acquire them for pennies compared to what it might cost in the U.S., or Korea, or Germany.

Incrementality can be your best friend when you need to put a rocket engine under your ROAS

Hey, we all love last-click. It largely built the wider performance marketing and mobile marketing industries as we know them. And it’s still super-useful.

But incrementality is a great way to over-deliver on ROAS.

And know that you did.

“It’s not enough to have ROAS,” says Beth Berger of Moloco. “It needs to be incremental ROAS. It’s not enough to get scale. It needs to be incremental scale.”

Berger’s calling out one of the biggest challenges that stunt rookies in performance marketing: surface-level metrics that look good but don’t actually reflect real business growth. A recent podcast guest on Growth Masterminds put it this way:

A pizza shop wanted to run a promo, so they paid kids to hand out coupons for 25% off pizza all over town, and they told the kids whoever’s coupons generated the most sales would win a prize. Turns out, 1 kid generated almost 90% of the sales.

So the manager asked him: what’d you do?

His answer was both genius and a gigantic face-palm:

“Stood outside the door and handed them to people walking in.”

Ouch.

Incrementality measures the net new value driven because of the ad spend. Instead of asking “did these ads play a role in the customer journey, incrementality asks “would these users have installed/subscribed/purchased if we didn’t advertise to them?”

Critical difference.

Key tools and strategies for boosting ROAS in 2025, according to the panel

It’s not 2020 anymore. The tech and tools are changing faster than ever.

Here’s what fueling ROAS growth in 2025, according to our experts:

Generative AI for emotion-driven creative
Custom Product Pages for iOS
Tight alignment between ads and app listings
Community-driven platforms like Reddit that reward authenticity
Advanced machine learning models designed to optimize across multiple goals, not just installs
App Store/Google Play campaigns that are aligned with ASO development
Incrementality testing
Machine learning and AI for better campaign optimization
Reengagement … still relevant today (and still possible!)

YMMV, of course.

Find what works for you, but test changes every month or quarter.

So much more in the full webinar

There’s a ton more in the full webinar, including a sneak peak at Singular ROI Index for 2025. Get your copy here to see:

The top-performing ad networks by ROI, scale, and growth
The Singular ROI Quadrant: where value meets volume
Breakout platforms like Moloco, Liftoff, Reddit, and Apple Search Ads
First-ever ability to filter results by geo and app categories
Insights into the rising wave of rewarded ad networks

Plus much more.

And of course go watch the full webinar to get all insights from all our panelists.

Taking iOS payments in-house? Here’s how to measure it with your MMP

Planning to take iOS payments in-house? Great, but now you also need to know how to measure off-App-Store payments with your MMP.

Here’s how …

Paying for in-app purchases via third-party or your own e-commerce solution is now fully legal for iOS apps in the United States, thanks to Epic Games’ lawsuit against Apple. (If you’re thinking about doing just that, here’s a framework to use to help you decide) But savvy marketers know that before they can celebrate with a ticker-tape parade down main street in Cupertino, they need to ensure that they can tie revenue from users to their costs so they can continue to run smart user acquisition campaigns.

Otherwise you are flying blind. You’ve broken your ad campaign optimization feedback cycle because you can’t connect costs and commerce.

So here’s how you connect MMP measurement to taking iOS payments in-house.

3 options for iOS payments now

There are essentially three ways to take iOS payments now, including the legacy way of just letting Apple manage it for you.

App Store iOS payments
Same old same old … in-app purchases mediated by Apple. Simple, friction-free, and 15-30% commission to pay.
Web store iOS payments
Usually for web2app acquisition flows or for dip-outs … popping users out of their in-app context, into a web-based store, executing the purchase, and flipping them back into your app with a deep link. This can also be done prior to app install, which is common in many web2app subscription app flows, and completely independently of any app session.
Webview iOS payments
Though technically it’s close to #2 above, it’s not exactly equivalent. Webview is popping open a browser instance in-app, thereby keeping your users in context as much as possible.

In the App Store model, Apple takes the payment but also does something else very important: notifying the app that yes, a user paid for X so you can now release X to them in the app.

In the web store model, a payment processor like a Stripe or a PayPal, or a service like RevenueCat (which now offers paywalls), takes payment and then issues a callback, often via an SDK, so that your app knows to release the product. The big positive of the web store model is that it’s a full browser experience with full access to existing cookies and logins. So if a user pays for something once, creating an account, their payment information can be stored and re-used without re-entry for subsequent purchases. In addition, at least theoretically, users could go on a different device — such as their laptop — to complete a purchase there, then see the benefit in your app.

The webview model is the best in terms of keeping users in context of your app, but there is a potential downside. Webviews on both iOS (WKWebView) and Android (WebView) are sandboxed. That means the web content is isolated from the native app’s internal data and other system resources, but also that in some cases, you can’t access a user’s existing cookies and logins.

(Exception: when you actually ship an in-app browser, such as SFSafariViewController, which is essentially a full Safari instance inside your app.)

That means that even if users have existing accounts with Stripe or PayPal or RevenueCat, they may not be accessible without a login process, which adds friction. And, if users don’t have existing accounts with payment processors, they may need to take that dreaded next step of hauling out a wallet, finding a credit card, and tediously inputting all their details.

(Never mind having to potentially 2FA a transaction with a suspicious card issuer who sees an unknown store attempting to charge a card.)

That’s where hard-core friction could happen.

Important: keep your channels clean

Channel confusion used to be something only CPG vendors needed to worry about. Was it a TV ad, the store flyer, an influencer, or some other distribution or marketing channel that influenced a sale?

No more: now app publishers need to think about it as well.

If we generalize “channels” to where a product is sold, for mobile app payments, you’d clearly have 3 specific channel possibilities: the ones above.

But are there really 3? Isn’t it just 2, because Web store and Webview essentially will use identical functionality behind the scenes in terms of payment processing and data sharing back to your app? In a way, yes, but it can get confusing.

It’s early days, but at Singular we’d argue that in-app purchases should be thought of as in-app purchases, wherever they actually occur. That’s an app-centric way of looking at your revenue because your key deliverables are in your app.

And what that means is that at the end of the day, any “off-app” iOS payment or purchase that is completed should be reported and tied back to the mobile user/device itself. Ultimately it has to, because you have actually deliver the purchased item or service to your user, customer, or subscriber. In addition, this ensures that revenue remains connected to user acquisition, which keeps ROI/ROAS/LTV calculations clean.

(The other option, of course, is tracking these off-app-store payments as web events or cross-device revenue … which would be challenging in any case because the payment portals are probably owned by your payment vendor and not you, the app publisher and marketer.)

Connecting iOS payments to people

There are a variety of technical ways to get the web payment associated with the mobile user/device, and they’ll have some different pluses or minuses in terms of in-app integration and challenges from the payment process side.

Direct integration with each payment vendor and the event with the device ID and/or customVendorID via server-to-server communication
Callback of “successful payment” from payment vendor SDK/API either server-side, or back in the client, then forwarding the revenue event back to Singular in the Singular SDK

Eventually there will be super-clear and simple options, but #2 is currently extremely doable.

The big question will be how the big payment platforms iterate around this. Ultimately marketers need to measure in-house purchases as in-app purchases, not web, to avoid channel confusion and make ROI/ROAS trackable, and Singular will support that.

What about Android and in-house payments?

The interesting thing is that with all this happening on iOS payments, it’s easy to forget about Android.

Over the past few years Android has been undergoing significant changes regarding third-party billing options, both through Google’s initiatives and legal mandates. For example, Google’s “User Choice Billing” pilot allows eligible developers to offer an alternative billing system alongside Google Play’s billing system. This program is currently active in over 35 countries, including the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Brazil, Japan, and the European Economic Area (EEA).

The problem is much like the one that prompted Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to order Apple to drop any commissions or fees on out-of-app payments.

Google’s commissions don’t go away … they just drop a little. A very little: developers receive a 4% reduction in service fees for transactions processed through alternative billing systems. And, you must use Google’s alternative billing APIs to participate, so Google sees all your revenue.

This could change, however, and for the same reason that Apple changed.

Epic didn’t just sue Apple, they also sued Google.

In October 2024, a U.S. federal judge ruled in favor of Epic Games in an antitrust lawsuit against Google, declaring that Google’s Android app store holds an illegal monopoly. The court ordered Google to make significant changes to its Play Store operations to foster competition.

Those mandated changes include:

Allowing third-party app stores to be distributed within Google Play
Permitting developers to inform users about alternative payment methods and download options outside Google Play
Prohibiting Google from requiring the use of Google Play Billing for apps distributed on the Play Store
Restricting Google from offering incentives to developers or device manufacturers to favor Google Play over rival stores

Those changes were to have taken effect in November of 2024 … but Google has filed an appeal and requested a stay on enforcement of the injunction.

So there it sits, for now.

Talk to us … we can help

If you are thinking of taking in-app purchases in-house, talk to us. We can help you walk through the process of doing exactly that while also keeping your measurement, analytics, and campaign optimization intact.

Book some time today.

How to get your Apple Ads SKAN postbacks (AKA Apple Search Ads SKAN postbacks)

App marketers can now get SKAN postbacks from Apple Ads, the former Apple Search Ads. But … how do you get Apple Ads SKAN postbacks in your Singular dashboard?

17 days ago Apple announced that Apple Search Ads supports SKAdNetwork, Apple’s privacy-safe mobile attribution framework, for the first time. That’s a big deal, as it’s a start to putting Apple’s ad network on the same level as any other ad network when it comes to mobile app install ad measurement and optimization. Of course, the Apple Ads Attribution API is not going away, so Apple’s retaining a first-party privilege there. And — also of course — SKAdNetwork is now AdAttributionKit.

Essentially, it was a signal that Apple is making some significant advertising moves. Another signal: 7 days ago Apple rebranded Apple Search Ads as Apple Ads.

Here’s how app marketers can get SKAN postbacks from Apple Ads today, via Singular.

Apple Ads SKAN postbacks

Essentially immediately after our announcement on April 4 that Apple was supporting SKAN/AAK in Apple Ads, we started seeing postbacks pop up.

Apple Ads SKAN postbacks (or AAK postbacks) have 4 potential placements, and Apple has mapped each placement to a “campaign” ID:

10: Search results
20: Search tab
30: Today tab
40: Product pages

Here’s what each looks like in the App Store:

Briefly, any app installs resulting from a search results page in the App Store app will be mapped to campaign ID 10. But since Apple also has ads by default on the Search tab immediately when someone clicks on search in the App Store, before they’ve actually entered a query and searched, there’s also campaign ID 20, which is mapped to any app installs that result from clicks ads on the Search tab as you first see it, before entering search terms.

Apple Ads campaign ID 30 is for installs resulting from clicks on the Today tab, Apple’s news and updates default first screen in the App Store app, and ID 40 is for ads on product pages. These are from clicks on ads following app listing pages in sections like “You Might Also Like.”

Distribution of ad types in Apple Ads (Apple Search Ads)

There’s a super-interesting distribution of ads in Apple Ads right now in terms of what is generating app installs, which we can see at Singular because we’re getting the Apple Ads SKAN postbacks for clients who have configured their set-up to forward them.

In early data, we’re seeing massive domination by ads in Search results. While it looks like the Today tab and Product pages have zero installs, that’s not correct … just far, far fewer.

Here are the precise percentages:

Search results: 89.55%
Search tab: 10.19%
Today tab: 0.10%
Product pages: 0.16%

The numbers do actually make sense:

Search results are both the highest-intent Apple Ads placements and likely the most common type of ad. (I don’t know about you, but if I go to the App Store app, I typically tap right off the Today tab into search, enter my terms, and search for what I need.)
Search tab is a high-traffic part of the App Store for precisely that reason, so if Apple has guessed peoples’ intent well enough, or presented ads that are intriguing enough based on what it knows about us, we’re likely to tap on the default ads shown before search.
Today tab is the default landing spot when opening the App Store app, but I don’t really go to the App Store for some light reading or entertainment on new apps, and I’m guessing most people are like me. Also, placements here are expensive, driven by CPM, not CPI or CPC, and limited (there are far more potential search results pages, obviously, than Today tabs).
Product pages ads drive more installs than the Today tab, probably because there are millions of them compared to the singular Today tab, but it’s lower intent than Search results, and it also requires people to scroll way down an app listing … which many don’t do.

How to get your Apple Ads SKAN postbacks

Configure Apple Ads to forward SKAN or AAK postbacks to Singular. This is super-simple to do if you have not done it already … simply:

Open info.plist in your Xcode project navigator
Add a key in the property list editor with the key name NSAdvertisingAttributionReportEndpoint
Choose String as the type
Add the URL for Singular’s BI endpoint: https://singular-bi.net

Now all your Apple Ads SKAN postbacks (and when/if you upgrade, your Apple Ads AAK postbacks) will be forwarded to Singular.

Access them through Singular’s marketing ETL exports, and you’ll be able to see what’s going on at Apple Ads from an SKAdNetwork/AdAttributionKit perspective along with all your other data.

Now you’re cooking with gas: all your data, available in the same place, providing the best possible insight into what’s happening.

Checklist: should you take iOS payments in-house?

Apple’s grip on App Store payments has been legally broken in the United States. But should you take advantage of the situation and take iOS payments in-house … or should you stick with the in-app payment scheme that you know?

It’s still early days so how we think about this could change, but in this post I’m going to:

Overview the changes briefly
Highlight the major impacts for iOS apps in the United States
Review the strategic decisions app developers need to make
Provide a checklist to work through as you decide whether you want to take iOS payments in-house

One of my sources: a livestream that I participated in with FunnelFox and others on the new iOS app payments realities, which you can watch here. Also, don’t miss our post on how to measure off App Store payments with your MMP, so that you don’t miss out on campaign optimization, LTV calculation, ROAS calculation, and other critical parts of performance marketing for mobile apps.

Let’s go …

iOS payments: there’s new rules in place

Briefly, here’s the new changes that are in place:

IAPs can now be OAPs
iOS apps can now direct users to third-party payment methods outside the App Store, making in-app purchases out-of-app purchases (or OAPs). For the first time, developers can bypass Apple’s 30% commission by offering web-based or alternative payment options.
Apple instantly complied with the legal ruling
Apple updated its App Store guidelines immediately to comply. So you are 100% in the clear to use this new methodology in the United States … and Spotify already submitted an updated app to take payments!
Apple Pay could be a near-seamless replacement
Since you can now do payments any way you want, you could theoretically run them right through Apple Pay, not just external redirects to websites. That means Apple Pay could become the seamless alternative with no need to enter a credit card number or give your payment information to a random company. In effect you switch from 30% fees to 2%-3% while keeping a native, high-converting user experience.

For more details, check my original blog post.

8 impacts of the new iOS payment rules

Lower fees are good, but this is a candy that might just have a sour center. There are some challenges to bringing iOS payments in-house.

Here’s 8 impacts, both good and bad:

Technical and tax complexity
If you take iOS payments in-house for the United States, you now have to manage your own payment processing, including sales tax/VAT collection per U.S. state, or use a provider like Stripe. This can be complex and can involve registering in up to 50 separate jurisdictions. Clearly, this is easier for larger companies (Netflix, Spotify, ChatGPT) who can already handle global payments.
Ownership of the customer relationship
The company that bills a customer owns a customer. Everyone else is a service provider. Using third-party payments means developers own the billing relationship and customer data (real email, address, and more) which — though it has its costs — is very good. This enables direct customer communication, retention offers, and email marketing, and opens opportunities for personalized pricing, upsells, and bundling.
Lower payment fees, but higher operational costs
Apple Pay or credit cards charge ~2%-3% versus Apple’s 30%, but developers absorb payment fraud risks, chargebacks, customer support, and subscription management. Also, cancellation flows and refund handling become the developer’s responsibility. Fun times …
App Store review will become stricter
Don’t forget, Apple retains full control over app approvals. You can expect stricter reviews to prevent scammy or dark-pattern payment implementations … which already have infiltrated the App Store and now will be charging full speed ahead, sniffing out scam opportunities galore.
More pricing and productization freedom
Early adopters could see ~30% revenue gains from avoiding Apple’s commission. But you also get more pricing freedom (no more rigid App Store price tiers) and greater opportunity for bundling and productization. Now your product is whatever you want it to be, at whatever price you wish, whether 1-time or subscription.
Faster payouts
App store payouts take time. Taking payments yourself should result in faster payouts, which improves cash flow and accelerates your ability to reinvest in user acquisition. Which means an already light-speed industry is going to get even faster optimization and growth cycles.
User acquisition could get more expensive
Apps with higher margins that are now taking closer to 100% of what users are paying can bid more aggressively for users, likely driving up ad costs. Higher CPM, CPI, or CAC … not something you wanted, but definitely a possible impact of the new iOS payments reality. Ad network revenues should go up.
Retention and churn: more under your control
Customers are ultimately in charge, but owning payments means that you can try to save customers or payers with immediate discounts, payment pauses, or offers during a cancellation flow. For those who are tempted to re-create big telco-style loyalty departments, please remember that FTC regulations require easy cancellation options.

App publishers: strategic options

It’s important to note that you essentially have 3 options now. Stick with Apple, or choose 1 of 2 different ways of allowing customers to pay you directly.

Leave payments with Apple
Take payments in-house via a seamless process (Apple Pay, perhaps PayPal, etc)
Take payments in-house via a web2app style process (link-outs for the store, or start UA on the web)

Each approach has different pluses and minuses. Here’s an overview …

3 ways to take payments

	Apple IAPs	In-house payments (in-app or web redirect)	Web-to-app funnel
Commission	15%-30%	~2%-5% (Apple Pay, Stripe, etc.)	~2%-5%
User experience	Seamless, native	Can be seamless (Apple Pay), slight friction if web redirect	Most friction, multiple steps
Payment compliance	Handled by Apple	Developer responsibility	Developer responsibility
Tax collection	Handled by Apple	Developer must handle	Developer must handle
Own customer data?	No (anonymized by Apple)	Yes	Yes
Control over pricing	Limited to Apple price tiers	Full flexibility	Full flexibility
App Store review risk	Low	Moderate to High	Low (for web)
Cash flow speed	Apple payout cycle (30-45 days)	Faster, depends on payment processor	Faster, depends on payment processor
Churn management	Limited	Full control	Full control
Attribution data	Limited	Can be richer (with user email, ID, etc.)	Richest (full web attribution)
Technical complexity	Low	Medium to high	High
Best fit for ...	Indie developers, small studios	Mid-to-large apps, high revenue apps	High LTV apps, sophisticated UA teams

How to make your decision on taking iOS payments in-house

So app publishers have some decisions to make. For some, it’s easy: big developers from big brands should instantly move to third-party iOS payments. Small developers with fewer resources: it’s likely best to stay where you are.

The mid-tier, however, that’s where you have some challenging decisions to make.

So: should you move to bring iOS payments in-house? Work through this checklist as you make your decision:

Business readiness
1. Annual app revenue > $1M (recommended threshold to justify complexity)
2. Legal team ready for tax registration & compliance in 50 U.S. states
3. Accounting can handle U.S. sales tax filings per state
Payment infrastructure
1. Third-party payment processor (e.g., Stripe, Paddle, Adyen) integrated
2. Apple Pay set up for lowest friction (if staying “inside” app)
3. Refunds, chargebacks, and cancellations process prepared
Customer management
1. CRM or email platform ready to handle customer data & communications
2. Subscription management & retention flow ready (discounts, pauses, win-back)
User acquisition & attribution
1. Server-to-server event tracking or Conversion API implemented
2. Deep linking capabilities if using web payments
3. Ability to track payments across web and app
4. Pricing experimentation framework ready
Strategic fit
1. Is owning the billing relationship important to your growth/retention plans?
2. Are the new bigger margins high enough to support the additional costs/risks?
3. Is increased flexibility (pricing, offers, bundles) valuable to your business?
Risk mitigation
1. Clear, easy cancellation flow (to comply with FTC regulations)
2. Consistent merchant name between app and payment processor
3. Review App Store guidelines frequently for changes

There’s a lot to work through. Make sure any change you implement makes sense long-term for your app.

Take your time to make a decision

Just because Spotify is instantly moving to manage its own iOS app payments doesn’t mean you have to. There is value in payments just being solved for you by a trusted brand like Apple, so don’t feel like you have to make a change just because you can make a change.

And Apple may do something in the U.S. market similar to what it has done in the EU: make a big alert in the app list about where your app takes payments. That could have a negative impact on your download velocity:

Make the right call, and don’t forget to build in testing time to see how it impacts user/customer/player behavior.

And if we can help, let us know.

Long live OAPs: Apple’s grip on out of App Store payments ‘broken’

There’s in-app payments, the old familiar IAPs, and out-of-app payments, the relatively new OAPs. With a legal ruling that broke yesterday, Apple’s iron-clad grip on out-of-app payments has, in long-time industry analyst Eric Seufert’s words, been “broken.”

And as of May 2, Apple has updated the App Review Guidelines:

Apple’s response to a 2024 injunction that forced the company to open up external payments included a massive 27% commission on “proceeds you earn from sales (“transactions“) to the user for digital goods or services on your website after a link out.” (This is, in some ways, similar to the company’s Core Technology Fee it unveiled in the EU in response to the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which the EU found non-compliant and recently fined Apple 500 million euros over.)

But Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the US district court for Northern California just ruled that Apple’s response to the injunction “was the most anticompetitive option” that created “new anticompetitive barriers.”

Now she’s ordered Apple to drop any commissions or fees on out-of-app payments.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, who has fought this battle for almost 4 and half years, says it’s “game over for the Apple Tax.”

NO FEES on web transactions. Game over for the Apple Tax.

Apple’s 15-30% junk fees are now just as dead here in the United States of America as they are in Europe under the Digital Markets Act. Unlawful here, unlawful there.

4 years 4 months 17 days. https://t.co/RucrsX7Z4A pic.twitter.com/3kSYnt5pcI
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) April 30, 2025

What does this mean?

Instantly, apps can link out to their own webstore anywhere on the internet and take commission-less payments outside the App Store. An Apple spokesman said the company will comply with the court’s order, CNBC reports, and Stripe almost instantly added documentation on how to accept payments for digital goods on iOS via Stripe Checkout in a browser.

OAPs: relatively seamless integration

Note those last 2 items on Stripe’s product announcement under “What you’ll build” … things that will seamlessly tie your out-of-app e-commerce capability back into your app right to where your users/players/customers want to be, and functionality to update in-app currency balances.

Theoretically, that’s all pretty seamless.

You’ll very likely be able to use Apple Pay as well, which would make transactions almost as seamless as if you were still using the built-in App Store payment method.

But, as I said in a related post on the multiverse of marketing in a post-App Store world, OAPs won’t happen instantly or even easily. The reason: the current App Store model is pretty bloody good for consumers.

The current system is simple. It’s trusted. It’s safe: one place to get apps, no thinking, no pre-installing of a new store, no wondering if you trust a new app store with your credit card, and all payments coming from one brand.

But it will happen, over time, and especially with known app publisher brand names. That doesn’t mean you have to be Nike or Rovio; apps that your users or players have used for a long time will build trust, even if you don’t have a global brand.

Scare screens: fixing 1 of the biggest problems for out-of-app payments (OAPs)

Epic Games won just 1 small part of its lawsuit against Apple way back in 2024 when U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Apple must allow developers to provide third-party payment options in apps.

But there were still major problems that I highlighted at the time: the massive commission Apple still wanted to charge app publishers even when they went through all the hassle and pain of setting up their own app payments systems.

Another was the big Apple scare screen:

That scare screen is now going to have to go away. Judge Roger’s ruling includes the stipulation that Apple cannot interfere with people leaving an app and can only offer a neutral message that they are going to a third-party site.

In addition, Apple cannot, according to the court order, restrict how app developers style or format or place links to OAPs inside their apps.

There’s still a challenge, of course

IAPs are easy. Apple has your credit card. You trust Apple to not steal from you, and you know that there’s a relatively simple way to get your money back if you feel you didn’t get the value you were promised.

OAPs are always going to be a bit harder. You’ll have to enter your payment information (unless you use Apple Pay, which Stripe supports). That means grabbing your wallet from somewhere, pulling out a card, and entering a long string of numbers, plus maybe 2FA’ing with your credit card company that yes, this is an actual legit transaction that you want to proceed with.

That said, it’s still a game-changer.

Web2app spend is way up recently, and that’s because web2app gives you more data and can reduce your cost of customer acquisition.

And that means smaller apps have been joining bigger apps in moving payments off App Store and boosting real recognized revenue around 30%.

I chatted with Twitch founder Justin Kan and Stash product manager Archie Stonehill about it recently on the Growth Masterminds podcast:

There are still some costs, obviously, as I noted here: your payment processor, perhaps some dropoff for those who don’t want to take the extra payment steps, and those who fail to properly enter their card information.

But you’ll still make more money, for 4 reasons that I outlined in that blog post:

You’ll pay 5% for the credit card transaction, not 30%
People spend more when they get discounts
You’ll develop a more loyal multi-platform customer who is actually your customer, not Apple’s or Google’s
You’ll have multiple means of communicating with your customers off-platform (email, SMS) as well as on-platform (in-app messages, push notifications, etc.)

It’s been a long journey, and it’s not over

I’ve been writing about Epic Games and its struggle with taking IAPs and making them OAPs for over 4 years. The first Epic vs Apple ruling was in 2021, after all.

But it’s not over yet.

While Apple did say it would comply with the court’s orders, Apple also says ““We strongly disagree with the decision … and we will appeal.”

In other words, the legal hell might not be over.

There’s reasons to think Apple might actually not appeal. After all, this was a devastating judgement. Long-time Apple analyst John Gruber calls it “excoriating,” saying he’s read few legal decisions quite like it. The judge literally called out Apple vice president of finance Alex Roman for lying on the stand. In Rogers’ words, Roman’s testimony was “replete with misdirection and outright lies.”

She is literally referring the situation to a US attorney for possible criminal contempt charges. I would not like to be in Roman’s shoes right now.

Also, Apple has to comply basically instantly, and has already agreed to.

That means people will have the option quite soon to buy OAPs. Will Apple be comfortable with taking that away from customers if it eventually wins in some long-in-the-future appeal?

Plus … in the EU, the Core Technology Fee has not passed the Digital Markets Act smell test, resulting in the recent massive fine. Surely Apple can read the tea leaves and see that laws and regulations in multiple major geos are aligning against its ability to control how iOS apps monetize.

Time will tell.

In the meantime, out-of-app payments will soon be free.

At least for a while.

The top 10 entertainment apps on iOS and Android in USA, Brazil, Japan, India, Germany, UK, and Korea

The times, they are a-changing, as Bob Dylan sang. Entertainment apps are changing FAST, with major global trends competing with country-specific offerings. The era of monolithic entertainment apps is over, as today’s charts show a fragmented, format-driven landscape, where niche short-form, local OTT, and AI-enhanced apps coexist with global giants. In this post, I’m going to explore the top 10 entertainment apps that are dominating in 2025, based on insights from Apptopia.

Scroll down to see insights from:

United States
Brazil
Japan
India
Germany
United Kingdom
Korea

Major global trends: short-form drama, AI, and ad-supported video on demand

Short-form drama is a global sensation, with massive players like DramaBox, ReelShort, and many others. Literally every country shows a rise in short drama apps. Korea is the leader, with the most short-form apps in the top charts. Brazil and the UK also show high adoption, with multiple apps ranked.

Also, AI-driven entertainment is growing fast. We see that the UK, Germany, and Korea are leading experimentation with AI chat, character interactions, and creative UGC tools as apps like PolyBuzz, Talkie, Zeta, and Ply Buzz show early traction, especially among iOS users.

Finally, AVOD, or ad-supported video on demand, is surging. (As is FAST, or free ad-supported streaming TV, which is generally scheduled or linear rather than on-demand.) Brazil, India, and the U.S. show the most robust AVOD ecosystems, with Tubi, PlutoTV, MX Player, and JioTV frequently charting, while Germany and the UK also have strong AVOD-adjacent platforms such as Joyn and itvX.

	Short-form drama	AI/chat content	Local OTT	AVOD popularity	Music apps	Top global platforms
USA	ReelShort, DramaBox	Low presence	Local players are also mostly global leaders	High – Tubi, PlutoTV, Roku	Spotify, YouTube	Netflix, YouTube, TikTok, Prime Video
BRA	DramaBox, GoodShort, ReelShort, RapidTV, DramaWave	Low presence	Globoplay	Very high – Tubi, PlutoTV	Spotify	Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, TikTok
JPN	Kuku TV	Low presence	TVer, ABEMA, U-Next	Moderate	Spotify	Netflix, YouTube, TikTok
IN	ReelShort, DramaBox	Eloelo (live chatroom, social)	JioCinema, JioTV, ZEE5, SonyLIV, MX Player	Very high – AVOD dominates	Spotify (iOS), JioSaavn	Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube
DE	ReelShort, DramaBox	PlyBuzz (AI), rising interest	Joyn, ZDF, MagentaTV	Moderate – Joyn, PlutoTV	Spotify, Shazam	Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, TikTok
UK	ReelShort, DramaBox	PolyBuzz, Talkie (AI chat)	BBC iPlayer, itvX	Moderate – Tubi, itvX	Spotify	Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, TikTok
SK	DramaBox, NetShort, FlickReels, DramaWave, ShortMax, RapidTV	Zeta (AI chat – Android)	Coupang Play, MegaBox	Low to moderate	Spotify, YouTube Music	Netflix, TikTok

No surprise: the leading entertainment apps include Netflix, Disney+, YouTube, and Spotify, which generally have global presences. More interesting, perhaps: each market has its own unique players that are dominating locally.

United States: top entertainment apps

There’s been a lot of change for top 10 entertainment apps in the United States.

Short-form drama apps are booming, AVOD (ad-supported video-on-demand) is surging, and the streaming giants (Netflix, Max, and Amazon Prime Video) still dominate: they’re still core entertainment destinations despite the entertainment app market saturation.

The biggest shift: the ReelShort/DramaBox phenomenon is arguably the biggest change. These apps barely existed in charts 12–18 months ago.

iOS	Android
TikTok	ReelShort – Stream Drama & TV
ReelShort – Stream Drama & TV	Tubi: Movies & Live TV
Max: Stream HBO, TV, & Movies	Netflix
YouTube	Max: Stream HBO, TV, & Movies
Spotify	DramaBox – Stream Drama Shorts
Amazon Prime Video	Apple TV
DramaBox – Stream Drama Shorts	Disney+
The Roku App (Official)	Prime Video
Tubi: Movies & Live TV	The Roku App (Official)
Netflix	PlutoTV: Live TV & Free Movies

Brazil: top 10 entertainment apps

Brazil LOVES short-form drama, and these apps are exploding here.

DramaBox, GoodShort, ReelShort, DramaWave, and RapidTV all show up, and many are on both platforms. That’s 5 different short drama apps, showing a dramatic move towards snackable storytelling in local languages and with regional appeal.

Interestingly, Globoplay, Brazil’s homegrown streaming platform, ranks high on both platforms. Brazil is 1 of the few markets where a national competitor is prominent in top 10 entertainment app rankings.

iOS	Android
Max: Stream HBO, TV, & Movies	DramaBox – Stream Drama Shorts
TikTok	GoodShort – Movies & Dramas
DramaBox – Stream Drama Shorts	DramaWave – Dramas & Movies
Amazon Prime Video	Max: Stream HBO, TV, & Movies
Spotify – Music and Podcasts	RapidTV – Short Dramas
Disney+	Netflix
YouTube	Globoplay: Novelas, series e +
Netflix	ReelShort – Stream Drama & TV
GoodShort – Movies & Dramas	Amazon Prime Video
Globoplay: Novelas, series e +	YouTube Kids

Japan: top 10 entertainment apps

Short-form drama is winning everywhere, apparently: this is a global trend.

In Japan, local streamers dominate mainstream viewing, including TVer (a joint offering from Japan’s major broadcasters) and ABEMA. Both are top-tier Japanese services, indicating that domestic content remains deeply important. U-Next, another Japanese giant, also performs well and offers a wide content catalog including anime.

This makes sense: Japanese people like Japanese content that is available in the Japanese language. (Who wouldn’t?)

That said, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and TikTok still show up, so Japan, despite its strong local ecosystem, still embraces international platforms.

iOS	Android
TikTok Lite	TVer(ティーバー) 民放公式テレビ配信サービス (TV app)
DramaBox – Stream Drama Shorts	DramaBox – Stream Drama Shorts
Netflix	ABEMA（アベマ）テレビやアニメ等の動画配信アプリ (video streaming app)
TikTok – Global Video Community	Netflix
TVer(ティーバー) 民放公式テレビ配信サービス (TV app)	Amazon Prime Video
GoodShort – Movies & Dramas	GoodShort – Movies & Dramas
U-Next – Unlimited viewing of movies, dramas, anime, and other videos	YuzuDrama – Short Drama Feast
Spotify – Music and Podcasts	U-Next – Unlimited viewing of movies, dramas, anime, and other videos
NetShort – Popular Dramas & TV	DramaWave – Dramas & Movies
Amazon Prime Video	Disney+

India: top entertainment apps

Jio is everywhere in India, with JioHotstar, JioCinema, and JioTV dominating the charts. These are bundled with Reliance Jio mobile and data plans, giving them a massive installed base … and showing how telco integration is driving entertainment app adoption at scale in India.

Also, local is winning in India’s massive market.

ZEE5, MX Player, Sony LIV, and Kuku TV show India’s preference for Indian-language content, especially regional TV, movies, and drama. You still see Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, and Spotify, but they’re not necessarily at the top of the heap.

iOS	Android
District: Movies Events Dining	JioHotstar
JioHotstar	Kuku TV: Reel Shows & Movies
Spotify: Music and Podcasts	JioCinema – Shows, Movies, & More
MX Player	JioTV: Live TV, Cath-Up & OTT
ZEE5: Movies, TV Shows, Series	ZEE5: Movies, TV Shows, Series
YouTube	YouTube Kids
Netflix	Eloelo: Live Chatroom & Games
BookMyShow: Movies & Events	Sony LIV: Sports & Entmt
Amazon Prime Video	Netflix
JioSaavn – Music & Podcasts	Amazon Prime Video

Germany: top entertainment apps

Germany still loves Twitch, but only on Android, and TikTok, but only on iOS.

The top entertainment apps in Germany across iOS and Android reflect a distinctive mix of global dominance, rising AI/social trends, and strong public-service/local streaming platforms. One of those local platforms is Joyn, a German joint venture between ProSiebenSat.1 and Discovery. It’s an example of a local OTT app maintaining parity with global platforms, showing that free, ad-supported German-language content has real staying power.

Android is heavier on AVOD and niche apps in Germany: PlutoTV and MagentaTV (from Deutsche Telekom) are Android-only, showing Android’s tendency to attract more ad-supported or bundled content platforms.

Unlike most other countries in this list, short-form drama is emerging but not dominant in Germany. ReelShort and DramaBox are both present, but they haven’t taken over the charts like in Brazil or Japan.

iOS	Android
TikTok	Joyn \| deine Streaming App
Spotify – Music and Podcasts	Amazon Prime Video
YouTube	Netflix
ReelShort – Stream Drama & TV	ZDF \| Streaming und Live-TV
Netflix	Ply Buzz: Chat with AI Friends
Amazon Prime Video	YouTube Kids
Joyn \| deine Streaming App	Twitch: Live Streaming
Disney+	Crunchyroll
Shazam: Find Music & Concerts	PlutoTV: Live TV & Free Movies
DramaBox – Stream Drama Shorts	MagentaTV: TV & Streaming

UK: top 10 entertainment apps

There’s local flavor here (OK, flavour) but global giants dominate the charts thanks to English language accessibility. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Spotify, and TikTok are present across both platforms, confirming their entrenched positions in UK entertainment consumption. But national broadcasters are still highly relevant with itvX (ITV’s streaming service) appearing on both lists, and BBC Player showing strong on iOS.

These platforms offer free, ad-supported or publicly funded content — showing that UK audiences still lean into trusted, familiar brands.

Like most other countries besides Germany, short-form drama is rising fast with ReelShort and DramaBox high on both platforms. UK viewers are clearly warming to mobile-first, episodic, snackable drama formats.

iOS	Android
ReelShort – Stream Drama & TV	ReelShort – Stream Drama & TV
TikTok	Disney+
Spotify – Music and Podcasts	Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video	Netflix
Disney+	itvX
YouTube	BBC Player
DramaBox – Stream Drama Shorts	PolyBuzz: Chat with AI Friends
Netflix	Tubi: Freem Movies & Live TV
Global Player Radio & Podcasts	DramaBox – Stream Drama Shorts
itvX	Talkie: Creative AI Community

Korea: top 10 entertainment apps

The top entertainment apps in South Korea across iOS and Android offer a unique blend of homegrown innovation, short-form drama obsession, and early AI adoption, layered over the familiar global entertainment stack.

Short-form drama is exploding, with apps like DramaBox, FlickReels, NetShort, DramaWave, RapidTV, ShortMax. That’s 6 different short drama apps across both iOS and Android that dominate the charts. In fact, Korea may be the most saturated market on the planet for short-form narrative video, showing an especially strong appetite for fast, mobile-first storytelling.

Coupang Play, a streaming service from Korea’s e-commerce giant Coupang, is high on both iOS and Android. Its inclusion reflects the power of bundled services and localized content in Korea’s highly competitive OTT space.

Also, as we see in several other countries, generative AI is crossing into entertainment. For example, Zeta is an AI chat app centered around roleplay, imagination, and fandom, showcasing a growing consumer appetite for interactive narrative entertainment powered by AI.

iOS	Android
TikTok Lite	쿠팡플레이 (Coupang Play)
쿠팡플레이 (Coupang Play)	Netflix
TikTok – Global Video Community	DramaBox – Stream Drama Shorts
Spotify – Music and Podcasts	RapidTV – Short Dramas
DramaBox – Stream Drama Shorts	DramaWave – Dramas & Movies
Netflix	Disney+
YouTube Music	FlickReels – Short Drama & TV
MegaBox	ShortMax – Watch Dramas & Show
FlickReels – Short Drama & TV	제타(zeta) – 상상이 현실이 되는 AI 채팅 (Zeta AI Chat Where Imagination Becomes Reality)
NetShort – Popular Dramas & TV	NetShort – Popular Dramas & TV

The top apps in streaming and entertainment differ globally, but there are commonalities

In conclusion, the world of entertainment apps is constantly evolving and expanding.

With the increasing popularity of streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, YouTube TV, Hulu, and HBO Max, there are endless options for entertainment at all our fingertips. But local markets — especially those with significant scale and language differences from the US — are building their own options.

Clearly, as technology advances and mobile devices become more powerful, the future of entertainment is strongly mobile-centric. It will be interesting to see if TikTok and other mobile-first entertainment apps will expand beyond short-form entertainment and enter the potentially more lucrative (on a per-user basis anyways) long-form streaming world.

Ad prices 2025: What Snap, Google, & Meta earnings will tell us

Snap reported Q1 earnings today. Google reported last week. Meta and Reddit are coming later this week. What are all these major platforms telling us about ad prices in mid-2025?

First, the good news from Snap

Based on its just-released quarterly earnings results, Snap did a lot of good things in Q1:

Hit 900 million MAU
Grew DAU 9% to 460 million
Grew revenue 14% to $1.36 billion
Grew direct response ad revenue 14%
Grew Snapchat+ subscribers 59%
Grew “time spent watching content” by an unreleased amount
Grew total active advertisers by 60%

On the ads and direct response front, Snap has made serious progress. In a first, 75% of Snap’s revenue is now driven by performance ads, reducing the company’s dependence on brand spend and aligning tighter with the more elastic performance spend (deliver performance and spend will increase, plus probably ad prices).

Measurement is better too.

Snap says SKAdNetwork reported app purchases grew more than 30% year-over-year in Q1. (On a related topic, note that Snapchat Advanced SAN is now active, providing more performance data for MMPs like Singular.) Plus, Snap made improvements to its automated Target Cost (tCPA) bidding strategy, using AI to help advertisers get more consistent ROI.

In addition, Snap started testing auction bidding for Sponsored Snaps and released improvements in how advertisers can control what their ads appear next to.

But there’s some bad news too

As I write this on the afternoon of the 29th, Snap’s stock is down 13% because the company declined to provide earnings guidance for Q2.

Why?

There are uncertainties with “how macro economic conditions may evolve in the months ahead, and how this may impact advertising demand.”

What does this mean?

Snap’s talking tariffs. With massive tariffs, Amazon prices are rising … and so are out-of-stock rates, including at Walmart and Wayfair. With tariffs of 145% in some cases, a drop-ship product that cost $100 a few months ago will cost $245. While previously shipments under $800 were tariff-free under pre-existing de minimis trade exemptions, that loophole is now closed.

That caused Snap’s uncertainty and its resulting stock price drop. And the same thing prompted Google’s Philipp Schindler to say after last week’s excellent quarterly results that there will be “a slight headwind to our Ads business in 2025, primarily from APAC-based retailers.”

Think Shein.

Temu.

AliExpress.

Wish.

All of these have factory-direct or China-sourced inventory. They offer super low prices via long-tail logistics. They’ve invested heavily in user acquisition in the U.S. for years, and also buy millions of ads every month, contributing to inflationary pressure on ad prices.

But maybe not anymore.

Ad prices: we’ll know more at the end of this week

Meta reports earnings tomorrow, on Wednesday. Reddit will report on Thursday, and Pinterest will share its quarterly earnings on May 8.

The questions are complex:

How much revenue will ad networks and publishers lose because of these macroeconomic changes?
How much will that withdrawal from the ad markets increase available inventory for others?
And how much will that depress ad prices for everyone?

Ad auctions are complex and the removal of even several major players won’t necessarily crater the market, because the next highest bidder’s bid is probably not that much lower, but over time, the removal of ad spend can have a significant impact. During Covid, for example, Meta CPMs temporarily declined 35-50%. There was less demand, and ad prices decreased.

Ad prices going down is interesting for many mobile growth marketers.

They monetize via ads, so it’s bad
They grow via ads, so it’s good

Which is better probably depends on your monetization mix: if you’ve been able to successfully incorporate subscription revenue and/or IAPs into your app or game, and you’re less dependent on ad monetization, it’s a great thing. Marketing gets cheaper; revenue stays reasonably high.

But if you’re hypercasual or casual, or maybe a utility, and ad monetization is your only source of revenue … this is a problem.

Is there a bigger story coming …

We’ll know more by the end of this week how Google and Reddit feel about the future.

The bigger concern, likely, is if this is just 1 or a few verticals impacted, or if this is an early indicator of a general recessionary trend. Lower e-commerce sales don’t just mean lower ad spend for retail items. Follow-on impacts including things like UPS laying off 20,000 workers this year and closing 73 facilities because there’s less need to deliver stuff to Americans. And in a massively interdependent system, those follow-on impacts have their own consequences as well.

Ultimately, as we saw during COVID, the strongest and best survive, and position themselves well for coming rebound periods of growth.

The state of mobile measurement in 2025: an emerging golden age?

Is it possible that we are in a golden age of mobile measurement in 2025? At this very minute? After ATT, after SKAN and AAK, after GDPR, after the uncertainty around cookies, after the rumors and threats of Privacy Sandbox, and after everything else that has eroded traditional marketing measurement?

In a word, yes.

It’s possible.

Not certain … but possible.

After you finish laughing your @$$ off, take a moment. Watch this episode of Growth Masterminds with Singular CTO Eran Friedman. And keep scrolling as I make a case that now, right now, in the age of privacy, marketing measurement might, just might, be entering a golden age.

What’s happening in mobile measurement in 2025

In a word: lots.

Big things are happening as big ad networks and platforms are making big changes. You’ve probably seen all these announcements individually over the last 18 months, but in aggregate, they lead up to massive change in mobile measurement in 2025.

Here’s just a few of the relatively recent ones:

Apple: ongoing impact of ATT, SKAN, AAK, including Apple Ads adding support for SKAdNetwork
Meta: continuing to build out its modeling solutions, sharing more data with MMPs via Advanced AEM to enable better attribution
Google: slow-rolling Privacy Sandbox, resisting changes to the 3rd-party cookie, potentially adding Advanced SAN capabilities to share more data with MMPs [update: Google is releasing Integrated Conversion Measurement using on-device data in a privacy-safe way to enhance iOS and Android attribution data]
TikTok: offering TikTok Advanced SAN services to offer more privacy-safe data to MMPs, allowing better triangulation of attribution
Snap: adding Snapchat Advanced SAN to provide more data, like TikTok and Meta, also to enable better attribution
Other ad networks: also investing in modeling tech to prove value, and using probabilistic measurement to provide signal on iOS where SKAN does not

At the same time, we’re seeing more on-device measurement. The Google referrer of course is still around, Meta has its own version, Apple knows plenty about what happens with its users on its device using its App Store, and there’s likely more in the wings from third-party OEM app stores via players like Avow and InMobi.

Plus, sophisticated advertisers are using many of these datapoints, generally aggregated by an MMP, to layer on incrementality testing (geo lift, A/B, MMM) to understand true lift from campaigns.

And of course probabilistic measurement got a big lift in the months and years after iOS 14.5 and App Tracking Transparency.

Add it all up, and there’s more, more, more of everything.

“Everyone is pushing towards offering more information for MMPs to provide better, more accurate, more granular attribution,” says Friedman. “ That’s definitely a trend that we’re seeing. It’s across really all the SANs.”

Even, potentially, Google at some point. (Obligatory caveat: I have no insider information on this; it’s just speculation right now.)

What does all this more in mobile measurement in 2025 mean?

More isn’t always better.

Some spice: awesome. Ghost peppers that shred your tongue … not so much. 3 photos from Uncle Frank about his crazy awesome vacay in Mallorca … great. A 500-pic slideshow with Frank’s long-winded narration … no thank you.

But for mobile measurement in 2025, more is turning out to be … MORE.

“With all these advancements, we see that the data makes more sense now compared to the last two years,” says Friedman. “Behind the scenes there’s more moving parts … but at the bottom line when you’re trying to start a campaign and you want to check the results, I think the end user experience for the marketer and the advertiser is getting better.”

Take that statement and cast your mind back to the months right after iOS 14.5. Remember the angst and the despair throughout the industry back then.

Now there’s a real sense of a fresh wind of actionable data that makes data-driven performance marketing better. Mobile measurement that makes more sense is definitely better than where we were.

Hmmm … better than what?

Just a few years ago, we lived in a world of deterministic IDs: IDFA on iOS, GAID on Android (which seems likely to stick around for a while, as there’s no clear plan for Privacy Sandbox to take over). We had last-click attribution, maybe some multi-touch, and measurement was (relatively) straightforward.

Privacy turned that world upside down.

But did last-click attribution ever really tell us the truth? It was adequate — and maybe even more than adequate — for campaign optimization. It was mobile measurement that built the app universe we live in today.

But it wasn’t true, in a sense. It wasn’t necessarily an accurate depiction of reality, of causality. Or at least not a complete picture.

Just because the last click got the prize didn’t mean that the first impression didn’t matter. Maybe that first impression had much MORE work to do than the last feather than fell and tipped the scales of our decision-making apparatus, triggering a conversion. Maybe the second, third, or fifth impression — or click — had something to do with achieving a desired marketing result too.

Now we’re actually finding ways to recognize that. Mobile measurement in 2025 is starting to give us the broader picture.

Fragmentation behind the scenes, but unification in Singular measurement

If we put all of the measurement methodologies into a chart, what does all of this look like?

It looks like a lot … and a lot of complexity.

And yeah, it is:

Platform	Modeling	Data sharing with MMPs	Unique aspects
Meta	Yes	Touchpoints, claimed installs via AEM, Advanced AEM, AMM	Significant data sharing increases recently
Google	Yes	Touchpoints, claimed installs, on-device measurement	New: Integrated Conversion Management
Tiktok	Yes	Touchpoints, claimed installs via Advanced SAN	Recent: Advanced SAN
Snap	Yes	Touchpoints, claimed installs via Advanced SAN	Recent: Advanced SAN
Apple	No	SKAN data, with nulls/deletions for privacy	On-device measurement; Apple Ads API
Other ad networks	Depends	Click & impression data, IDFA/GAID when available	Traditional MMP attribution

That’s where Singular’s Unified Measurement comes in. It’s a big red easy button for mobile measurement.

Unified Measurement …

Consolidates modeled conversions, deterministic installs, and probabilistic touchpoints
Deduplicates installs across SANs like Meta, Snap, and TikTok
Audits results using SKAdNetwork, App Store data, and internal first-party signals
Surfaces discrepancies like a missing placement in an ad network’s modeled data

In short, mobile measurement in 2025 is entering an age of multi-pronged measurement, where Singular is combining deterministic signals, probabilistic models, touchpoint data, SKAdNetwork/AAK, IDFA and GAID data to deliver something marketers desperately need: truth.

Singular’s job as a mobile measurement partner has evolved from processing deterministic pings to orchestrating a complex data symphony.

The goal is to help marketers by simplifying the noise and surfacing a unified view of performance.

Unified but not submerged

But the underlying data sets remain, and that’s critically important.

On the 1 hand, they provide the raw materials for renewed marketing measurement methodologies like incrementality that, done right, give you convincing proof of the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of your advertising campaigns, channels, and partners.

On the other hand, they’re critical for debugging the inevitable issues you might encounter. Because this is marketing analytics, after all, and there are still complexities throughout the ecosystem.

“If you’re just a starter, you might try to look at 1 data set,” Friedman says. “But as you get bigger … you want to validate your data, debug your attributions, and make better decisions.”

An example:

A large customer with massive spend was seeing a 50% discrepancy between SKAN and advanced SAN data. After diving into the numbers and troubleshooting the issue, the problem became clear: the advanced integration on the network side was missing one of the bigger placement types: it wasn’t visible as part of the inventory.

A few configuration and code fixes on the network side, and the numbers made sense again.

Essentially, what the different data points give you are lenses into reality that you can use to debug attribution.

So … golden age of mobile measurement in 2025?

Obviously, there are still challenges. And even with the best measurement, the hardest parts of marketing remain creative, targeting, messaging, and optimizing.

So it’s hard to say we’re in a golden age of marketing measurement.

But at the same time, it’s clear that there’s been some massive ecosystem-level changes that have significantly improved what marketers can know to be true about their campaigns. There are still challenges — mismatched models, attribution gaps, evolving privacy laws — but for the first time in years, marketers have more data, more control, and better tools to measure real impact.

So what do you need to do as a marketer?

Adopt a modern MMP like Singular that supports Advanced SAN, modeled conversions, SKAN, and on-device attribution … all the emerging goodies.
Demand data transparency from your ad partners — modeled data, touchpoints, and real-time attribution. You can get most of this from Singular.
Occasionally audit your results to cross-check SKAN, partner-reported, and MMP data.
Plan to make incrementality testing a core part of your mobile measurement playbooky.

Yes, measurement is more complex than it used to be. But it’s also becoming more accurate, more powerful, and more marketer-friendly. Plus, there’s an easy button from Singular.

And that’s something to celebrate.

So much more in the full podcast

Check out the full podcast to get all the goodies. It’s wherever you want podcasts from, including YouTube.

00:00 Introduction and Optimism in Marketing
00:50 The Evolution of Mobile Attribution
01:31 Deep Dive into Attribution Data
03:04 Meta’s Advanced Attribution Solutions
06:16 Google’s Ad Conversion Modeling
08:34 TikTok’s Advanced SAN Integration
11:09 Snap’s Advanced Conversion and SAN
15:17 Apple’s Deterministic Attribution
18:59 Other Ad Partners and Modeling
25:05 Singular’s Unified Measurement Approach
32:53 Incrementality Testing and Advanced Strategies
35:47 Conclusion and Future of Measurement

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