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ChatGPT up 8,400%: Singular’s Q1 2025 Quarterly Trends Report

Singular saw a massive 8,400% increase in customers getting clicks and traffic from ChatGPT in Q4 2024. The age of LLMs as search ...

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The age of Large Language Model search engines as major advertising hubs is closer than we think, as Singular saw a massive 8,400% increase in customers getting clicks and traffic from ChatGPT in Q4 2024. In addition, mobile marketers are branching out to the web, with a 54% jump in web-to-app ad traffic from January 2024 to December 2024.

Singular just released the new Quarterly Trends Report for Q1 2025.

Q1 2025 highlights

  • CPIs jumped over 60%
  • Small ad networks gained the most new advertisers and spend
  • CTR was up for games
  • CTR was sharply down for apps
  • Casual gamers are 3-4X more valuable than Hyper casual games
  • ChatGPT traffic exploded in Q4
  • Web2app trended up all year, then significantly increased in December
  • IPMs cratered in Q4
  • ATT opt-ins remained relatively high
  • Average tap-through rates on Apple Search Ads (ASA) remained high
  • Cost per acquisition on ASA jumped 22%
  • Dynamic Preload OEM ads on Android boost organic installs by 48%

The biggest news: ChatGPT

Perhaps the biggest news, however, is the dramatic increase in advertisers who are getting traffic from ChatGPT. ChatGPT announced its web search capability in September of 2024 and made it free for all users in December. The results were almost instant: where only 1 Singular customer had set up ChatGPT as a custom source in Q3 of 2024, 85 were receiving clicks and traffic from the AI-driven knowledge machine by Q4. 

That’s despite the fact that only paying OpenAI subscribers could access the new web search capabilities until December.

“This is only a taste of the future,” says Singular CMO Stephanie Pilon. “Perplexity has already set up ads on its service, and we’re seeing movement from Google’s Gemini as well. We expect LLMs like ChatGPT to be much more significant in marketers’ and advertisers’ plans in 2025.”

Advertisers are diversifying customer and user acquisition: mobile marketers are increasingly using the web for growth and not just in-app ads. Singular saw gradual growth throughout 2024 in web to app customer journeys, but there was a sharp spike in December, resulting in a massive 54.4% increase between January and December.

There’s multiple reasons for that, including cost, accessing new audiences, and developing multi-platform customers to move in-app purchases to owned platforms, thereby avoiding app store fees. 

But a key reason is more marketing data that helps marketers optimize campaigns faster. 

Fractional CMO and mobile growth consultant Gessica Bicego, who is also the former CMO of Paired and former senior director of performance marketing for Blinkist, has made web to app one of her specialties.

“When you run web campaigns, you are able to track much more … around 20% more on average,” Bicego says.

More data means more insight, and more insight means better ROAS.

Smaller ad networks grew more

Smaller ad networks such as Mintegral, AppLovin, Moloco, Reddit, and Almedia grew faster in terms of advertisers added than the large platforms.

CPIs for apps jumped over 60%

Cost per install for apps jumped 69% for Android and 64% for iOS in Q4 as they competed with both holiday/retail spend and election spending in the U.S. 

Game publishers value Casual players 3-4X more than Hyper casual

On Android, it costs $0.21 to acquire a player for a Hyper casual game, but $0.61 to acquire a player for a Casual game. On iOS, the equivalent numbers are $1.18 versus $4.09. The reason for the difference: hybrid monetization in Casual games, along with much longer retention, which makes players much more valuable.

Plus, of course:

  • Regional CPI, CTR, and CVR for most countries on the planet
  • Top categories by percentage of downloads for
    • Android games
    • Android apps
    • iOS games
    • iOS apps
  • Installs per thousand ads (IPM) for multiple breakdowns
  • Platform ad spend share (iOS, Android, web)
  • Organic vs paid split for multiple breakdowns
  • And partner contributions from:
    • SplitMetrics
    • AVOW
    • Kayzen
    • Rocketship HQ

Much more in the full report

There’s much more in the entire report, which is available for free here.

About the Author
John Koetsier

John Koetsier

John Koetsier is a journalist and analyst. He's a senior contributor at Forbes and hosts our Growth Masterminds podcast as well as the TechFirst podcast. At Singular, he serves as VP, Insights.

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