State of UA 2023: trends in mobile web, CPI, ad formats, and growth strategies

Mobile web for user acquisition is growing, iOS and Android spend patterns are normalizing, and CPIs are dropping. That’s just a fraction of the data-driven insight in the new 2023 State of UA Report, which is based on a $10 billion subset of Singular cost data, trillions of ad impressions, hundreds of billions of clicks, and billions of app installs.

It’s also based on insight into billions of creative optimization decisions from our partner on this report, Apptopia.

So what is the state of UA in late 2023?

It’s a weird, weird time, and not just for user acquisition pros.

Spend is down: the global economy is feeling the aftershocks of Covid, military conflict, and increasing political polarization. There’s also still post-ATT and SKAdNetwork disruptions, and visions of more of the same in the coming Privacy Sandbox changes.

What’s inside the report?

So in this state of UA report we focus on:

• Massive ecosystem shifts
• Verticals most impacted
• iOS/Android spend changes
• CPI trends
• Spend distribution in key global geos
• Ad format shifts, including
  • Video
  • Banners
  • Interstitials
• Growth insights based on brands like
  • Calm
  • Sephora
  • Temu

The state of UA is that it’s late in the year

We’re nearing the end of 2023, and the all-important holiday season is just around the corner. The data in this report will help you navigate end-of-year as well as the first quarter of 2024, sharing how user acquisition specialists are adopting mobile web, testing new ads. We also dive into spend distribution between Android and iOS globally as well as in key countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and Africa.

Thanks to our partner Apptopia we also have dozens of insights into ad format changes, what’s working, what’s changing, and what’s hot.

In addition, we dive into how Calm boosted downloads 83% month over month, and more than doubled them quarter over quarter. We examine how Temu tested new partners and boosted Android installs more than 3,000%. And we look at how Sephora transformed from underdog to top dog in a mobile app install battle with a key upstart competitor. All of this is gold not just for user acquisition managers but also for growth strategists looking to deploy capital, creative, and campaigns at scale to win.

Get the report here

Get the whole State of UA Report here right now.

It’s 33 pages long, but you’ll be able to breeze through in just a few minutes since it’s heavy on charts and long on short, pithy insights.