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Mobile ad spend is forecast to hit $450 billion in 2025. Which means that if you monetize via ads, do a little happy dance: this year is gonna be good. It also means that UA 2025 — acquiring new mobile app users via ads — is gonna be more expensive this year.
That’s why we just held our State of User Acquisition 2025 live event for almost a thousand mobile marketers.
What we learned is that AI search engines are going to massively disrupt traditional discovery (and not only Google), that web2app is going to continue to grow massively, that app to web is joining it, that independent emerging ad networks are where you’ll find growth, and much more.
(Including no fewer than 14 predictions for 2025 … keep reading!)
Perhaps more importantly, we got a ton of marketer insight into how to navigate those shifts and position you to crush your user acquisition goals in 2025. Here’s who was speaking:
- Jonathan Reich
CEO at Zedge - Stephanie Pilon
CMO at Singular - Tomás Yacachury
Strategic Partnerships at Kayzen - Ben Collins Jones
Solution specialist, SplitMetrics - Ashwin Shekhar
CRO & co-founder, AVOW
UA 2025: AI search is here with a bang
As we shared in our recent Quarterly Trends Report for Q1 2025, AI search is already a thing. In fact, we literally saw an 8,400% explosion in referral traffic from ChatGPT to our advertisers’ landing pages … and OpenAI hasn’t even launched its advertising platform yet.
Marketers who attended our live UA 2025 event agreed:
- 35% said AI search would have “significant impact” in 2025
- 34% said it would have huge impact
- Only 9% said AI search would be low impact
- And only 3% said it would have almost no impact
We have to not get ahead of ourselves here, though:
“ChatGPT is currently trending at around 1% of the search of the market in search volume,” says Ben Collins Jones. “It actually does only have a small corner of the market.”
That’s true.
However, as Collins also notes, the growth rate is what we need to look at, and that’s significant. Also, think about how you used to search via Google. To get the answer you need, you might have had to query 4 or 5 different things multiple times, where now via ChatGPT or Perplexity or Claude or Gemini, you might get the answer you need in a single shot.
Which would also have an impact on “percentage of searches” on each platform.
In fact, the best platforms should take it down to 1 as often as possible.
How AI search like ChatGPT will impact ads and advertising
AI search is different than keyword search.
In precisely the same way, advertising on an AI search engine will not look like advertising on a traditional search engine. Understanding the differences will be critical for UA 2025 success.
Advertising in AI search will focus on context-aware, real-time personalized content rather than keyword-based targeting. The key to success will be leveraging AI-driven ad creation, broad match strategies, and dynamic response integration into AI-generated search results.
What does that mean?
- Fewer but more impactful ads
- AI search tools generally provide a single, curated answer rather than a full page of search results. This should translate to fewer ad placements. And that should make each ad more valuable but also more targeted to what users are searching for.
- Impact: Higher cost per ad slot but better conversion rates.
- Shift from traditional PPC to sponsored recommendations
- Instead of bidding on keywords, advertisers may pay to sponsor AI-generated responses or even have their content inserted into AI-generated summaries. (The former is more likely, as it maintains the implicit contract between AI search engines and their users.)
- Impact: Search advertising could resemble native advertising more than traditional PPC.
- AI-optimized ad placement
- AI search tools will automatically insert the most relevant ads into conversations based on real-time analysis of user intent.
- Impact: Less manual ad placement, more AI-driven automation in ad bidding and targeting. Also, better relevance.
- New platforms will emerge
- LLMs like ChatGPT and Perplexity don’t have significant ad infrastructure yet, but it’s only a matter of time. AI-powered search advertising will likely become a major new platform for marketers.
- Impact: Marketers will need to adapt ad and content strategies for AI search engines and conversational AI rather than just traditional search engines.
Another thing worth considering: right now the search functionality on the App Store and Google Play is plain vanilla old-school keyword-based search. Perhaps not coincidentally, app discovery kinda sucks.
In the future, all search should be AI-driven and largely similar to a ChatGPT experience. That could vastly change on-platform app discovery … and maybe things like Apple Search Ads too.
So what kinds of ads will work?
We see the changes already happening, and they’re just going to continue.
- More context-aware and intent-driven ads
- As Jonathan Reich says, “AI will provide context-aware and intent-driven customers, making ads more focused.”
- Think summaries and recommendations more than lists … ads will increasingly align directly with user queries, providing highly relevant and context-aware responses.
- Also: dynamic, personalized ad content
- While we see the beginning of it now, we’re increasingly going to see AI creating AI ads that are super customized and personalized and likely often generated on the fly.
- Goodbye static banners or PPC links, hello real-time recommendations tailored to our query, behavior, and past interactions.
- Ads in broad-match campaigns
- As Ben Collins Jones says, “ads using broad match and discovery campaigns will perform better, as LLMs understand intent better.”
- That means you don’t need to tediously build exact-match keyword lists; AI ad engines will understand broader audience intents. But it does mean you need to teach the AI what your product, service, or game can do in much more detail.
- And, of course, ads with AI-powered optimization
- As Tomas Yacachury says, “AI will allow extreme personalization of creatives, ensuring ads match the context of the user.”
- But it’s not just creation, it’s also optimization.
- AI will help optimize campaigns much faster and better than now.
As you can see, there’s a lot more intelligence in UA 2025.
UA 2025: web2app will continue to grow
As our latest Quarterly Trends Report showed, we’re seeing massive growth in web2app: literally a 54.39% increase from January to December. There are plenty of reasons for that, some of which we recently explored in this blog post on web2app growth.
Traffic and data
Essentially, there’s traffic growth and data advantages.
“Web is where the intent is — 63% of global website traffic is now on mobile, making web-to-app an essential strategy,” says Stephanie Pilon, Singular, CMO.
Web2app is becoming a key user acquisition channel because it allows marketers to capture intent-driven users directly from mobile web traffic AND because they can capture more data, which Gessica Bicega recently shared in a Growth Masterminds episode on web2app.
On iOS for example, web2app returns data that ATT (App Tracking Transparency) limits, allowing perhaps 20% more data visibility compared to only app-to-app tracking. Once users are in the flow, first-party data collection is more robust, making it easier to measure campaign performance.
Cost efficiencies
Plus there are cost efficiencies.
“When we see higher prices on app inventory, a natural move would be to go to web, where it is still cheaper,” says Stephanie Pilon.
Tomas Yacachury backed that up with data from Kayzen: mobile web ad impressions are significantly cheaper than in-app impressions, especially on Android. (There are caveats here: in-app can be higher quality and more full-screen, but that can exist on mobile web as well.)
New audiences
In addition, as Gessica shared in that Growth Masterminds episode, you can access different and new audiences — which are often higher-paying audiences — on the web. That can be challenging in app-based ads, so it’s tremendously valuable to marketers.
“The consolidation of major platforms has opened the door for independent players to break the mold,” says Kayzen’s Tomas Yacachury.
That’s true for both web and app-focused ad networks, of course.
New revenue opportunities
As I’ve already talked about in this blog post, How games are boosting revenue 30% using off-platform mobile payments, using web as part of the onboarding flow can also boost revenue.
And, in fact, in our live poll, 31% of marketers said the biggest advantage of web2app is “making users multi-platform customers.”
Marketers are increasingly using web2app to make users multi-platform from the very start. That is important for being able to contact them via multiple channels, but also so that apps can bypass app store fees on purchases. This is particularly critical for gaming and subscription apps, where avoiding the 30% app store fee significantly boosts revenue.
And that also leads to the reverse trend: app to web.
“While web2app is good for user acquisition, app-to-web is becoming a major trend for retaining users and getting them to purchase via web stores,” says Ashwin Shekhar, CRO at Avow.
In other words: they’re in your app already, but you direct users off-platform for additional app or game features and services, including purchases.
But you need the right tech stack
But you need the right tech to manage and measure multi-platform journeys.
“To make web2app work, you need a web SDK, deep linking, and cost reporting that connects web performance to app conversions,” says Stephanie Pilon, CMO at Singular.
That means:
- Comprehensive cost reporting for mobile web campaigns and in-app and anywhere else you’re acquiring new users
- Web SDKs to measure user journeys across web and app (plus of course mobile SDKs, console, etc for full coverage)
- Deep linking to take users to the right place in your app
- Cross-platform ROI/ROAS measurement to tie everything together
UA 2025: 14 predictions
So what should we see in 2025? According to our panelists, the biggest themes for 2025 are:
- AI-powered advertising and automation
- Massive growth in web2app and app-to-web strategies
- Diversification beyond Google & Meta
- Incrementality measurement
- AI-driven creative optimization and personalization
Here are all 14 predictions panelists made:
1. AI will transform search advertising
Prediction:
AI-driven dynamic ad generation will become the norm, replacing manually designed creatives.
Jonathan Reich (CEO @ Zedge):
“AI will begin creating AI ads that are super customized and personalized, almost generated on the fly.”
2. LLMs will disrupt traditional search and advertising
Prediction:
AI-powered search engines will reshape user discovery, leading to a shift from keyword-based to broad-match and conceptual advertising models.
Ben Collins Jones (SplitMetrics):
“ChatGPT and other AI search tools currently have a small share, but their influence on search advertising will grow massively.”
3. The role of incrementality will grow
Prediction:
Incrementality measurement will become a core part of performance marketing strategies, ensuring that all ad spend drives net-new growth.
Tomas Yacachury (Kayzen):
“Marketers will start focusing more on incrementality because high CTR ads today often cannibalize organic traffic.”
4. Web2app growth will continue to expand
Prediction:
Web2app will become an essential growth strategy as marketers seek lower costs, better data visibility, and higher revenue.
Stephanie Pilon (CMO @ Singular):
“I predict there’s just going to be way more web2app because of privacy issues and rising CPI costs.”
5. AI-powered bidding will be standard
Prediction:
AI will automate ad buying, allowing smaller teams to scale campaigns efficiently.
Ben Collins Jones (SplitMetrics):
“Teams as small as one or two people will manage large-scale paid search accounts using AI-powered bidding.”
6. Creative optimization will become AI-driven
Prediction:
AI will optimize creatives in real time, making A/B testing faster and more automated.
Stephanie Pilon (CMO @ Singular):
“Creative-led performance marketing will dominate as AI allows real-time creative iteration.”
7. Marketers will shift away from Google and Meta
Prediction:
Alternative ad networks (OEMs, emerging platforms, and independent DSPs) will gain significant traction as costs rise on Google and Meta.
Ashwin Shekhar (CRO @ Avow):
“Marketers who only focus on Google and Meta will suffer in 2025 — diversification is key.”
8. App developers will push app-to-web for revenue growth
Prediction:
App-to-Web strategies will become a major trend as companies try to avoid app store fees.
Ashwin Shekhar (CRO @ Avow):
“While web2app is great for UA, we’re seeing more brands build web stores to drive purchases outside app stores.”
9. Personalization at scale will be AI-driven
Prediction:
Hyper-personalized ads in multiple languages will be generated instantly using AI, enabling global scale with local relevance.
Jonathan Reich (CEO @ Zedge):
“With AI, we can now create hyper-localized video ads featuring AI-generated humans speaking native languages instantly.”
10. Retail media networks might struggle to scale
Prediction:
The fragmentation of retail media networks might backfire, leading to consolidation or limited success.
Jonathan Reich (CEO @ Zedge):
“Despite the hype, I don’t think all these domain-centric ad networks will work out as expected.”
11. AI-driven UA strategies will dominate
Prediction
Marketers will test more ad channels than ever before, but AI will handle the execution and optimization.
Jonathan Reich (CEO @ Zedge):
“We will see extreme automation in targeting, allowing us to test many more acquisition channels with AI managing the process.”
12. Historical data storage will be crucial for AI models
Prediction:
AI-powered campaign optimization will require deep historical data, forcing marketers to store more long-term data.
Ben Collins Jones (SplitMetrics):
“Marketers who aren’t storing historical data beyond 30-90 days will struggle when AI needs longer training windows.”
13. AI-powered discovery ads will perform better
Prediction:
Broad match & discovery-based ad targeting will outperform exact-match keyword campaigns.
Ben Collins Jones (SplitMetrics):
“Search advertising will shift towards discovery-based and broad match targeting as AI understands intent better.”
14. First-party data and measurement will be a competitive edge
Prediction:
Better attribution models, Web SDKs, and first-party data collection will determine marketing success.
Stephanie Pilon (CMO @ Singular):
“Measurement is the #1 factor for success in 2025, especially as privacy regulations continue evolving.”
Much more in the full live event
Believe it or not, there’s still much more to learn and experience in context in the full live event, which is now available on-demand.
This is a critical one for UA 2025 growth.
Simply click here to sign up and watch.
And don’t forget to sign up for our next live event, Crushing iOS Growth in 2025. We’ll be talking about measurement, app store optimization, Apple Search Ads, and — of course — creative.
