2024 WTF - what's working in mobile user acquisition
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In 2024, global advertising spend is projected to average $139 per capita, reflecting significant growth over the past two decades amidst high inflation and geopolitical tensions. Marketers are adapting to privacy shifts and the challenges posed by various regulatory frameworks, while insights reveal disparities in app revenue generation and subscriber retention. The focus is on improved measurement practices and optimizing ROI through better conversion tracking and campaign analysis.
2024 WTF - what's working in mobile user acquisition
- 6. 02 May you live in interesting times
- 8. There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen Lenin
- 10. 03 Macro scale: where we are right now
- 12. Inflation is still high compared to recent years at 5.8% for 2024 IMF
- 14. In 2024, advertisers will spend, on average, $139 per capita across the world. It is about 75% more than what they spent 20 years ago ($80) Dentsu
- 16. Plus, wars all over the world impacting the economy, supply chain, and consumer sentiment.
- 18. Privacy shifts across the ecosystem And marketers are dealing with… iOS14.5 & ATT Android Privacy Sandbox ITP & 3rd-Party Cookies Facebook AMM deprecation SKAN Updates (4.0+) GDPR, DMA, CCPA
- 24. [ 1.7% of downloads turned into paying subscribers in their first 30 days, which is slightly up from last report. The difference between lower quartile (.6%) and upper quartile (4.2%) remains striking. The top 5% of newly launched apps generate over 200x more revenue than the bottom quartile does, 12 months after launch. The average Realized LW per download in North America, 14 days in, is 4x the global average at $0.35 compared to $0.08. A multiple that exists both on the App Store, as well as on Google Play. -14°/% Share of monthly subscribers retained after 12 months dropped by -14% last year, across categories and impacting both the best and worst performers alike. Over 10% of churned monthly subscribers re-subscribe within 12 months, with categories like Media & Entertainment seeing even higher reactivation rates. 1.7% 200x $0.35 -14% 12% RevenueCat
- 27. 01
- 28. Overall spend is slightly up 8% Spend by Singular clients is up 8% year over year
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- 31. Unified Measurement 1. Accurate organics 31% more attributed conversions due to better organic vs paid identification 2. Smarter measurement 43% boost in campaign ROI 3. Long cohorts 35-day post-install cohort analysis 4. Sane CPIs No more goofy eCPIs
- 32. Gust de Baaker Beyond last click 03
- 34. The goal is to get as many signals as possible to make better decisions Edouard Favier, UA A Thinking Ape
- 35. MMM highlights wasted spend MMM is fraud resistant MMM shows industry shifts MMM is a sanity check MMM can even be (relatively) easy
- 36. 04
- 37. One relatively tiny ad network came out of nowhere to rank on every category in Singular’s 2024 ROI Index
- 38. 05
- 41. Hope you had a wonderful MAU!
Editor's Notes
- #2: Hello, welcome, wow, you’re still here Door prizes! 2nd time at MAU Chose this title: so much bad news But is it all really as bad as it seems? Let’s find out
- #4: My name is John Koetsier Longtime journalist Still contribute at Forbes But most of my time is consulting in adtech & growth & mobile And most of that is with Singular, the MMP So my job is kinda … talking to marketers
- #5: Sometimes like this Marketer as a star How did you end world hunger Save the world Restore justice and peace to Midgard
- #6: Lately, more like this Counseling sessions There, there Don’t worry It’ll be all right, I’m sure
- #7: Part of the reason So much change
- #8: We all kinda figured everything would go back to normal Then we discovered that yes, you can never really go home again And everything is always changing Including us
- #9: A lot of our weeks lately have felt like this We’re getting future shock Everything is changing
- #10: So my goal today … Give you a big hug But not in a creepy way
- #11: Let’s start big picture What’s going on?
- #12: GDP growth is down Our economy is not randomly getting saved The Marvels aren’t coming Iron Man isn’t going to fight off the alien attack
- #13: Inflation is still high It turns out when you print $5 trillion … there’s an impact Who knew :-) Why didn’t anyone warn us :-) https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2024/01/30/world-economic-outlook-update-january-2024
- #14: Ad growth has been impressive But we were fooled by a massive spike during a global pandemic And now ad revenue growth is below GDP growth Source https://www.groupm.com/2023-global-end-of-year-forecast/
- #15: Historically speaking, we spend a metric shit-ton on ads That makes sense: the total addressable market for content ads can be targeted against has vastly expanded But this is not an infinite sum game It has limits https://www.dentsu.com/news-releases/dentsu-forecasts-2024-global-ad-spend-to-grow
- #16: Which is why growth rates for ad spend are down
- #17: And yes, it helps no-one when we’re killing people all over the place
- #18: So that’s the big picture right now What about the growth ecosystem? Mobile marketing?
- #19: As necessary as privacy is … and I 100% mean that It’s been a disaster for modern marketing machines Lost signal … yep But worse: bad signal SKAN and non-SKAN numbers don’t add up to real-world totals Organics and paid mingled Duplicated counting of installs Can’t trust channel performance numbers And all this joy is soon to arrive on Android
- #20: To make matters worse We’ve seen massive job losses
- #21: Unity, Amazon, Riot, Microsoft, Niantic, Sega Sure, there was overhiring during Covid Sure there are lots of reasons But that doesn’t make it any easier
- #22: Web3 was going to save us But the crypto crash cratered web3 games Can anyone think of a big web3 game? Crypto has since somewhat recovered But NFTs, which many thought would be a cool way to monetize games and apps … have not
- #23: As the ad TAM grows People get increasingly hostile to ads Or … just blind
- #24: And yeah … Apple Vision Pro isn’t gonna save us Even Oculus isn’t
- #25: Subscriptions are tough too They’re not insulated from the overall economy Retained subscribers: down 14% Across the board RevenueCat 2024 subscription report https://www.revenuecat.com/state-of-subscription-apps-2024/#h-price-points
- #26: So we arrive here In 2024 WTF What is the path forward?
- #28: First off, get in the fight Participate You might laugh at participation trophies But those who aren’t engaging can’t win
- #29: And it turns out … top growth marketers are spending Source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MzGGlCaY_jCoKAKfmm1HpITyHz5cOQuB1DE8uMJ7S0s/edit#gid=1281955719
- #30: Some verticals more than others Plenty of verticals seeing significant growth And guess what … A ton of it is outside of games Business Medical Entertainment Sports Health/fitness So participation is winning now Source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Yo9LxhShlThwelIiX6vSkuMY3h7PwVIyoEL8Wag7SOg/edit#gid=123100319 Vertical Growth Business 31.09% Medical 30.89% Entertainment 27.85% Sports 24.43% Lifestyle 23.08% Health & Fitness 16.97% Education 7.46% Games 7.07% Food & Drink 5.08% Social Networking 0.91% Shopping -2.20% Productivity -2.54% Finance -4.95% Travel -18.88%
- #31: 2: measurement accuracy is improving Even under privacy We just talked about it Cohorts are gone Organics and paid are all mixed up Duplicated install counts from different sources and attribution methods
- #32: SKAN is here to stay You need a solution that gives you the best data possible Unified Measurement is an approach that uses multiple measurement methodologies At the same time Combined To achieve significantly better results SKAN by itself isn’t enough IDFV by itself, not enough IDFA … Any other single method Using Unified Measurement for the new Unified iOS Report, we’re seeing accurate de-duping of SKAN and MMP attribution Much more accurate partner performance Actual organics Better ROI Sane eCPIs And … 35-day post-install cohorts You cannot rely on one source of data for marketing measurement anymore You need multiple, unified Transparent
- #33: 3: go beyond last click Sure, the customer journey for a mobile game maybe isn’t as complex as this one You’re not buying a car, after all But there’s a heck of a lot more going on that 1 ad view, 1 click, 1 install, 1 open And … huge ROI Have to go beyond last click Source: https://gustdebacker.com/
- #34: That means getting serious about MMM A year ago: 3% of marketers “MMM is not worth it” 16% on the fence 25%: already doing MMM 60%: on their way
- #35: More signals, done well, boosts decision accuracy
- #36: Wasted spend: client always wondered about 1 network Fraud resistant: bad guys can game other KPIs Industry shifts: see if a change you’re experiencing is just you or whole industry (Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) Sanity check: is this spend really incremental? ROI over time by channel Relatively easy … out of the box, ready to go … all your data is already there
- #37: 4. Test new partners
- #38: Moloco Ranked on every single category (geo/vertical) Others that ranked: Meta, Google, TikTok ironSource, AppLovin Who will be Moloco in 2025? Only way to know … Test Also: more partners Every time I’ve checked the data … 2X in the last 6-7 years at Singular Once at TUNE close to a decade ago Marketers who are testing more networks grow faster
- #39: 5. Test entirely new channels, not just new partners Recently put together Singular’s ROI Index Some things don’t hit the big numbers But they make a significant difference for specific apps UA spend for CTV is up 46% year over year for Singular clients I keep hearing good things about out of home Custom SMS Email Newsletter Lockscreen ads No-store direct install YMMV … try things that make sense for your vertical, your target customer
- #40: So yeah … we’re operating in challenging circumstances But there are still some reasons for optimism
- #41: And … at least you got a free hug