Part XIV: In-App Experiences Continue to Dominate Mobile Traffic
Perhaps unsurprisingly, global smartphone adoption has levelled out in recent years: from 2016 to 2022, the number of smartphone subscriptions rose from 3.66 billion to 6.57 billion; 2023 should see a modest increase to 6.84 billion, and by 2027 the number is expected to hit an upper limit of 7.69 billion. Whilst demand appears to be softening there remains an undeniable trend toward growth, with manufacturers staking a claim in untapped global markets through lower prices and improved cellular connectivity.
Alongside increased smartphone adoption comes increased app engagement. According to research by Insider Intelligence, app usage now accounts for 88% of the time individuals interact with their mobile devices (this figure rises to 90% when tablets are excluded from the data). For advertisers in 2023 and beyond, the challenge becomes one of how best to reach these consumers at an in-app level.
Implications
Increased Inventory
The number of apps available to consumers is staggering, with some 2.9 million populating the Google Play Store, and 4.75 million on Apple’s App Store. These figures are not merely indicative of customer demand for the app experience; for advertisers, they illustrate the extent of ad inventory offered by the medium.
Age Demographics
Whilst app familiarity is fairly uniform across demographics, millennials are particularly adept at utilising an assortment of apps for their specific smartphone activities. 21% of millennials open their apps more than 50 times each day, whilst 73% report shopping via mobile apps 1–4 times per week.
For advertisers that aim to reach younger demographics, in-app mobile advertising is becoming too big to ignore. Those businesses that want to continue to see success in this area, need to carefully factor it into their overall strategies.
In-Game Advertising
In-game advertising is a fast-growing market, set to be worth some £191.6 billion by 2027 (a CAGR of 7.08% from its 2020 value of £118.7 billion). As development costs increase and product life spans decrease, more and more mainstream game publishers will seek to further monetise their digital properties through in-game marketing.
An imminent example is provided by Roblox, which has announced plans to integrate 3D advertising with its platform at some point in 2023.
Solutions
Vungle
Vungle is an ad network which specialises in bringing developers and advertisers together. It offers bespoke solutions for advertisers who want to reach a vast in-app network, with a number of ad modules that boost engagement without impacting on customer experience.
Significantly, Vungle is also taking major steps to protect advertisers from the upcoming changes to the Android Advertising ID, offering a range of industry-leading contextual advertising solutions built specifically to ease the on-device transition towards privacy.
Digital Turbine
For brands and advertisers, Digital Turbine’s DT Reach suite offers unrivalled access to in-app and on-device inventory.
With powerful targeting tools and extremely impressive creative formatting options, the team at Digital Turbine have built a platform that is perfect for driving brand awareness and engagement to users on mobile devices.
