App ad trends: Mobile video ad spend dominates gaming

Mar 13, 2017 | Mobile

Video ad formats are by far the most popular format in the mobile app gaming market, according to new research. The data, from AppLovin, indicates that video currently accounts for 93% of mobile ad spend. In non-gaming verticals, 58%of spend was for video ads, and 42% was for non-video. Key findings Across all vertical industry […]

Video ad formats are by far the most popular format in the mobile app gaming market, according to new research.


The data, from AppLovin, indicates that video currently accounts for 93% of mobile ad spend.
In non-gaming verticals, 58%of spend was for video ads, and 42% was for non-video.
Key findings

  • Across all vertical industry sectors 77 % of ad spend was for video ads with the remainder being for graphic and playable ads.
  • The video ad format has taken over in the gaming market, currently accounting for 93 % of mobile ad spend.
  • Across non-gaming verticals, 58% of spend was for video ads, and 42% was for non-video


Looking at the trends, the growth of video ad spend has started to plateau, which is to be expected given its already dominant position.
Apps that acquired users through video ads had 24 percent better retention than those that did so with other formats.
However, there was a noticeable difference between the iOS and Android platforms: on iOS, video ads performed 29 percent better, while on Android, they performed 21 percent better in terms of retention.
View more data here

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