There are several business models that serve as a foundation for mobile app advertising. Each model defines for what specific performance or action an ad company charges advertisers. The most popular models are CPM (cost-per-mile), CPC (cost-per-click), CPI (cost-per-install) and CPA (cost-per-action).
Among these models, CPI and CPA are the most efficient ones for app marketers user acquisition efforts. They allow brands to measure actual ROI (return-of-investment) for a budget they allocate to advertise their apps. With a proper ad campaign data analysis, app installs ads allow app marketers to acquire high quality users and expand their app’s user base.
Since the dawn of both major mobile app ecosystems – iOS and Android – mobile user acquisition has been a challenge for app developers and brands. App stores alone weren’t sufficient to meet app developers needs in acquiring new app users, primarily because of the app discoverability problem. To meet this demand, co-called, Pay Per Install networks were launched that allowed marketers to buy app installs ads in bulk.
There are dozens of such networks that offer app marketers a technical platform to generate mobile app installs. The efficiency of these networks depends on their reach, ad formats and the number of different targeting options they support. In size such networks range from giants like Facebook, Google, Twitter that offer the best targeting options to smaller players that compete in CPI costs, better customer support or better reach in specific geographies.
Because of the overwhelming success of Facebook Ads that helped the company to generate the bulk of its revenue on mobile, other companies picked up the trend fairly quickly. The first one who followed was Twitter, with Twitter ads back in 2012, Pinterest with Pinterest for Business in 2014 and finally Snapchat joined the app install race the same 2014. The most recent addition to this family was TikTok in 2019 with is advertising platform for video ads.
All these platforms leverage their multi-million user base profile data to target app install ads like other advertising platforms simply aren’t capable.
Now the question is – how much do app marketers pay for a mobile app install on various app install ad platforms, as well as on Facebook? The following table presents CPI data points for iOS and Android for US app market in March of 2020.
An average app user acquisition cost
| Mobile OS | US |
| iOS | $1.45 |
| Android | $1.05 |
Source: Chartboost
Meanwhile, according to BusinessInsider data, mobile app install advertising revenue jumped from $3.6 billion in 2014 to $4.7 in 2015. Also Business Insider Intelligence data reveals estimates for this and previous years – in 2018 app install advertising revenue reached $6.7 billion and in 2019 – $7.
Mobile App Install Advertising Revenue (US), in billions
Source: Business Insider
Of course today an app install and user acquisition are no longer the only app marketers concerns. App re-targeting or reengagement campaigns are increasingly common on app advertising platforms. One of reasons for the initial drive to get mobile app installs was to achieve high ranking on app stores with so-called burst campaigns.
Top App Install Ad Platforms
- AdColony - The In-App Marketplace for Brands
- Zoomd - Know More, Do More
- Jampp - Unlock new growth
- ironSource - Connecting people with apps
- Bidease - #1 DSP for mobile app marketers
The idea of a burst campaign was simple – generate a big number of downloads within a short period of time and signal an app store algorithm that the app needs to be ranked high on a chart. As time went by, both Apple and Google became smarter about their ranking algorithms and so burst campaign became way less effective. It forced app marketers to change their app marketing strategy and ultimately they began to pay more attention to mobile app users engagement to retain them and counteract a mobile churn.
Below you can see the list of major networks and platforms that offer app installs – some of them work on a CPI model and others use a CPC or CPM based trading approach but with the focus on delivering app installs and users.
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 400 | $192m+ | 25k | 4m+ |
Founded in 2011, AdColony was created by mobile developers, for mobile developers and has grown into one of the largest mobile advertising and monetization platforms in the world with a reach of more than 1.5 billion users globally. AdColony is known for its exclusive Instant-Play™ HD video, Aurora™ HD Interactive video, and playable technologies, its global performance advertising expertise, its programmatic marketplace, and its extensive ad SDK footprint in the top apps worldwide.
- Mobile platforms: Android, IOS
- Campaign types: CPM
- Ad formats supported: Rich Media, Video
- Targeting: Demographic
- Key markets: US
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 51-200 | - | - | - |
Zoomd is dedicated to helping advertisers and publishers achieve their key performance indicators (KPIs) through a patented, performance-based advertising platform. The Company’s User Acquisition platform unifies more than 600 media sources under one dashboard including Google, TikTok, Samsung premium inventory and much more.
- Business Models – Choose your preferred business model CPC/CPI/CPO/CPE/CPA
- Fraud – Detection as part of the platform, adding you an extra layer of safety
- Measurement – integrated to all major 3rd party mobile measurement solutions
- Cost-efficiency – Save countless resources by managing all campaigns under one screen
- Data Play – Enjoy machine decisions based on more than 500Million data points a day
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | - | - | - | - |
ironSource is the leading in-app video advertising platform. It is one of the biggest and oldest mobile advertising platforms launched in 2010. Focusing on mobile games, it makes free-to-play and free-to-use possible for over 1.5B people around the world. Over 80,000 app developers use its technologies to grow their businesses, among these such leading companies like Kongregate, Zeptolab, Big Fish Games, Zynga and Playrix.
- Mobile platforms: Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Cocos, Amazon, AdobeAir
- Campaign types: CPC, CPE, CPA, CPV
- Ad formats supported: App Wall, Interstitial, Offer Wall, Video
- Targeting: Custom
- Key Markets: United States, Israel
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 51-200 | - | - | - |
Jampp unlocks programmatic advertising to drive incremental performance. A demand-side platform (DSP) at heart, Jampp leverages unique contextual and behavioral signals to deliver customers and in-app purchases through programmatic user acquisition and retargeting. We simplify programmatic growth for some of the biggest names in mobile.
- Services: User Acquisition, App retargeting, Lift measurement, Geolocated ads, Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO), Dynamic Product Ads, Predictive Bidding
- Tagline: Unlock new growth
| Founded | Employees | Social | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 11-50 | 3k+ |
Bidease is a mobile DSP platform for mobile marketers. Its built on a foundation of proprietary programmatic advertising technology, Machine Learning, and first party data. Bidease team optimizes campaigns across all major mobile formats for desired post-install behaviors at no risk to its clients’ bottom line.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android, Mobile Web
- Campaign types: CPI, CPA, CPM
- Ad formats supported: Banners, Interstitial, Native, Rewarded Video, Video
- Targeting: Carrier, Device, Gender, Geo, Interests, IP, OS
- Key Markets: global
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| - | - | - | - | - |
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Chartboost is an in-app monetization and programmatic advertising company, founded in 2011 by Sean Fannan and Maria Alegre in San Francisco, US. Chartboost mobile ad network provides advertisers with a platform for a cross-promotion with native ads, sophisticated targeting and tracking. Also the company provides mobile game owners with developer-t0-developer mobile ad marketplace to exchange ads inside their apps directly.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android
- Campaign types: CPC, CPI
- Ad formats supported: Content Lock, Interstitial, OfferWall, Video
- Targeting: Custom
- Key Markets: global, United States
Promoted App Pins is a mobile app advertising platform from Pinterest. It allows app marketers to generate installs via pins. Pins associated with iOS or Android apps have an app icon and install button attached to them for mobile users to tap on and download an app. Among Pinterest mobile measuring partners are Adjust, AppsFlyer, Kochava, TUNE and Apsalar.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone
- Campaign types: CPA
- Ad formats supported: App Icon
- Targeting: Custom
- Key markets: Global
With App Campaigns, Google provides app marketers with a single platform to promote iOS and Android apps via Google Search, YouTube, Google Play and more. The platform’s dashboard offers quick and easy-to-use interface to create an ad or set of ads, choose daily budget and define goals for the platform’s ML algorithm to define the rest to optimize an ad campaign performance.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android
- Campaign types: CPA
- Ad formats supported: In-app
- Targeting: Geo, demographics, interests, OS, time
- Key markets: Global
Snapchat Ads is the Snap Inc. advertising platform that allows businesses to advertise on the platform with Snap’s unique ad formats and reach Millennials audience that has developed a high level of trust with the platform. Snapchat has 238 million daily active users that open the app 30 times a day on average and spend 30+ minutes with the app. Snap has partnered with multiple companies to better connect advertisers with snapchatters communities.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android
- Campaign types: CPI, CPC
- Ad formats supported: Snap Ads, Filters, Lenses
- Targeting: 300 audiences based on data derived from what content snapchatters watch, buy and post on the platform, demographics, lookalike audiences.
- Key markets: global, the Basic plan is US only.