Here is AppGrowing's analysis of the global mobile App advertising markets in July 2023, based on advertising data from 25 global media platforms in 50 countries/regions.
01 Advertising Trends
Like the mobile games, in July, both the Ad and App volume of global non-game Apps declined. Overall, App volume in July 2023 was 25,248, a decrease of 6.63% compared with June. Ad volume was 3.82M+, a significant drop of 31.26% MoM. On the contrary, ad creative volume kept growing at 1.56M+, up 12.47% compared to June.
The peak of ad and app volume appeared in the late July, with the highest ad volume and app volume on July 24th, with the former exceeding 930K and the latter being 14,614, both lower than the highest figures in June.
Specifically, App volume stayed at 80K+, with more in week 2 & 3. Ad volume fluctuated weekly, with the highest in week 2 at over 1.60M.
In terms of ad volume for a single App, 82.41% of Apps were in the range of 0 to 99, slightly higher than June. 10.5% of Apps were in the range of 100 to 299.
As for categories, Tools continued to account for the highest share of ads in July, at 20.6%, a decrease of 2.2% MoM. Shop and Social categories followed with 17.2% and 9.2% respectively. The highest share of App volume continued to be in Finance, though decreased to 12.6%.
By region, the top 3 most-advertised regions in July were North America, Southeast Asia and Latin America, accounting for 40.6%, 34.7% and 31.3% respectively, a significant increase compared to June.
Specifically in the Top 10 regions, the USA remains at the No.1, with a 36.2% share of ad volume. India and Mexico followed with 24.9%. The share of top 10 regions all increased and exceeded 20%.
Among the source regions of developers, China’s Mainland accounted for the most ads, while the USA accounted for the most apps. For the Top 10 advertised App developers in July, the top 3 were SHEIN, Paticle Media and Shopee. 8 Chinese developers made it into the top 10, including ByteDance, Dreame Media, CHANGDU, Pinduoduo, NEW READING, WePie and Alibaba, making intense competition for media buying.
02 Most Advertised Apps
In terms of the most advertised apps in July, it's still the Tool Apps that are most charted on Google Play, with 5 seats. NewsBreak returned to No. 1, and TikTok's ads expanded to hit the top 3.
On the App Store, the most charted category was Books & Reference, with a total of five Apps, including NEW READING's GoodNovel, which landed in No.2. According to AppGrowing, the app published more than 20K ads in July.
AppGrowing selected 4 key categories for rankings - Finance, Weather, Travel, and Social.
In the Finance category, Olymp Trade is the No.1 and Kunlun Tech's OPay is No.2, with most of the apps on the list in the Digital Asset Trading genre. Among the most advertised Weather Apps, APPS INNOVA has two products in the Top 5, namely Live Weather and Local Weather. In the travel category, Trip.com took the No.1, while the Top 3 in the social category were TikTok, Bigo Live and Maybe You.
03 Case Analysis
Maybe You is an App that has been on the market for 3 years, selling the idea of "socializing with strangers". In July, it was mainly advertised in Netherlands, Australia, Portugal, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, with more than 70% of its creative being images.
On the creative content, Maybe You mainly catches the eyes with plenty of real-life images. The following image shows a variety of women, suggesting a number of female users in the app. The text at the top highlights features like "local" and "free", while the high ratings at the bottom emphasize its high quality.
Source: AppGrowing
In addition, some creatives focus on "couples" to highlight the app's feature of "dating". By showing photos of real couples and their information, the ad’s credibility is enhanced, and the message of “real date” is conveyed.
Source: AppGrowing
The main regions where Trip.com advertised in July were Hong Kong of China, Thailand, Korea, Malaysia and Singapore, mostly in the Asian market. Creatives were dominated by images, which accounted for 92.2% of the total.
As an App for a comprehensive travel service, Trip.com's creatives focus on showing features and driving downloads with discount information. For example, the image features a famous high-end hotel as the ad creative, with text emphasizing the "limited time", creating anxiety about "missing the discount", which drives downloads.
Source: AppGrowing
The hotel and air ticket resources in the App are displayed in the ad. At the same time, it emphasizes ease of use and 24-hour customer service, combined with relaxing BGM to induce users' desire to travel.
Source: AppGrowing
