The old era is over. Since 2025, the global mobile-ad landscape has undergone a structural shift. Under AI-driven algorithms, major ad platforms have moved from "tag matching" to "content understanding". The traditional two-tower model is now passé, replaced by interactive towers that semantically match audiences likely to perform interactive actions — in this context, creative becomes the new targeting. Source：《Hierarchical Structured Neural Network: Efficient Retrieval Scaling for Large Scale Recommendation》 The Strategic Shift: AI vs. AI Marketers now face a critical choice: continue inefficiently scaling volume, or adopt strategy-level AI tools to respond to algorithmic change and build reusable formulas. AppGrowing and Youdao Ads released AI vs. AI: Global Mobile Games & Apps Trends 2026 to help marketers answer:   […]

Based on advertising data from 50 countries/regions and 28 global media platforms, AppGrowing analyzed the key characteristics of global mobile game user acquisition activity in August 2026. In August, casual games returned to the top position in terms of the number of active advertised apps, with newly advertised apps accounting for 25.45%, indicating strong category momentum. Puzzle and arcade followed, with the share of newly advertised apps in the arcade category rising further to 37.01%. In terms of ad volume, the Top 3 categories remained puzzle, casual, and simulation. These categories also ranked among the Top 3 in the number of deduplicated creative assets, suggesting that creative testing and iteration continued at a high level. From a creative format perspective, […]

Recently many developers shared a common frustration with AppGrowing that by optimizing precise targeting their click-through rates improved, but conversion rates did not rise accordingly. The root cause may not be the creatives themselves, but the long-neglected Custom Product Pages (CPP). How custom product pages affect UA From a UX perspective, the paid-acquisition funnel is “Ad Impression→ App Store Landing Page → Conversion.” When a user clicks an ad, they already form expectations about the product. If the store product page content differs from the ad, users feel a mismatch, may distrust the product, and ultimately abandon the download. In other words, users don’t always leave because the creative is bad; they leave because the experience flow is broken. This […]

The following analysis of non-gaming app marketing trends for February 2026 is based on advertising data from AppGrowing across 50 countries and regions, and 28 global media platforms.In February 2026, tool apps remains the app category with the highest share of active advertisers and also the largest share of newly launched advertisers, reaching 21.08%. In terms of ad volume, total ad placements this month decreased 11.62% MoM; Entertainment and Shopping continue to drive UA, ranking TOP 1 and TOP 2 respectively, while Books & Reference ranks TOP 3. However, after deduplication, the number of distinct creative assets for tools is slightly higher than for Books & Reference. Looking at creative types and video lengths: video creatives account for 61.58% this […]

The following analysis of mobile game marketing trends for February 2026 is based on advertising data from AppGrowing across 50 countries and regions, and 28 global media platforms. In terms of ad distribution by category, Casual games regained the top position, followed by Casino and Puzzle. However, Casino games continued to lead in the share of newly advertised apps, accounting for 29.42%, down from January. By ad volume, the top three categories remained Puzzle, Casual, and Role-Playing. Simulation ranked fourth, with ad volume comparable to Role-Playing games. In terms of ad creative formats, video continued to dominate global mobile game advertising, accounting for 70.07%, while image creatives made up 26.51%. By video length, the 16-30 second segment remained the most […]

According to AppGrowing, industry giants like such as Lilith, 4399, Bilibili, and FunPlus have successively launched their own Palworld-like mobile games. What’s notable, however, is the emerging design trend: a lightweight blend of "Palworld-like elements + refined gameplay mechanics." Monster-chatching is no longer the core gameplay by itself; instead it becomes an important module that drives game systems. Multiple “Palworld-like” combinations keep entering the market. This evolution is also reshaping UA: simply showing the “capture moment” in ads is no longer enough to attract users. Creative selling points are moving toward greater diversity. The Strategic Shift: Beyond Simple Cloning Rather than simply cloning the open-world framework of Palworld, most publishers choose to embed creature-collection mechanics into established genres to reduce development […]

In the era of Meta Andromeda, low bids, aggressive scaling, and simple asset swaps no longer work. If your cold-start phase stretches from 2 days to 7, or your ads never exit learning, your creatives are likely below Meta’s new “semantic kill line.” 01 The Semantic Kill Line：Does AI Understand Your Ads? Under Meta Andromeda, creatives are treated like programming languages: if the logic is messy, the system cannot match it to the right audience in vector space. Source：《Meta Andromeda: Supercharging Advantage+ automation with the next-gen personalized ads retrieval engine》 To pass the algorithm's test, your ad needs to cross three simple bars: 1. The 3-Seconds Rule: The algorithm must identify the target audience within the first 3 seconds. 2. […]

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where your ad performance just won't budge, no matter how much you "fix" the campaign? Usually, our first instinct is to check the settings: the bidding strategy, audience targeting, or even the budget. But here's the frustrating reality: even with these optimized setups, many ads struggle to get moving and fail to even pass the cold-start phase. This isn't just a streak of bad luck. It's because the rules of the game have changed: Meta has fundamentally rewritten the rules of ad delivery, quietly shifting its focus from manual campaign adjustments to the actual content of your ad. 01 From Matching to Mind Reading For a long time, Meta's algorithm acted like a matchmaker. It paired users […]

In the world of mobile game user acquisition (UA), we are witnessing a fundamental paradigm shift. The era of "human vs. platform" is ending; the era of AI vs. AI has arrived.  The Algorithm Trap: Are We Just Working for the Platforms? For years, game developers have felt the squeeze of "Traffic Red Oceans". But the real pressure isn't just rising costs—it’s the loss of control. Modern automated bidding systems and black-box algorithms now dictate traffic auction and distribution, leaving marketers with dwindling room for manual optimization. Many practitioners now feel they are "working for the platforms," with every dollar of their budget serving as training data for the platform’s machine learning rather than guaranteed ROI.   The Efficiency Paradox: […]

In 2019, Leyi launched the SLG game "West Game," set in the American Westward Expansion era. With its differentiated theme and mature operations, the game quickly attracted a large number of users. As of now, the game has accumulated approximately 27 million downloads and generated over 1.4 billion yuan in revenue. However, since "West Game," Leyi seems to have hit a growth bottleneck. Despite the company's ongoing high-frequency testing of various SLG new games, it has failed to find a product capable of succeeding "West Game" and taking on the company’s revenue banner. Recently, AppGrowing observed that Leyi has launched the sequel to the "West Game" IP, "West Game II," which officially entered public beta on September 21. The data […]