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:   […]

Here is an analysis of the global non-gaming App user acquisition marketing trends for November 2025, based on ad data from 50 countries/regions and 28 global media platforms, according to AppGrowing's report. In November 2025, tool apps continued to account for the largest share of active advertisers among global applications, with the highest proportion of new advertisers as well, rising further to 25.39%. Beyond tools, categories with over 10% share of newly advertised apps include life, Health & Fitness, Entertainment, Educational. The top three categories for ad volume perspective were shopping and entertainment. Among them, the overall advertising volume for tools apps has increased compared to October, showing a month-over-month growth of 49.15%, rising to third place in the current […]

The following analysis of mobile games marketing trends for November 2025 is based on advertising data from AppGrowing across 50 countries and regions, and 28 global media platforms. In the ranking of overseas mobile game advertising by category, casino, casual, and puzzle games occupy the top three spots. Among new app releases, casino games maintain the lead, accounting for 46.26%. Casual games come second, with over 30.00% of new app releases. Notably, although the overall number of arcade game ads is relatively small, new arcade apps constitute 19.11%, ranking third. The top three in advertising volume are puzzle, casual, and role-playing games. However, when considering creative material count after de-duplication, casino games surpass role-playing titles. In terms of Ad Creative […]

Here is an analysis of the global non-gaming App user acquisition marketing trends for October 2025, based on ad data from 50 countries/regions and 28 global media platforms, according to AppGrowing's report. In October 2025, tool apps continued to account for the largest share of active advertisers among global applications, with the highest proportion of new advertisers as well, rising further to 27.55%. Beyond tools, categories with over 10% share of newly advertised apps include life, Health & Fitness, Food & Drink, Entertainment, Educational. The top three categories for ad volume perspective were Shopping, Entertainment, and Books & Reference. Short-drama app continued its growth trend in October after an uptick in ad volume in September. In contrast, the volume of […]

The following analysis of mobile games marketing trends for September 2025 is based on advertising data from AppGrowing across 50 countries and regions, and 28 global media platforms.In the ranking of overseas mobile game advertising by category, casino, casual, and puzzle games occupy the top three spots. Among new app releases, casino games maintain the lead, accounting for 53.85%. Casual games come second, with nearly 27.31% of new app releases. puzzle games account for 16.76%. Notably, although the overall number of arcade game ads is relatively small, new arcade apps constitute 22.46%, surpassing puzzle titles. The top three in advertising volume are puzzle, casual, and role-playing games. However, when considering creative material count after de-duplication, strategy games surpass action titles. […]

The following analysis of mobile games marketing trends for September 2025 is based on advertising data from AppGrowing across 50 countries and regions, and 28 global media platforms.In the ranking of overseas mobile game advertising by category, casual, entertainment, and puzzle games occupy the top three spots. Among new app releases, entertainment games maintain the lead, accounting for 48.11%. Casual games come second, with nearly 29.67% of new app releases. puzzle games account for 18.72%. Notably, although the overall number of arcade game ads is relatively small, new arcade apps constitute 24.09%, surpassing puzzle titles. The top three in advertising volume are casual, puzzle, and role-playing games. However, when considering creative material count after de-duplication, puzzle games surpass casual titles. […]

Here is an analysis of the global non-gaming App user acquisition marketing trends for July 2025, based on ad data from 50 countries/regions and 28 global media platforms, according to AppGrowing's report. In July 2025, tool apps continued to account for the largest share of active advertisers among global applications, with the highest proportion of new advertisers as well, rising further to 26.16%. Beyond tools, the share of new advertisers also exceeded 10% in both the entertainment and education categories. From an ad volume perspective, entertainment once again topped the charts, with short-drama and novel apps maintaining large-scale ad placements. Yet when measured by the number of unique creatives, shopping apps retained the lead. Looking at creative formats and video length […]

The following analysis of mobile games marketing trends for July 2025 is based on advertising data from AppGrowing across 50 countries and regions, and 28 global media platforms. In July’s ranking of new game launches by genre, Casino, Casual, and Puzzle took the top three spots. Casino titles saw their share of new launches rise further to 45.27%, far ahead of other categories. Casual followed with nearly 30%, while Arcade titles accounted for 26.26% of new launches. By ad volume, Casual, Puzzle, and Role-Playing ranked in the top three. Puzzle titles recorded fewer ads than Casual games, but the gap in the number of unique creatives was relatively small. In terms of creative formats, video continued to dominate global mobile […]

Here is an analysis of the global non-gaming App user acquisition marketing trends for May 2025, based on ad data from 50 countries/regions and 28 global media platforms, according to AppGrowing's report. In May 2025, the global non-gaming app advertising landscape continued the trends observed last month. Tool apps remained the dominant category in terms of total active ad campaigns, with new entries accounting for a record-high 16.06%. Meanwhile, entertainment apps saw a surge in total ad impressions, overtaking shopping apps to claim the top spot. However, when measured by the number of unique creatives, shopping apps still led by a wide margin. 01.Top Non-gaming App Developers & Apps According to AppGrowing, this month's ranking of top global advertisers saw a […]

The following analysis of mobile games marketing trends for May 2025 is based on advertising data from AppGrowing across 50 countries and regions, and 28 global media platforms. In the latest AppGrowing data on mobile game ad distribution by category, Casual, Entertainment, and Puzzle games ranked in the top three. Entertainment remained the top genre for new creatives, accounting for 28.58% of all new ads. Casual games showed strong creative refresh momentum, with new creatives making up 26.93%, narrowing the gap with Entertainment. Meanwhile, Puzzle, Adventure, and Arcade also exceeded 10% in new ad share. In terms of total ad volume, Casual and Puzzle again led the pack, with nearly identical levels of ad output. RPG, Simulation, and Entertainment rounded […]