Here is AppGrowing's analysis of the global mobile App advertising markets in May 2023, based on advertising data from 24 global media platforms in 50 countries/regions.
01 Mobile App Advertising Trends
Overall, apps advertised in May 2023 were 25,537, up 3.6% compared to April (Click for Review of April 2023). The ad volume was 3.69M+, up 3.1% MoM. Ad creative volume was 1.30M+, a 24% surge over April. Evidently, similar to mobile games, the global app ad market showed a recovery in May.
The peak of the ad volume was in the latter 20 days, with the highest single-day ad volume on May 30 with over 860K; the peak of App volume was on May 15 with 13525.
Specifically speaking, the peak of both App volume and ad volume appeared in Week 3, with a number of nearly 1.60M. For the histogram of ad volume for a single app, 83.16% apps advertised in the range of 0 to 99, a 9.93% MoM increase of products are advertised in the range of 100 to 299.
In terms of key categories, the largest share of ad in May, 18. 9%, stemmed from Tools, while Shop receded to No.2, with 17.7%. Finance continued to lead in App volume, with an increase to 13.3%, but fell in ad volume to 6.6%. As for the average ad volume of a single app, News remained No.1, although ad volume decreased by 9.1% MoM, followed by Books & Reference, Tools, Social and Shop. Books & Reference saw a decline in the dimension, while the remaining 3 categories showed growth in varying degrees.
From the perspective of market regions, the top 3 regions by ad volume in May are still North America, Southeast Asia and Western Europe, accounting for 38%, 29.7% and 27.3% respectively, which have all increased compared to April.
Among the top 10 regions, the USA is still No. 1, with its share of ad volume increasing to 34.3%, followed by India with 21% and France with 20%. Overall, the share of ad volume in the leading market regions increased, reflecting a certain extent that global app advertising in May was more concentrated in those markets.
In terms of the major regions of app developers, Mainland China accounted for the largest share of ad volume, while the USA accounted for most of the app volume. India followed, with 8.1% of app volume, but only 6.3% of ad volume. The top 3 app developers were Particle Media, SHEIN and ByteDance, and more than half of the top 10 were from China, including Alibaba, Dreame Media, JOYY, CHANGDU and Pinduoduo.
02 Most Advertised Mobile App
In May, Tools was the most advertised category on Google Play, with 4 apps in Top 15, followed by Shop. News app NewsBreak stayed at No. 1, followed by SHEIN and TikTok. Notably, Pinduoduo's TEMU made it to No. 8, advertised heavily. As for the App Store, as many as 6 Books & Reference apps made the list, followed by Shop. Shopee took the No. 1 spot, while Books & Reference took the No. 2 to No. 5 spots.
For the selected 4 app categories, AppGrowing picked Finance, Educational, Music, and Food & Drink. OPay took the Top 1 of Finance and OctaFX's two apps took the Top 2 & Top 3. OPay is a payment app from Kunlun Tech aimed at the African market, and the company has said that it would like to "create another Toutiao and payment for Africa." The top 3 in Educational are Domestika, PlantIn and Kids UP. The top 1 Music app is Kunlun Tech's StarMaker, whose selling point is "karaoke + social". The top 1 Food & Drink app is Uber Eats.
03 Mobile App Advertising Cases
Case 1: PlantIn: Plant Identification
PlantIn is an educational app designed for plant knowledge, which provides plant care guides besides plant Q&A and identification. According to AppGrowing, it mainly advertised in the USA in May, with 87.5% of its ads. The creatives are mainly vertical videos, accounting for 98.7%.
For ad creatives, PlantIn emphasizes the key features of plant identification and caring, showing the usefulness with real-life scenes and arousing users' interest by making mistakes and exaggerating.
For example, the following video first shows the common mistakes in daily plant care, such as directly cutting leaves and incorrect watering. Then it shows the operation of scanning to identify problems with the App and giving advice, highlighting the ease of use and solving the pain points.
The video begins with a mis-watered plant. The exaggerated water flow creates an eye-catching effect, increasing the possibility that viewers stay while browsing.
Case 2: Duolingo: language lessons
Duolingo is a language learning app that has been released for over 10 years. Its DAU has reportedly grown 450% from 2018 to 2022. According to AppGrowing, its main advertising regions in May were France, Vietnam, Germany, India, and Mexico, with a relatively even share of ad volume in each. The creatives type is video-based, with 62.9% of verticals.
Regarding creatives, Duolingo also focuses on the core features, and designed ads with relevant language learning features to meet the needs of users in different markets. For example, the following one is mainly advertised in Vietnam. It shows the process of learning English with a real in-app interface while explaining it in the native Vietnamese language, emphasizing the fun of learning.
In addition, due to the successful image of its mascot, it also appeared in some creatives as an eye-catching point. For instance, this ad features a live-action video to show the cute mascot and deepen the brand impression. At the same time, it stresses that learning a foreign language is irreplaceable by translation software.
*The above creatives are collected from public information by AppGrowing, and are only quoted for analysis and explanation, and the ownership belongs to the original author. The content is for general information only and should not be considered as an opinion or basis for specific matters.
