Whitepaper · January 1, 2022

2022 Global White Paper on Mobile Advertising & Marketing Game

Summary

The global mobile market in the first half of 2022 underwent a significant transition, characterized by a contraction in total advertising volume alongside a strategic pivot toward high-quality, video-centric content. While the total number of advertisers and ad creatives declined year-over-year, emerging markets in the Middle East, South America, and Southeast Asia experienced robust growth. This period saw a sharp rise in advertising costs, with the average CPM reaching $19.31 and the United States and South Korea emerging as the most expensive regions for user acquisition. Casual and puzzle games dominated the advertising landscape by volume, yet RPGs and strategy titles commanded the highest revenue and advertising spend. A notable trend involved mid-core developers utilizing "lightweight" or drama-based video creatives to lower entry barriers for broader audiences. Video formats now constitute over 86% of all creatives, with interactive AR filters and short-form content on platforms like Snapchat and TikTok challenging the traditional dominance of Meta. In the non-gaming sector, shopping and finance apps led in advertiser activity, while reading apps produced the highest volume of individual creatives. The industry faced headwinds from Apple’s IDFA privacy changes, prompting a shift toward "motivation-based" creative strategies and localized global launches, particularly by Chinese firms seeking relief from domestic regulatory pressures. Despite rising costs and a 27% drop in creative volume, the market remains dynamic, driven by the expansion of esports, cross-platform play, and a growing consumer interest in the metaverse. Success is increasingly defined by down-funnel conversion optimization and the use of immersive, emotionally resonant storytelling to engage diverse global demographics.

From the report

What happened in the mobile game industry in the first half of 2022? As an answer to that, SocialPeta published its “H1 2022 Mobile Game Marketing White Paper”, providing global insights for you to enter global markets with your products. According to the global data captured and integrated by SocialPeta, 2022 saw the following trends in the mobile game market: I. Mobile mar keting focused on quality, leading to a dr op in total ads. But T2 and T3 mar kets exper ienced a significant incr ease: H1 2022 saw a decline of 2% YoY in the number of advertisers and a decline of 27.83% in total creatives; but there were increases of over 10% YoY in advertisers in Middle East, South America, South Asia, and other emerging markets. II. Metaver se dr ove sever al technical innovations: The idea of metaverse had been a hot topic ever since it was first introduced. As the metaverse hype started to settle down, the market attitude became more rational. The effort to realize the real metaverse also brought the innovation of the related technologies. Tencent bought Black Shark Corporation this year, and transitioned its entire business from game phones to VR headsets, utilizing it for laying a foundation for metaverse. Recently CMGE also launched Youyu Art, a distribution platform for digital artwork copyright. Overall, metaverse has developed from virtual fantasy to firm reality. 2 Preface III. As the COVID-19 pandemic continued, social games wer e going to boom: The pandemic that broke out in 2019 has changed the lives of people across the globe. The unpredictable variants and lockdowns have deepened the anxiety of people, resulting in their increased demand for online social services. Some social activities that were very popular offline have been brought online, such as murder mystery games and social deduction games. The mobile version of [Among Us!] has been very popular among gamers ever since its release, with over 52 million downloads in the past half year. In the post-pandemic era, a boom of social games with simple gameplays may come again. IV. With high-budget/high-quality mobile games in gener al, cr oss-platfor m play became the new gr owth point: More and more gamers have known the charm of high-quality games through live streams and short videos, resulting in a rising overall expectation for games and a surging demand for high-quality game contents. [Genshin Impact]'s success has proved the profitability of cross-platform games. With the technological innovation of cloud games and third-party game engines, cross-platform games may be the mainstream in the future. V. The booming E-spor ts mar ket boosted the global cultur al exchange: According to the data released by Newzoo, the global game live-streaming audience has been growing at an annual growth rate of about 10% since 2020. In addition to China, USA, Europe, South Korea and other mature esports regions, esports has been growing in popularity in Southeast Asia and India. There were 8 large-scale and 10 small-scale esports projects in the Southeast Asian Games hosted in Vietnam in May 2022. With the technological innovation as a result of metaverse, the esports market has become intensely competitive. The global mobile game market is ever-changing. So game companies need to pay constant attention to both the overall market trends and the marketing trends of top products of industrial segments.

About “SocialPeta” With SocialPeta, you can spy on your competitors' ad data, and get ad data from networks, media, and advertisers around the world to inspire you. Get Inspiration From 1.2 Billion Ad Creatives SocialPeta covers 72 countries and regions, and over 90 well-known ad channels worldwide, such as Unity, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok. We provide nearly 1 billion ad creatives, updating millions each day. S o c i a l P e t a i s t h e b e s t s o u r c e o f inspiration for ads. 3

Declaration 4 1. Data Sources With the assistance of the world's biggest advertising intelligence and analysis tool, SocialPeta Data Team has provided you with insights into the mobile advertising data of global games. We collect advertising data by sampling worldwide, covering over 70 channels and nearly 70 countries and regions worldwide, and have captured a total of over 1.2 billion advertising data, with over 1 million ad data being updated by the hour each day. Based on such huge data, we can gain insights into the advertising market trends. 1. Data Cycle and Indicators Overall date range of the report: Jan-Jun 2022 For specific data indicators, please see the notes on each page. 1. Copyright Notice All tests, images, and graphics contained in this report are protected by the relevant trademark and copyright laws. Some texts and data are public information and their copyrights are owned by their original creators. No organization or person shall copy or distribute, in whole or in part for any purpose, any portion of this report without approval from our company. The copyrights of all creatives mentioned in this report are owned by the respective advertisers. Any unauthorized use of this report for commercial activities is a breach of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China and other relevant laws and regulations as well as the relevant provisions of the International Convention. 1. Disclaimer The industry data and market forecasts presented in this report are based on the data captured by SocialPeta Data Team and estimated by using a statistical forecasting model combined with research methods such as desk study and industry interviews. Limited by the research methods and data resources, this report can only be used as reference material. Our company shall have no liability for any data or points of view in this report. SocialPeta shall hold no responsibility for any legal consequences resulting from any action taken by any organization or individual by using or based on the above data information, and the organization or individual shall take full responsibility for any disputes or legal liabilities arising therefrom. 5. Concerned Regions HK, Macao & TW: Hong Kong (China), Macao (China), Taiwan (China) JP & ROK: Japan, South Korea Southeast Asia: Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, Cambodia South Asia: India, Pakistan Middle East: Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Azerbaijan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Israel, Egypt, Oman, Iraq, Morocco CIS: Russian Federation, Ukraine South America: Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Paraguay North America: USA, Canada, Mexico, Panama Europe: Turkey, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Romania, Sweden, Greece, Denmark, Luxembourg, Ireland, Finland Oceania: Australia, New Zealand Africa: Kenya, Nigeria, Angola, South Africa, Algeria, Libya, Senegal, Ivory Coast

2022 Mobile Apps (Game & Non-Game) Monthly Advertisers: 89.5K 2022 saw a YoY decline of 5.79% in the number of mobile advertisers The overall marketing of global mobile apps has been impacted by the continuous COVID-19 pandemic and the increasingly complicated global environment. Especially in January this year, the total number of global mobile app advertisers dropped to an all-time low of 83,400. Mobile game advertisers accounted for about 22.65% in 2022. Source: SocialPeta, based on data retrieved from backend data sources Date Range: Jan 2021-Jun 2022 5 Insights into Global Mobile App Marketing

Source: SocialPeta, based on data retrieved from backend data sources Date Range: Jan-Jun 2022 6 45% Mainland China 42% JP & ROK 38% Southeast Asia 43% China's HK, Macao & TW 21% Europe 27% Oceania 35% North America 30% South America 31% Africa 30% Middle East 35% South Asia Asia Pacific had the highest percentage of mobile game advertisers. Mainland China had the highest percentage (45%) of mobile game advertisers, Europe had the lowest percentage of mobile game advertisers, and emerging markets maintained about 30% of mobile game advertisers. Europe & America Asia Pacific Emerging Regions The dark-colored part represents the percentage of mobile game advertisers in the region. Insights into Mobile App Marketing in Different Regions

Insights into Global Mobile Game Marketing /08 Insights into Mobile Game Marketing in Top Countries/Regions /21 Insights into Global Top Advertising Platforms /45 Marketing Analysis of Popular Game Genres /65 Advertising Cost of Global Mobile Games /54 Content Partner Perspectives /97 7

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