Advertising reports and market data
Documents
Winning on Google Discover: A Data-Driven Guide for Gaming Media
The brief explains how Google’s February 5, 2026 “Discover core update” expands the personalized content feed and shifts traffic from traditional search to Discover, especially for gaming media.
- Google Discover now accounts for roughly 50% of Google traffic for gaming sites within the Raptive network, following a February 5, 2026 core update that shifted traffic away from traditional search.
- Sites that prioritize high U.S. traffic concentration, deep session depth, and structured editorial content like guides and databases experience superior Discover performance and revenue stability.
- Following the February 2026 update, 20% more gaming sites began receiving Discover feed impressions, with smaller publishers seeing notable traffic growth.
Google ODM & ICM Explained
This analysis examines Google’s iOS measurement suite, specifically On-Device Measurement (ODM), ODM 2.0, and Integrated Conversion Measurement (ICM).
- Integrated Conversion Measurement (ICM) allows Google to share modeled conversion data with Mobile Measurement Partners (MMPs), which increases the number of attributed conversions visible in MMP dashboards.
- On-Device Measurement 1 (ODM1) uses first-party data like hashed emails and phone numbers to link ad clicks to in-app actions, but it requires significant developer implementation and is primarily effective for apps that collect extensive user data.
- On-Device Measurement 2 (ODM2) functions as an automatic backend update that leverages temporary anonymous signals to improve Google's internal models, requiring only that developers maintain an up-to-date Firebase SDK.
Meta Is Back in the Game. Here's What That Actually Means.
Meta has fundamentally restructured its gaming organization to prioritize industry-specific expertise over geographic models, a shift necessitated by the performance challenges introduced by Apple’s App Tracking Transparency.
- Meta has restructured its gaming organization to prioritize industry-specific expertise over geographic models to counter the performance challenges caused by Apple’s App Tracking Transparency.
- Developers must adopt a 'creative velocity' strategy, treating ad asset production as a high-volume factory process to provide algorithms with the signals needed to acquire high-lifetime-value users.
- Marketing teams must shift away from last-click attribution, which causes budget misallocation, and instead utilize rigorous incrementality testing like geo-lift studies to validate true return on investment.
🎮 How to build playables that actually convert by Matej Lancaric
Playable advertisements have transitioned from supplementary marketing assets to a foundational requirement for scaling mobile games across major SDK networks such as AppLovin, Unity, and ironSource.
- Developers must maintain a production cadence of at least five distinct playable iterations per month to sustain competitive performance on networks like AppLovin, Unity, and ironSource.
- Playable ads must prioritize high-engagement mechanics that capture user attention for at least 60 seconds, even if these mechanics differ from the game's core loop.
- Technical constraints require playable assets to remain under 5 megabytes, necessitating the use of specialized compression and automated export tools.
🤖 AI just leveled up AGAIN. We Tracked 127 AI Ads. The results are insane!
The mobile gaming industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation in user acquisition, shifting away from broad-appeal advertising toward a highly targeted, niche-first strategy.
- Mobile game user acquisition is shifting from broad-appeal advertising to a niche-first strategy, allowing studios to test diverse art styles and gameplay hooks without modifying the core product.
- Generative AI enables the rapid, cost-effective production of localized creative assets, allowing developers to scale multiple hyper-niche campaigns simultaneously.
- Advertisers are using custom LoRA models to maintain character integrity across long-form videos and integrating AI-generated influencer personas to boost engagement.
UA Monthly #1: Meta’s New Playbook, Reddit Ads, & the State of UA
The mobile gaming industry is currently navigating a volatile landscape defined by aggressive monetization tactics and an intense creative arms race.
- AppLovin maintains a dominant market position due to its proprietary Axon technology and superior data moats, while competitors like Liftoff struggle with significant debt and a lack of high-value inventory data.
- Meta is driving short-term revenue growth through intrusive ad formats like forced playables and end cards, though these tactics risk degrading long-term user retention and lifetime value.
- The mobile gaming market is increasingly bifurcated, as top-tier publishers use AI-driven personalization to produce thousands of ad variations per quarter, creating a high barrier to entry for mid-sized developers.
🎙️ Mobile Ad Monetization basics: What every studio gets wrong by Felix Braberg
Mobile ad monetization requires a shift in focus from vanity metrics like eCPM to a holistic understanding of revenue generation.
- Prioritize Ad ARPDAU (Ad Revenue Per Daily Active User) as the primary performance metric, as focusing solely on eCPM is misleading because high rates can be offset by low fill rates.
- Implement a mediation platform to create a competitive marketplace, which can effectively double revenue compared to relying on a single ad network.
- Limit ad frequency to five to seven views per user, as the value of impressions diminishes significantly beyond this point and excessive ads damage long-term retention.
Türkiye Game Market Report 2025
The Türkiye Game Market Report 2025 provides a comprehensive analysis of a maturing gaming ecosystem that is transitioning from rapid, volume-based mobile expansion to a more sustainable, multi-platform, and quality-focused model.
- The Turkish gaming market reached $1.01 billion in revenue in 2025, supported by a player base of 50 million gamers.
- The industry experienced a 24.69% increase in total market size and a significant 133% surge in PC and console game production.
- Investment activity totaled $177 million across 30 deals, with capital increasingly concentrated on studios demonstrating proven scalability.
Panel: Beyond Downloads: The New Rules Of Games Marketing
The panel discussion, titled "Beyond Downloads: The New Rules of Games Marketing," explores the evolution of marketing strategies in the gaming industry, emphasizing a shift from simple user acquisition to long-term engagement and product integration.
- Prioritize long-term ROAS and retention by focusing on rewarded engagement, which can yield results two to three times higher than non-rewarded engagement.
- Shift marketing focus from simple demographic targeting to creating specific user personas to better align creative assets with the intended audience.
- Treat CPI as an input metric rather than a primary goal, prioritizing the quality of users and their long-term value to the game's ecosystem.
Ad Creative Testing for Mobile Marketers (Meta, TikTok, Unity, Applovin, Google)
Mobile marketing success hinges on a high-velocity, iterative approach to creative testing that prioritizes authentic engagement over high-production value.
- Creative performance is platform-specific: Facebook requires a strong hook and gameplay focus, whereas AppLovin prioritizes a clear call-to-action at the end of the video, as users are more likely to watch the full duration.
- For high-volume testing (hundreds to thousands of creatives), use Value Optimization (VO) campaigns on Facebook, which allow for up to 50 creatives per ad set and simulate business-as-usual performance.
- Small-scale studios producing only 1–3 creatives per week should bypass dedicated testing campaigns and integrate new assets directly into their primary business-as-usual campaigns to maximize budget efficiency.
Session: Meta Ads: The Next Chapter - Volkan Satirtav, Meta.
Meta’s mobile gaming strategy has undergone a significant transformation to adapt to the post-App Tracking Transparency (ATT) landscape and the rise of AI-native advertising.
- Meta's Value Optimization product for mobile gaming saw significant performance improvements in late 2025, resulting in 30% higher Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) compared to previous versions.
- Meta has introduced a dedicated In-App Advertising (IAA) product for Android, with iOS testing underway and full availability expected in Q1 2026; a case study with Voodoo demonstrated a 2.6x increase in Day 7 ROAS and an 80% reduction in Cost Per Install (CPI).
- To maximize campaign performance, advertisers must ensure all app events—not just installs and purchases—are sent to Meta to fuel the system's sequence learning and improve funnel optimization.
Session: Re-Engagement In 2026: How To Design & Scale Winning Retargeting Campaigns - Joseph Iris.
Retargeting has evolved into a critical component of mobile marketing, now accounting for approximately 30% of total app marketing spend.
- Retargeting now accounts for approximately 30% of all mobile app marketing spend, driven by shorter user attention spans and the maturation of probabilistic retargeting on iOS.
- Probabilistic retargeting, which matches IP addresses to users, has seen a 600% growth in industry adoption over the past year as a primary method for measuring iOS campaigns.
- Inactivity windows—the time before a user is considered dormant—are trending shorter, with many apps shifting from 7-day windows to 4-day windows or 28-day windows to 14-day windows to remain competitive.