Ad Monetization in Mobile Games: Benchmark Report 2025

Earnings from showing ads in mobile games have seen better years, but despite the challenges, ad revenue opportunities remain strong. More and more game publishers are increasingly adopting “hybrid monetization” – a mix of in-app advertising (IAA) and in-app purchases (IAP). While experts continue to debate the realistic ratio of IAA to IAP, whether it should be 50/50, 70/30, or 80/20, one thing is clear: ad revenue constitutes a significant portion of revenue for the majority of mobile publishers. Tenjin has partnered with Clever Ads Solutions (CAS) to provide exclusive benchmark data to assist publishers. The report includes market share data for ad monetization channels and countries, based on a sample from Tenjin, as well as the average eCPM benchmark with a breakdown per country and format, based on data from CAS.AI. Ad Revenue Share by Platform in Q2 2025 Ad Revenue Share […]

Gamigion July 10

Highlights

Quarterly Gaming Report by Aream & Co.

Great Report by Aream & Co. In Q2 2025, M&A activity stayed strong, reaching $6.2 billion across 33 deals, a solid rebound that matches levels from a year ago. Meanwhile, public offerings cooled, with $4.2 billion raised through 10 deals, down from Q1’s post-IPO spike. The market remains open but more selective. On the other hand, private investments are feeling the squeeze, with just $0.4 billion raised across 83 deals, marking the lowest funding level in two years. While deal count held steady, check sizes clearly shrank, reflecting a cautious VC environment. Overall, strategic deals are still moving forward, but risk capital continues to tighten. Strong M&A and public market growth Mobile led the charge in Q2 2025's biggest gaming transactions. The largest M&A deal was Scopely’s $3.5B acquisition of Niantic, followed by Tripledot’s $800M purchase of AppLovin’s gaming division, both in mobile. […]

Gamigion July 10

Highlights

2025 State of Mobile Gaming: IAP Trends of Leading Apps

A great piece by Moloco. Mobile Gaming in 2025: The Real Growth Drivers While headlines focus on slowing installs, the truth is this: mobile gaming is evolving fast and profitably. Moloco’s 2025 report reveals how the top studios are scaling revenue, squeezing more value per user, and winning the battle for high-spending players. 🧠 What’s Really Fueling Growth? Installs are flat (–0.2% YoY), but payer conversion is up 6% and D90 ARPPU is rising—meaning top games are earning more from fewer users. iOS is crushing it, now making up 55% of global IAP revenue. In the U.S., the top 0.02% of iOS players generate a staggering 20% of global gaming revenue. Legacy games dominate: Apps older than 6 years now drive 50% of IAP revenue, but new titles like Whiteout Survival and Monopoly GO are scaling fast. 🔥 Genres Winning […]

Gamigion July 10

Highlights

Dentsu 2025 Gaming Trends Report

Cool report by Dentsu. What's up, Gaming? 🎮 GAMING ISN’T A TREND — IT’S A CULTURAL SHIFT Gaming is now a horizontal layer across content, commerce, and connection. It fuels fandoms, identity exploration, and community building. Brands that want cultural relevance must integrate authentically, not treat gaming as a one-off activation. 🚀 GAMING POWERS GROWTH FOR BRANDS Gaming time is rising fast, especially among Gen Z & Millennials. Gaming IPs are fueling the transmedia boom — over 60 game-based productions in development (e.g., Minecraft Movie, The Last of Us). Despite massive engagement, gaming receives <5% of global media investment — huge white space for smart brand strategies. 🌍 GAMING IS THE NEW SOCIAL PLATFORM Platforms like Discord, Twitch, Roblox enable connection through gameplay, not just observation. 70% of gamers say gaming helps them connect with others. 68% try games because […]

Gamigion July 7

Highlights

ASO Trends & Benchmarks by AppTweak

Data source: Top 1000 apps & games in the US, Jan–Dec 2024 Key Insights Do popular apps & games update their metadata more often? Do top apps and games frequently localize their app store listing in regional markets? Do higher ratings lead to increased visibility on the app stores? Which top app & game categories used more in-app events & promotional content per year? How do CPPs impact Apple Ads performance? How do apps & games leverage CSLs? How have AI apps grown from 2023 to 2025? Explosive Growth of AI Apps (2023-2025) AI apps have seen remarkable growth, with downloads rising from 7 million in Q1 2023 to over 23 million in Q1 2025, across both iOS and Android app stores. This represents a 229% increase in just two years. Evolution from Niche to Mainstream Initially dominated by chatbots […]

Gamigion July 7

Highlights

Mobile Game Leaders: H1 2025

Welcome to H1 2025 Mobile Game Leaders 🤟🏻 Data source: AppMagic Global Leaderboard: Game Publishers 720 Million Downloads to 3.2 billion IAPs. (: Hypercasual-Only? Ad Creative World Out of 725,000 Ad Creatives on iOS: Top GEOs by Impression US: 34% UK: 6% France: 4% Canada: 4% Mexico: 4% South Korea: 3% Germany: 3% UAE: 3% Italy: 3% Brazil: 3% Turkey: 3% Top Ad Networks by Impression Facebook: 46% Mintegral: 21% AppLovin: 9% Unity: 9% Smadex: 5% Out of 1.3 Million Creatives on Android: Top GEOs by Impression United States: 20% India: 12% Mexico: 6% Brazil: 5% Indonesia: 5% France: 4% Turkey: 4% U.K: 4% Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, S. Arabia: 3% Top Ad Networks by Impression Facebook: 33% AppLovin: 28% Mintegral: 12% YouTube: 10% AdMob: 7% Unity: 6% Global Games Leaderboard #1 Block Blast by Hungry Studio Still on fire with 210M installs, just crazy! […]

Ömer Yakabagi July 3

Highlights

SensorTower Southeast Asian Mobile Gaming Market Report 2025

The mobile gaming market in Southeast Asia (SEA) continues to surge in 2025, cementing its position as one of the most promising regions for game developers and publishers. This report, based on SensorTower data, explores App Store and Google Play performance across SEA, including top-performing genres, market-specific trends, and leading games by downloads and revenue. 🌏 SEA is a mobile gaming powerhouse, ranking #2 globally for downloads (1.93B in Q1 2025) with $625M in IAP revenue (ranked #7). 🇮🇩 Indonesia leads SEA in downloads (870M in Q1 2025), while Thailand tops IAP revenue ($162M). 🎮 Arcade & Simulation subgenres dominate downloads, while Strategy, RPGs & Shooters lead IAP revenue. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang remains the top earner. 🔎 Subgenre deep dives are included for Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. 💼 A special case study on Mobile Legends: Bang Bang […]

Ömer Yakabagi June 6

Journal

Ad Monetisation in Mobile Games in 2025

We continue to see AppLovin, Unity & ironSource and Mintegral dominate the ad revenue share on iOS with Google holding its pole position on Android. Ad revenue on Android also remains more diversified outside of the US and comprises a higher percentage of revenue for its apps. That said, US still remains the top audience for ad revenue monetization.Feel free to go through the slides or check out the link to the previous data sets below.

Christopher Farm June 6

Highlights

Ad Creatives is a hot topic.

🔥 'Ad Creatives' is a hot topic. Seen AppsFlyer's State of Creative Optimization 2025 Report?+ Big shot by Meta & dentsu💰 Data out of 1.1M creatives, $2.4B in ad spend.One massive insight: Performance is personal.🦄 Mobile Gaming?Top 2% of Ad Creatives DOMINATE, pulling 53% of TOTAL SPEND!• Failure > Success on Social (Casual)• Challenge > Excitement for Retention (Hypercasual)• Community & Competition = Retention Gems in Midcore• Social Casino = Pure Fantasy Wins 😶‍🌫️ Strategic Shifts• Scale alone ≠ Success — Emotion + Measurement matter• Retention & IPM don’t always align — Balance is everything• UGC formats like Gameplay Reviews & Arcs like Failure-to-Success are undervalued gold.⚡️ More?AI. Transforming creative optimization out there.Full Report here

Ömer Yakabagi May 30

Highlights

Singular ROI Index 2025: Incentivized Edition – Top 5 Takeaways

Singular just dropped its ROI Index for 2025. Although it doesn’t provide as much detail as the Appsflyer Performance Index, it does provide helpful insights into the significance of the rewarded gaming UA space within the larger mobile marketing landscape. Here are my 5 top takeaways from the report:Rewarded UA is mainstream. Of the top 14 partners mentioned in the “Scaled Ad Partners” for gaming UA on Android, four (Almedia, Exmox, Kashkick and Prodege) are listed, and a sign that rewarded channels are now competing head-to-head with the largest non-incent partners in mobile UA.Singular lists fourteen rewarded networks throughout its ROI Index 2025 article, highlighting the growth of the segment.Mistplay is missing- and that’s telling: Once a pioneer in Play and Earn, Mistplay doesn’t rank amongst the top 15 Scaled Ad Partners. While its absence from iOS-focused rankings is expected due to the […]

Paul Bowen May 1

Highlights

AppsFlyer’s State of Creative Optimization 2025

If you think cranking out thousands of creatives is enough to win in 2025, you are right. The latest State of Creative Optimization 2025 by AppsFlyer report makes one thing clear – churning out more ads won't save you if they all feel the same. The mobile marketing winners are those who mix it up, test new angles, and truly understand what makes users tick, as I wrote in my creative bible. So volume: yes. Creative depth: also yes. Now kiss! This comprehensive deep dive will explore the report’s key findings – from creative trends and KPIs to emotional hooks, platform strategies, AI’s impact, and the rise of celebrity and UGC (user-generated content) in ads – all through an engaging, slightly casual lens. (Spoiler: I was surprised by a few of these myself!) Get the Full report The mobile advertising arena […]

Matej Lancaric April 29

Highlights

Top 10 Hybridcasual Games in Q1 2025: The Great Puzzle Takeover

The Great Genre Shift: from Hyper to Hybrid Last year was all about embracing Hybridcasual and adding depth to Hypercasual. Both large publishers and small studios took the simple, catchy cores of Hypercasual games and layered them with Casual features, adding boosters, meta systems, and more refined monetization. We covered this shift in detail in our Casual Games Report 2024! This wave of change also led us to adjust our own approach. As developers enhanced their UA with LiveOps and monetization upgrades, we realized it was time to level up our reporting, too, which is why our quarterly Hypercasual Games reports are going Hybridcasual! IAP growth of the Hypercasual market If you’re familiar with our navigation system (and if not, just have a quick look here), you might be wondering how we analyzed the Hybridcasual segment if there’s no dedicated tag for […]

Andrei Zubov April 23

Reports

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