The mobile app industry has demonstrated solid resilience and an upward growth trajectory that is expected to accelerate in 2024 as users spend increasing amounts of time within apps, creating new opportunities for advertisers to connect with them. The market is expected to double this year from 2023, becoming a $500 billion industry. A key driver of this growth is the widespread adoption of in-app bidding.
As an early pioneer in bidding, AppLovin has made it our mission to conduct fair and transparent auctions for buyers and promote competition so publishers can continue to grow their businesses through improved revenue. The adoption of bidding has helped increase CPMs for publishers and has made the ad buying process more efficient for all parties involved by giving demand partners access to all impression opportunities as they compete in a fair auction.
AppLovin’s MAX runs the most competitive auctions and leverages numerous demand sources, including a network of over 35 SDKs, half of which are already available as in-app bidders. We expect more partners to fully adopt bidding this year, and our team is committed to helping publishers and networks make the transition.
Bidding accelerates industry growth
There has been a lot of interest in moving to SDK bidding over the past few years. Bid shifts from top demand partners have served to accelerate the mobile advertising ecosystem over the past six months. As more partners continue to invest in better technology – from enhancing creatives to improving their ability to bid more competitively – this will lead to improved market conditions, better outcomes for publishers, and increased spend for advertisers.
Simply put, technological advancements allow advertisers to improve the scale and accuracy of their purchases, bringing more advertising dollars into the ecosystem. This increase in revenue will increase publishers’ ARPDAU and allow them to reinvest more money into advanced UA strategies to attract high-quality users, resulting in better user retention and more hits for app developers. The overall pie continues to grow and everyone benefits.
Network Partner Support
All of MAX’s 35 partners are actively moving forward with bidding, whether through alpha testing, public beta, or fully transitioning to bidding with their existing connection to MAX discontinued. The standardized orRTB specification and transparent auction dynamics will make the transition fairly easy for all partners, but it will not be a quick process. The investment of time and resources is very important and essential to the process.
Buyers who understand these technological and operational changes and learn how to win in this environment have been able to make the transition and succeed.
We are focused on guiding our demand partners through these changes. We aim to educate you on key technology health indicators and exceed benchmarks to achieve the best results for your business and publisher. Supporting each partner through this transition highlights our commitment to evolving the ecosystem and ensuring seamless tender adoption.
Publisher support
Many publishers are in various states of expanding bidding in their monetization stack, from making auctions more competitive by adding new bidders to expanding bidding across multiple ad formats. This effort will grow as we welcome more network bidders and as existing partners complete their transitions. MAX provides powerful developer tools, A/B testing, and comprehensive reporting to support full bidding adoption.
Over time, this will improve overall revenue and free up valuable time for your monetization team to adopt a more product-centric mindset that supports overall app development and growth.
looking ahead
We’re excited to participate in the next phase of ad monetization, with advertiser scale driving publisher growth and vice versa, creating a mutually beneficial growth cycle for the entire industry. In the coming months, we’ll be announcing more SDK bidder availability for general adoption and brand new demand partners that will increase auction density and revenue for publishers. We will also share best practices for expanding bidding adoption and success at MAX.
Get started with MAX today or contact your account representative for more information.
Yuki Manno is Senior Director of Product at AppLovin.