Crafting the best mobile ad for your UA campaign is a tall order. You have to combine the right value proposition, messaging, media type, format size, and visual design to distribute through an ad network aiming for a subset of your users that will best respond to that particular ad creative. And that’s without considering all the testing that goes into slight modifications that might significantly improve your conversion rates. Anything that can provide some level of direction is going to noticeably reduce the amount of time you have to spend on the process while improving your ROI as well.

With even the top 50 advertisers bumping up the volume of ad creatives released by nearly 10%, it’s important to find efficiencies in mobile ads for long-term success. It makes sense that with publishers adjusting consumer targeting strategies following Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy that we’d continue to see an increase in the number of ad creatives made. With more targeting place on the ad creative level, you’d expect to see more assets needed for A/B testing.

The number of new ad creatives from the top 50 advertisers on the App Store and Google Play increased 1.1x from June 2022 to June 2023, highlighting how the top advertisers are still increasing the rate at which they produce ad creatives.
The number of new ad creatives from the top 50 advertisers on the App Store and Google Play increased 1.1x from June 2022 to June 2023, highlighting how the top advertisers are still increasing the rate at which they produce ad creatives.

MobileAction can help you transform your mobile marketing strategy with our AdCreative Studio — our AI-powered one-stop ad creative shop that can generate an entire portfolio of mobile photo and video ad creatives for you in a quick, easy, scalable, and effective way. How do you know where to start? What are best-in-class advertisers up to? Let’s take a closer look at the 70+ million ad creatives we track from 50+ ad networks and DSPs to see what you should be considering when working to enhance your mobile marketing efforts.

New Video Ads Still on the Rise

Video ads continued to grow their share of ads created.
Video ads continued to grow their share of ads created.

In spite of the resources it can take to create a video ad, video remains the dominant format for unique in-app ad creatives tracked by MobileAction. While video took off sooner on iOS devices than Google Play, the prevalence is shared across apps on both stores. Given the importance of video, it’s essential to analyze successful, long-running ads to pick up tips and tricks that you can use for your own ads. You’ll be able to see the variety of creatives that are necessary to run a successful campaign across various countries and ad nets.

This Royal Match ad has been running for over seven months.
This Acorns ad has been running for nearly 10 months.

For example, the above Royal Match and Acorns ads both highlight ways to quickly showcase the functionality of their apps that audiences have found engaging enough for the ads to continue to run for over 7 (Royal Match) and nearly 10 (Acorns) months. Royal Match shows a humorous failure in gameplay that you might have been smart enough to avoid if you were playing, and Acorns shows how simple it is to save money for the future simply by shopping for comforting snacks. It can take time to figure out how to tweak your ads to get the best engagement, but it helps to view what’s come before because other companies have done a lot of A/B testing for you already.

With MobileAction you can even see the breakdown where individual ad creatives are shown across both ad networks and individual apps.
With MobileAction you can even see the breakdown where individual ad creatives are shown across both ad networks and individual apps.

You even have the ability to see which ad networks and DSPs are served with which creatives and on which apps those ads are ultimately seen. It’s hard to overstate how complex the distribution of ads can be across ad nets, which is why it’s essential to take a closer look at how they’re used.

Why You Should Take a Closer Look at DSPs and Ad Net Distributions

MobileAction can show you a waterfall visualization of how each of your competitors is distributing ads across networks by both impressions and creatives.
MobileAction can show you a waterfall visualization of how each of your competitors is distributing ads across networks by both impressions and creatives.

Understanding ad net distribution gives you holistic insight into an app’s entire global paid UA strategy. You have the ability to see where ads are ultimately being shown and effective strategies that these apps are using. It enables people to see how best-in-class apps distribute their ad impressions across ad networks and countries over time, and how that compares to the distribution of ad creatives And these preferences shift significantly by app category.

Looking at the waterfall distribution for both impressions and creatives can uncover which networks have been most effective and which media formats and resolutions are optimal for different audiences. You can even get a sense of which networks apps are using to test out their ad creatives if they have a high volume of creatives combined with a low count of impressions.

In terms of trends, we’ve seen demand-side platforms on the rise during the past year. The waterfall visualization is a great way to understand where those ads are ultimately being shown before you even select a partner.

The amount of impressions coming from DSPs jumped to nearly 10%.
The amount of impressions coming from DSPs jumped to nearly 10%.

Mobile advertising is complex and it’s essential to understand how industry leaders are setting up their own campaigns. Learning from their actions will help you when it comes to making effective ad creatives and figuring out how to distribute those ads to optimize your UA strategy. With MobileAction’s Ad Intelligence, you’ll be empowered to stay ahead of the competition and set your company up for success.

Next Steps for Upleveling Your Own Marketing Strategy

Keeping up to date on mobile advertising trends can help you learn a lot about what’s going on in the market and how to use that information to improve your own mobile UA strategy. It’s a complicated process that involves working with several ad networks and DSPs, which is why it helps to keep an eye on what industry leaders are up to in order to help you allocate your resources efficiently. For other mobile marketing tips and tricks, check out some of our other related content:

MobileAction provides comprehensive app store marketing intelligence and seamless AI-powered Apple Search Ads campaign management. Backed by our vast dataset of 5+ million tracked keywords and a library of 70+ million ad creatives from 50+ ad networks, our solutions help you drive more downloads effectively. Maximize your app’s success and make data-driven decisions with the MobileAction platform.

Want to see how the premier mobile UA optimization platform can help you improve your business? Schedule a demo today!