Liftoff has published a study on the price situation in the mobile game advertising market

The document is called the Mobile Ad Creative Index. Its focus is on the average cost of advertising for various types of creatives. One of the verticals considered by the authors of the work is mobile games.

In the context of the situation on the mobile games market, it is noted that:

• The CPI for mobile games in the first quarter of 2024 turned out to be lower than a year earlier;
• the lowest CPI for native advertising is $1.80;
• The average CPI for video, fullscreen ads and playable ads is about the same at $2.50;

Average gaming CPI by ad format

• after the introduction of a new privacy policy by Apple in 2021, the cost of installing on iOS turned out to be significantly higher than on Android, and the situation does not change over time;
• so it turns out that the CPI for game advertising on Android fluctuates around the price of one dollar (the native one turns out to be the most expensive — $ 1.20), and the CPI for game advertising on iOS starts at $ 3, but three out of five formators are already getting close to the $6 mark;

Average gaming CPI by ad format and by plafthorm

• The highest conversion rate (from viewing to downloading) among game advertising formats is for full—screen banners, they are 30 times more effective than regular banners and almost 15 times more effective than native advertising;

The effectiveness of advertising formats for conversion from display to installation

• when evaluating the effectiveness of advertising, most marketers look at such an indicator as the return on advertising costs (ROAS);
• despite the fact that banners and native ads show low download conversion, they are among the leaders in ROAS on the seventh day (they beat off about 20% of the budget spent on them by this time);
• Accordingly, the more expensive and conversion-efficient formats turn out to be worse from the point of view of seventh-day ROAS.

Seventh-day ROAS by type of game advertising format

Liftoff also shares the following facts as part of the report:

• Minigame mechanics (games from advertising creatives) were introduced in 23% of the top casual games and 47% of the top midcore games;
• 90% of the top casual games, in which the gameplay is divided into levels, use leaderboards in their advertising;
• The cost of high-duration video advertising increased by 245% year-on-year%;
• the cost of three-page advertising increased by 355%.

In addition, analysts, speaking generally about the mobile advertising market, noted that, according to their forecast, mobile advertising costs will increase by 10% in 2024 (in 2023 they increased by 6.3%).

As for the methodology, the figures above were obtained based on an analysis of 144 million installations, 602 billion impressions and 49.4 billion clicks.