Mobile Ad Monetization #7

2025 is the year of the app developer.

🤔Who’s Being Downloaded the Most?🤔

40-50% of all downloads on Mobile are paid. That’s just a fact. Here are the mobile games companies that have amazed the most downloads in the last 30 days. What’s nuts is that the large non-mega-app companies are gaining serious traction in absolute download terms. I keep hearing anecdotes about more and more developers shifting their focus to developing apps instead of games. Will 2025 be the year of the app?

1. Azur Interactive Games – 96m Downloads
2. SayGames – 78m Downloads
3. Supersonic – 76m Downloads
4. Voodoo – 70m Downloads
5. Miniclip – 66m Downloads
6. Embracer – 62m Downloads
7. iKame – 59m Downloads
8. Outfit7 – 57m Downloads
9. Tencent – 55m Downloads
10. Babybus Group – 47m Downloads

But what about App Companies? I’ve excluded the normal e-commerce and social media giant apps to show you the largest app companies by downloads.

1. Abishkking Limited – 29m Downloads
2. QR Code Scanner – 27m Downloads
3. Story Matrix – 24m Downloads
4. Bending Spoons – 18m Downloads
5. Duolingo – 17m Downloads
6. Pixocial Technologies – 17m Downloads
7. Crazy Maple Studio – 15.3 m Downloads
8. Codeway – 13 m Downloads
9. Apero Vision – 13 m Downloads
10. Lutech – 11.4 m Downloads

*Takeaway – App companies are starting to amass a huge number of downloads that will rival the large-scale game companies. The download shift will impact how ad monetization and UA is conducted on mobile.

📈Ad Monetized Games on the Rise📈

Mobile games are far from dead. They’ve just evolved. A lot of talk about hybrid-casual games being dead but they’re not dead just evolved. Here are some games that are racking up huge amounts of downloads and no IAP revenue. I’ve added my IAA estimates on top of Sensor Tower (heroes!) Data to show you just how dead ad-driven games are.

1. King Pin

Have you ever seen a Royal Match, Gardenscapes, or Lilly’s Garden ad and just wondered; “I wonder what would happen if someone made just a pull-the-pin game?”. Well wonder no more because my friends at Gamee Studio are doing exactly that and the game looks like it’s scaling! 640k downloads in just the last 30 days. Right now it’s scaling only in T3 geos but it only launched on December 10th.

• $8-10k/day in IAA but growing

*Takeaway – Looks like basing game design on whatever UA creative trend is bringing low CPIs is a good way to make mobile games. Who knew..

2. Super Car Merge

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it’s a Merge Racing game that monetized mainly with ads! Styke Games released “Super Car Merge” on the 16th of December and it’s amassed 2.6m downloads and is sustaining a 400k DAU in mainly T3 geos. It monetizes aggressively with ads but is still super fun to play.

• $5-7k/day in IAA revenue I’d say so far

*Takeaway – The merge category is mainly targeting the female audience. I can’t help to think that you could also scale male-oriented merge games?

3. Bubbu & Mimmi World

Bubadu Technologies released another installment in their Bubbu series on December 12th, 2024. “Bubbu & Mimmi World” has been downloaded nearly 1 Million times with only $924 in IAP revenue. It’s a story-driven game that’s driven only by ads and it looks to be sustaining between 125-140k DAU after the launch spike.

• $3-6k/day in IAA but rising

*Takeaway – Cutness still sells on mobile

⭐️Ad Monetization Words of Wisdom ⭐️

What makes you money in Ad Monetization?

Supply

The supply side is fancy speak for the publisher or the App that’s showing the ads. It’s essentially your job as the publisher to show as many ads to your users as possible without collapsing retention in your app or game. If you need a North Star to aim for see above for metrics on ad viewer rate and IMP/DAU benchmarks.

Demand

Demand networks are large companies like ad networks and exchanges that will bid and show their impressions in your app or game. You need to set up several networks to compete for your impressions to get the highest possible eCPM and fill rate which adds up to ad revenue.

Mediation Platform

A mediation platform is a marketplace where you can have several ad networks or exchanges compete for your inventory. If you’re dealing in ad revenue you need one of these otherwise you will get paid a fraction of what your inventory is worth. The main ones in Mobile are Unity LevelPlay, Google AdMob, and Applovin MAX.

So what makes you money in mobile ads? Simply put: you make money in mobile ads when you get a high portion of your user base to watch a lot of ads. To make the most money you need to set up multiple demand partners to compete in price for your inventory in a Mediation Platform.

💰Great Content 💰

Last week news broke that Turkish Developer “Grand Games” just raised $30 million in a series A round. Much of that raise came off the back of truly impressive metrics from their flagship game “Magic Sort” which is already earning $50k/day in IAP revenue and what I estimate to be another $20K/day in IAA revenue. That’s even before it’s global launch. Check out our podcast episode where we dig deep 🧩

🎯The Cinderella of the Week🎯

Miracles still happen! Despite the uber-competitive landscape in mobile solo developers are still able to scale their IAA monetized games to crazy levels. This section is to salute you. Why? Because everyone loves a Cinderella story… that’s why.

This week I couldn’t help but notice a solo developer publishing under “Santri Balelo” scale “Big Ramp Jump” to reach 340k downloads in the last 30 days. It’s aggressive on ads but the game incorporates clever in-game rewarded ad placements for exotic cars that converted me (who would not want to drive an F1 Mclaren for an RV?).

*I estimate that this game is making between $300-900/day in IAA revenue since downloads were mostly in T4 geos.

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See you next week!