Mobile Monday: Challenges for Mobile Advertisers, More Mobile Ad Spend, and Expansion of Super Apps

Digital Turbine is constantly keeping tabs on the mobile world, and every week, we’re sharing the most interesting and important need-to-know stories and articles. In this edition of Mobile Monday, we’re covering insights from mobile marketers on challenges from last year and what’s to come, the increase in ad spend on mobile in 2022, and how some apps are primed to expand services to become super apps. Learn all about these stories in this week’s Mobile Monday!

Is Marketing Tougher? Experts Say Yes.

One year removed from Apple’s privacy changes, mobile advertisers felt that mobile advertising became more difficult. In parallel with Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference last week, Financial Express reported a survey by Tenjin and Growth FullStack revealed that 55% of advertisers said that mobile advertising was more difficult in 2021. This shouldn’t be a surprise as Apple’s privacy changes disrupted the landscape with many brands pushing funds to Android, to other forms of marketing, or decreasing spend altogether. What is more optimistic, though, is that 85% of the same advertisers felt that 2022 would be less challenging. The assumption, I suppose, is that with one year of learnings from Apple’s privacy changes, advertisers will be better prepared to make the changes necessary. And what’s even more positive is that 75% of advertisers have “implemented some form of marketing automation to gain insight from large, disparate datasets.” It’s not uncommon for people to expect the road ahead to be less challenging than the hill they just climbed. And certainly sometimes that is the case. But it’s also likely that the changes to the advertising ecosystem will continue to evolve. Apple is certainly not backing down from its privacy-first stance. And we already know that Android will be implementing privacy features in the near future. So while marketing certainly might get easier, it still will be those that can be nimble and flexible who will find success.

Mobile Ad Spend Expected to Hit $350 Billion This Year

It’s no surprise that consumers are spending more time and money on mobile, leading to advertisers optimizing ads in that channel in order to reach a wider, more engaged audience — which led to mobile advertising revenue hitting $300 billion last year, as noted in Business of Apps. And according to the latest research, revenue is nowhere near slowing down with mobile ad spend expected to hit $350 billion this year.Even despite changes in the mobile ecosystem and more privacy protection measures from Apple and Google last year, things are looking up for mobile advertisers with 65% still planning on increasing their ad spend on mobile this year. With Apple’s latest updates about SKAdNetwork, it does appear that mobile marketing may be easier this year as advertisers will be able to receive multiple postbacks from campaigns. Even with the industry continuing to evolve and face new challenges and opportunities, consumers continue to prioritize mobile devices, paving the way for mobile advertising to continue delivering stellar campaign performance and results.

From Apps to Super Apps — Can Some Players Make It?

Back in 2012, BlackBerry founder Mike Lazaridis defined Super Apps as, “a closed ecosystem of many apps that people would use every day because they offer such a seamless, integrated, contextualized and efficient experience.” Super Apps have already gained huge popularity in Asia, where players WeChat and Alipay have created such “closed ecosystems” providing end users with payment solutions, messaging, and numerous online services — all under one roof.

Some Western apps are making moves in a similar direction, according to Insider Intelligence / eMarketer. Financial apps, like PayPal, are looking at commerce features and financial services to broaden their scope. Players like Uber are expanding beyond grocery and tickets and now even offering health related services. Instacart and DoorDash are also moving beyond food and grocery into alcohol and home goods — all relying on a combination of monetization methods, including commissions and ad serving.Social media platforms are probably best situated to make a transition into Super App status — harnessing their social marketplaces and reach to build greater offerings. In India, for example, leaders like Facebook and Google already have super apps in the market.