Mobile app advertising trends in 2018

PubMatic has released its third Quarterly Mobile Index (QMI) of 2018. The report includes key insights around the growth in mobile app advertising, highlighting trends in mobile video, header bidding and the expansion of cross-channel monetization. The newly released findings will guide publishers and buyers toward smarter programmatic strategy and projected future mobile opportunities.

Advertisers are expected to spend more than $180 billion on mobile advertising in 2019 (eMarketer) and so it is imperative to understand where the growth is taking place to plan accordingly.

Top three mobile app advertising trends to watch

• Mobile Video Reached A Milestone - Advertiser interest is driving global mobile video ad spend growth, creating incremental revenue opportunities for publishers
   
• Mobile Header Bidding Rises as Use Extends to Apps - After becoming mainstream on the web, header bidding is now making strides into app environments
   
• Back-to-School Season Boosts Mobile Ad Volume in Retail - Evolving consumer behavior is extending advertising windows for the back-to-school shopping season, increasingly leveraging mobile as well

Mobile video is the fastest-growing video type among consumers and currently takes the greatest share of time spent. As such, advertisers are expected to spend nearly $30 billion on mobile video advertising in 2019 (Cowen and Company). For publishers hoping to take advantage of this growing opportunity, it is important to focus on high-value content and robust quality controls that will attract brand advertisers.

The report found that mobile header bidding volume nearly doubled with a 95 percent year-over-year increase in Q3 (desktop volume up three percent). Additionally, in-app parallel bidding (header bidding equivalent) continues to gain traction, reaching 14 percent of total mobile header bidding volume, following a fourth quarter of strong growth.

“In-app header bidding technology development is poised to continue into and throughout 2019, incorporating the benefits of server-to-server functionality to minimize the current SDK drawbacks,” said Mike Chowla, Director of Product Management at PubMatic. “Publishers who keep up with the evolution of in-app header bidding will stand to tap into a fast-growing revenue stream over the next 18 months.” 

In planning for 2019, advertisers should also be aware that the back-to-school season drove triple-digit growth in retail mobile ad volume. Retail publishers saw a 142 percent increase in monetized mobile impression volume worldwide in Q3 2018. Moreover, retail publisher impressions monetized through apps increased 62 times year-over-year to take a 41 percent share of mobile volume enabled by PubMatic this year. Advertisers interested in capturing more consumers should take note of these trends when delivering relevant, timely messaging to a new generation of shoppers during peak purchasing periods throughout the year.

PubMatic’s yield and data analytics team analyzes over 12 trillion advertiser bids on a monthly basis, utilizing the company’s best-in-class analytics capabilities. The Q3 2018 QMI incorporates impressions, revenue and eCPM data from these reports to provide a high-level analysis of key trends within the mobile advertising industry. Data is from the third quarter of 2018 (i.e., July 1, 2018 to September 30, 2018), as well as the corresponding prior year periods. “Monetized impressions” or “paid impressions” are defined as impressions that were sold through the PubMatic platform, and “eCPM” is defined as the effective cost per one thousand impressions.