The results are in and the data is out! Digital Turbine companies – Fyber and AdColony – teamed up to survey a diverse range of gaming and non-gaming publishers across the world to collect their insights, delve into their monetization strategies, and through their lenses understand the trends and outlooks of app publishers.

2021 was a significant year in the mobile app industry. While time spent and consumer spend on mobile devices accelerated at lightning speed, privacy changes were almost on the same par. 

So, how did our partners keep up?    

We asked the burning questions on how publishers approach gaming and non-gaming app monetization, how they rank revenue sources, are they adopting and adapting to the new privacy changes, what does splitting their IAP and IAA strategies look like, and more.

While the full report is 22 pages long, we gathered a few quick insights. Take a look. 

Video ads are still king

Video ads remain a top choice for both gaming and non-gaming app publishers. These 15 seconds to 1-minute videos provide a positive experience for both publishers and users. Users are rewarded with access to valuable in-game content (boosters, lives, in-gaming currency) that enable them to progress, while in return publishers maximize their revenue stream, retention rates, and conversion rates. Non-gaming apps apply similar strategies by implementing rewarded video ads that unlock features.

The duel between in-app ads (IAA) and in-app purchases (IAP)

In this survey, publishers were asked a variety of questions on the topic of IAA or IAP monetization strategies. We break down how revenue is split between IAA and IAP, the results were very interesting, to say the least. We also explored how publishers split their revenue across the different genres. Non-gaming apps swoop in with 90% IAP – 10% IAA – download the report to see how the rest of the gaming genres faired in this revenue split. 

iOS and Android post-IDFA – Publishers weigh in

There is a lot of chatter on where publishers are prioritizing their budgets. Publishers with larger audiences are more willing to shift their budget between the platforms, while the majority of publishers with smaller audiences share that everything remains the same. 

AppTrackingTransparency, SKAdNetwork – how are publishers holding up?

 Following the news of the IDFA deprecation, the industry braced itself for what seemed like a Doomsday scenario. However, the actual impact is yet to be defined. Publishers submitted their answers pertaining to the ATT rollout and iOS ad revenue impact – and the results are in. Companies of different sizes took to the changes differently. Bigger players in the industry have been quicker to adopt, while the results differed for smaller studios.

That’s not all, we also covered:

• The most used monetization methods
• Monetization effectiveness
• The impact of ad formats on UX
• Early indicators of high-quality users who are likely to make IAPs
• And more!