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User acquisition 2025 winners will need to be quick on their feet and nimble with their tactics. So much is changing, and so much of that is driven by developments in AI.
- What can you expect in user acquisition for 2025?
- Will AI do everything?
- Will web2app be the trend of the year?
- Will 2 or 3 ad networks totally take over mobile marketing?
We recently convened a group of experts to debate exactly this question: what should we expect in UA for 2025? Some of what you might want to learn is covered in our latest Quarterly Trends Report: check it out for all of the newest intel. But there’s even more in our Q1 2025 State of User Acquisition live event, which is now available on demand.
We talked about:
- AI, LLMs
- Web spend
- CPI trends
- The top growing ad networks
- Predictions for 2025
And our expert panel of guests included:
- Jonathan Reich
CEO at Zedge, which has over 750M downloads (!!!) - Stephanie Pilon
New CMO at Singular, led a digital transformation for a $600M business unit - Tomás Yacachury
Strategic Partnerships at Kayzen (check out his reports: super insightful) - Ben Collins Jones
Solution specialist, SplitMetrics (the first company ever to build an Apple Search Ads management platform) - Ashwin Shekhar
CRO & co-founder, AVOW, which has partnerships with some of the biggest smartphone makers on the planet covering 86% of the global Android market for OEM UA deals.
State of user acquisition 2025: what to expect
1. Different targeting for AI-powered search
AI and large language models like ChatGPT are significantly changing the way advertisers need to approach search campaigns. Specifically, tight contextual targeting and keyword mapping for search campaigns aren’t the best way to go as search becomes more AI-driven.
Since the AI understands your intent and not just the exact match words you’re using, you’ll miss good opportunities by targeting too literally and too tightly. User acquisition 2025 winners will need to take this into account:
“As search advertising evolves with the rise of these large language models, ads using phrases or broad match for Apple Search Ads—essentially discovery campaigns—tend to perform better because these LLMs are getting smarter and understanding intent a bit better,” says Jones. “These formats capture a massive range of user inquiries compared to older systems, where exact match keywords risk missing alternative ways people might be searching for your product.”
This is the case both for very top of funnel searches on public search engines as well as bottom of the funnel searches inside the App Store and Google Play.
The flip side: watch out for overly-broad matching that dilutes your results and reduces profitability.
2. Generative AI for on-the-fly creative
We’ll see the rise of generative AI in making creative that is personalized to an audience of 1, says Reich.
“I think that the next generation is going to be where AI begins creating AI ads for whatever ChatGPT or any of the other providers are rolling out so that you can have super customized and personalized ads that are created on the fly.”
That is likely going to be better and more successful on platforms with more first-party data and deeper knowledge about its users, and it’s also most likely going to happen in high-value verticals, thanks to the much greater compute costs that generative AI requires.
4. OEMs for smart, nimble UA campaigns
Once upon a time, OEM campaigns were vast, slow, ponderous things that took 6 months to configure and run, and were essentially set-and-forget, because you couldn’t change them.
Now you can do local on-device search campaigns, preloads, ads in OEM-owned apps or first-screen or lock-screen experiences, and much more, like Google Play Auto Install prompts.
“ The OM platforms offer a lot,” says Shekhar. “They offer a large user base, advanced adtech, and they have a lot of first party data. They know user behavior, they know what kind of apps you have, and they are leveraging all of this to deliver the right ads to people at the right time.”
User acquisition 2025 success could include an OEM strategy, which we’ve seen result in huge scale.
5. User acquisition 2025: think AI for reporting and analysis
We’re definitely seeing AI more for reporting and analysis of marketing campaigns (keep your eye on Singular here for interesting announcements in the near future).
It just makes sense: more insight, more analysis, and less effort.
Something I’ll recommend on this: always do a sanity check yourself. AI is not perfect, especially LLM-based AI, and mistakes can happen.
6. Influencer marketing + guerrilla marketing … with some star power
Influencer marketing is still in its growth phase, says Ben Collins Jones. And he’s seeing more and more brands, including the biggest brands on the planet, do cool stuff that goes viral.
“ We’re seeing a shift of marketers towards organic growth through social media and traditional channels to boost brand awareness, and build communities,” he says. “This means partnering with celebrities — star power is never gonna go away, right — but also then adopting it across channels and engaging in co-marketing with well-known brands and barter agreements, and even then ultimately using guerilla marketing.”
The example he gave?
Severance, a show by Apple on Apple TV+, set up an office in Grand Central Station and actually had the show’s stars pretending to be working in that office. That created huge buzz, Reddit was taken by storm, and it turned into a massive promotion that they could not really have bought or paid for.
7. Better channel/partner testing efficiency via AI
If you have AI helping with analytics, you can also have AI helping with testing new channels and testing new partners.
Part of the reason marketers don’t test as many new channels and partners as they might like to is the overhead in attention and time that it requires, and the result is lower marketing efficiency. (Stay tuned for data that we’ll be releasing shortly that shows that generally, the more partners marketers use, the higher ROI they get.)
So if you can get help with AI, you can test more.
Testing more means you can unlock higher marketing ROI.
8. Web2app is super hot, but you need the right tech
63% of website traffic is happening on the mobile web, says Singular’s Stephanie Pilon, making it the perfect place to capture intent.
(Especially because a lot of that behavior is goal-oriented. Target well, and you have a good shot at getting attention.)
“ Think about how many times a day you’re opening your phone to do a search. I mean, this is the most beautiful place for you to actually advertise your app because that is where people are looking,” she says. “It’s often that I’m actually going to Mozilla or Google, basically to do the search before I’m even going into the app store.”
But you need the right tech to make it happen, including:
- Comprehensive cost reporting, so you capture cost from all channels and all platforms
- A web SDK, so you can capture all the events you need to track and optimize
- Plus, of course, deep linking, which makes a smart contextual bridge between the mobile web and your app
- And don’t forget link governance, which is going to ensure that all the insights you need will actually be captured and understood in a scalable, smart way
That ingredient list gives you full funnel understanding on creatives that drive action, landing page elements that work, and campaigns and partners that are effective, Pilon says. (See more details on the components of the solution, all of which you can get from Singular in 1 integrated package: cost aggregation, web attribution, deep linking, data governance.)
So much more in the full webinar
Check out the full live event here.
Featuring insights from Jonathan Reich, Stephanie Pilon, Tomas Yacachury, Ben Collins Jones, and Ashwin Shekhar, this user acquisition 2025 webinar will equip you with the insights you want to outperform your competitors this year.
What we cover:
- 00:00 Welcome and Introduction
- 03:52 Meet the Panelists
- 05:22 Interactive Polls and Initial Insights
- 08:06 Quarterly Trends Report Highlights
- 12:18 AI and Search Advertising
- 20:12 Alternative Growth Sources
- 26:53 Web to App Transition
- 29:06 CPI Prices at an All-Time High
- 29:38 Web vs. App for Marketers
- 30:31 Mobile Web vs. In-App Advertising
- 32:29 Web to App and App to Web Strategies
- 37:39 The Rise of Independent Ad Networks
- 42:52 Predictions for 2025
- 58:45 Q&A Session
