2025 mobile ad spend projections: Singular’s strategic customers’ ad spend jumped 41%

Everything looks up and to the right for mobile ad spend projections for 2025. 

Singular’s strategic customers spent more on ads last month than in any month over the past 2 years. Year-over-year, November 2024 spending was up a staggering 41%. And while we often see a jump from October to November as the holiday season ramps up, this year’s month-over-month increase was easily double what we saw in 2023.

What does this mean for mobile ad spend projections for 2025?

The future, as usual, is hard to predict. But we can look at the recent past and search for patterns that might continue.

Mobile ad spend projections 2025

Data.ai SensorTower’s state of mobile report for 2024 forecast mobile ad spend of $402 billion, an 11% increase on 2023’s $362 billion. (Which in turn was an 8% increase over 2022.) We’ll have to wait to get the 2025 report to see if SensorTower thinks we actually made it there — or above — but all indications are positive.

The massive surge in ad spend from key Singular advertisers suggests that, if anything, the projected 11% growth rate might have been conservative.

And, it suggests that 2025 could be another big increase.

If we look at the overall ad marketing including non-mobile platforms, Statista suggests that it will continue to grow over the next few years:

• 2024: $740.3 billion
• 2025: $798.7 billion
• 2026: $854.9 billion 
• 2027: $910.3 billion

Assuming that the overall market continues to grow, mobile ad spend should continue to grow with it, for 2 reasons: 

1. A rising tide tends to lift all boats
2. Digital ad spend in general, and mobile ad spend in particular, has been taking a larger and larger percentage of overall ad spend

It’s not easy to tease that out on a global scale, but Zenith generally does a good job on its massive global ad spend reports, and said as far back as 2022 that digital ad spend would hit 61.5% of all ad spend and a projected 65.1% in 2024. We won’t see the 2025 report until later in December, but the 2024 report forecast continued growth in digital and online advertising.

If we do something dangerous and mix datapoints from 2 separate studies with differing baseline data and different assumptions, SensorTower’s $402 billion in mobile ad spend for 2024 would be 54.3% of all ad spend, based on Statista’s projections for the year.

Since their projection for 2025 is $798.7 billion in global ad spend, that same fraction would translate into $433.7 billion of mobile ad spend.

Add a little for growth and perhaps cannibalization from legacy media and channels — let’s say 56% — and you end up with a mobile ad spend projections for 2025 of $447.3 billion. Important point: there’s a lot of assumptions in that projection. It’ll be interesting to see where SensorTower’s and others’ projections come in over the next couple of months.

The upward trajectory of top Singular customers, which has been continuous throughout 2024, is a positive sign. We certainly didn’t see that in 2023.

What almost $450 billion in mobile ad spend means for mobile marketers

Every bid for a converted app install is, of course, essentially connected to estimated LTV from that user. Expect more revenue, you can bid more; expect less, you bid less. (Of course, as a frugal marketer you want to win this bargain and pay less while getting more.)

As such, at some level, it doesn’t matter what you pay as long as the return is there. Of course in the real world you need to have capital before you can deploy it, so higher acquisition costs can significantly slow growth rates even if the ROAS ratio remains the same.

My general sense, however, is that additional inventory will serve to soften the impact of additional money entering mobile marketing.

 

 

According to the Digital 2024 Global Overview Report, time spent on mobile devices is still increasing while time spent with legacy media like TV and radio is still decreasing. Time on gaming consoles is also down.

All of this increasingly centers the mobile device as the information and entertainment nexus of our lives. And all of this provides additional inventory of time and attention for mobile publishers to sell against.

What it means for mobile app publishers

For mobile app publishers and especially all those who monetize based on advertising, this is good news. 

Whether you monetize via user acquisition for mobile games, or increased brand spend floods in as networks like AppLovin bring better targeting and tracking to retail spend, more cash being deployed on mobile ads is a major positive. 

Winners will see outsized benefits, of course, but everyone should benefit to some degree. An extra $45 billion of ad spend, if it materializes, feeds a lot of app publishers.

There’s still a lot of uncertainty

Of course, there’s still a lot of uncertainty in the markets. 

The war in Ukraine continues, and has global implications. The Middle East is extremely unsettled. A new president is coming in the United States, and there’s strong potential for new tariffs as well as deportations at scale, both of which could have serious impacts to international trade and domestic productivity.

Hopefully we weather the changes well, the conflicts die down, and the world can get back to the business of growth.