New data report analyzes 52 billion impressions to reveal top ad creative concepts and variables to help drive highest 2023 ROI

AppLovin, the leading growth platform for developers, released its first-ever Creative Trends Report 2023, unveiling the top performance-driven mobile ad trends for the year. The data-driven report empowers mobile app developers and marketers, across verticals, to drive better performing mobile ad campaigns.

AppLovin’s in-house creative agency, SparkLabs, analyzed data from 52.3 billion impressions, 22.4 clicks, and 267 million installs, as well as tens of thousands of creatives in 2022. The report examines the concepts and variables that produced the most impact and highest ROI.

“Our goal with this report is to provide marketers and developers insights and inspiration for achieving increased success for mobile ad campaigns,” said Katie Jansen, CMO of AppLovin. “The report is packed with proven performance-driven ad concepts that have generated significant lift for their campaigns by capturing the majority of ad spend.”

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Key insights from the report include:

• Customization of a character, item or environment encourages engagement, especially amongst match, merge, mid-core, arcade and action titles.
• Dramatic story narratives, particularly when characters are victims in perilous situations, allow players to become invested in the game’s story, with strategy creatives 155% higher than average.
• Voiceover messaging on top of visual content adds dimensionality and works best with genres that rely heavily on showing gameplay footage. In 2022, computer generated voices took almost a 30% share of all top creatives.
• Real-time feedback creates better connections with users, as nearly 50% of all top-performing creatives incorporate mechanics giving real-time feedback to the user.

“Putting the best creative pieces together doesn’t always guarantee a win,” Jansen added. “To ensure that your ads are consistently high-performing, you need a combination of performance-driven analysis and continuous iteration and testing to find an optimal creative strategy for your app.”

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