New report details top performance-driven ad trends and explores how AI can be harnessed to enhance creatives and boost team-wide productivity

AppLovin, the leading marketing technology platform, released Performance-driven Ad Trends 2024, revealing how AI tools are driving new efficiencies and broadening the possibilities of the creative process. The report explains how AppLovin’s in-house creative agency, SparkLabs, is using generative AI to improve workflows to elevate both the quality and impact of performance ads, and dives deep into the year’s top-performing creative strategies.

“More than half of SparkLabs’ best performing non-gaming ads in 2023 were CTV creatives”

“Embracing AI expands the potential of creatives,” said Katie Jansen, CMO of AppLovin. “The technologies continue to evolve, but we’ve found a huge opportunity to benefit from many different AI tools right now. We’ve seen that it is key to foster a culture that inspires creative teams to explore and adopt these technologies in order to improve efficiencies, continue to push creative boundaries and improve results for our customers.”

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AppLovin’s report also details the top creative strategies for the year based on data analyzed from tens of thousands of creatives produced by SparkLabs in 2023. Notable trends include:

• Prioritizing team adoption of AI over individual usage by infusing AI into daily team operations.
• “Genre-bending” or borrowing popular mechanics from other successful game genres to broaden audience appeal.
• Using gamification to inspire fresh interactions across non-gaming app verticals. About one-third of top-performing ads in the non-gaming category included ‘gamifying’ features.
• Innovating on metaplay by featuring gameplay mechanics beyond a game’s core elements to stretch out creative concepts and help brands stand out.
• Leveraging connected TV (CTV)’s immersive experience to reach new audiences. “More than half of SparkLabs’ best performing non-gaming ads in 2023 were CTV creatives,” noted Jessica Dolan, Director of SparkLabs. “CTV offers a unique platform for advertisers to highlight their brand message by leveraging engaging visuals and live actors to entice the viewer to try something new.”

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