Q5, the period from post-Christmas to late January, provides a unique opportunity for mobile app marketers to leverage lower competition, reduced advertising costs, and increased user activity. Health and fitness apps see a 38% increase in installs and a 10% rise in sessions, driven by New Year's resolutions. Gaming apps also grow with a 4% install and 8% session increase, while finance, entertainment, and shopping apps benefit from lower effective cost per install (eCPI).
Marketers can capitalize by using data-driven personalization, diversifying channels (including CTV), launching campaigns early for ad platform optimization, focusing on key KPIs, and adapting in real-time. These strategies help maximize user acquisition and engagement during Q5, setting the stage for sustained growth into Q1.
Puzzle and match 3 games remain a profitable segment, with 9.7 billion downloads in 2024 and 14% YoY IAP revenue growth. Key opportunities lie in LATAM and MENA, where session growth is high. Rising CPI and CPM emphasize the need for efficient UA. Incrementality testing and predictive LTV are critical for optimizing ad spend, ensuring budgets target high-value users. Adjust's tools—Measure, InSight, and Recommend—provide attribution, incrementality testing, and pLTV modeling to maximize ROI.
Mobile measurement is evolving with AI-driven solutions like predictive analytics, incrementality analysis, and marketing mix modeling (MMM). These tools help marketers forecast user value, measure true campaign ROI, and holistically optimize budget allocation. Predictive analytics identifies high-value users early; incrementality isolates causal impact; MMM provides a 360-degree view of marketing performance. Adopting these methods enables data-driven decisions, improves campaign efficiency, and future-proofs strategies in a privacy-first era. The article key takeaway: next-gen measurement is accessible and essential for competitive advantage.
Ramadan 2025 presents a crucial opportunity for app marketers, with 75% of consumers noticing more ads during the season. Key trends from 2024 include a 28% surge in shopping app installs across METAP, a 126% increase in the UAE, and 18% growth in finance app installs. High engagement windows occur post-Iftar and late at night. Actionable strategies include optimizing campaign timing, leveraging personalization, building omnichannel experiences, and focusing on value-driven promotions. Adjust's measurement tools can help track and optimize campaign performance.
Ultra casual games are emerging as a dominant force in mobile gaming, offering simple, satisfying gameplay and ad-based monetization. They generate significant revenue through high-volume ad impressions, rewarded video, and interstitial ads, with some titles earning $50k-$70k daily. Vietnamese studios lead the market due to cost-effective development and data-driven optimization. For ad ops decision-makers, the key takeaway is the potential for high-reach, low-CPM campaigns in markets like Vietnam, aided by MMPs for accurate attribution.
This article debunks four mobile measurement myths, emphasizing that last-click attribution remains valuable when combined with multi-touch and next-gen methodologies like incrementality testing. It stresses that data quality trumps quantity, and integrating fragmented data sources yields better insights. View-through attribution is not inherently inflationary if paired with incrementality testing, and cross-channel optimization is achievable through deep linking. For ad ops, the key takeaway is to adopt a holistic measurement framework that balances signals from various attribution methods to accurately assess campaign performance and allocate budgets effectively.
Japan's finance app category is outperforming, with H1 2026 installs up 8% YoY and sessions up 40%—nearly 5x the install growth and well ahead of global figures (5% and 29%). Stock trading is the standout subvertical: installs +90% YoY and average session length climbing to 11.7 minutes, driven by NISA reforms and a retail investor resurgence. Retention is improving across the full 30-day curve (D1 17% to 19%, D30 7% to 8%). For ad ops teams, the takeaway is clear: prioritize measurement depth, re-engagement, and channel-level quality over top-of-funnel volume alone.
Adjust's Halloween 2025 data across six weeks shows the holiday window opens well before October 31 and differs by category and market. Entertainment installs peaked the weekend before Halloween (up 42–44% vs. summer baseline), with OTT/streaming and video content installs up 120% on October 25 and 300% YoY. Photo and video sessions instead spiked on Halloween night itself (+6% global vs. the four prior Fridays; Canada +15%, Germany +13%, U.K. +11%, U.S. +9%, Mexico +7%). Single global send dates miss market-level peaks, so ad ops should time creative, push, and budget shifts per market—especially in Mexico, where activity runs through Día de los Muertos.
The EU's Digital Markets Act is driving major shifts in app distribution by forcing Apple to allow third-party app stores and sideloading on iOS, while alternative Android stores like Samsung Galaxy Store and Aptoide continue growing. For ad ops decision-makers, this opens new opportunities for user acquisition in niche markets, lower fees (e.g., better revenue splits than the standard 15-30%), and flexible monetization. However, privacy and security concerns remain, with platforms like Apple implementing notarization. Marketers should adopt multi-platform strategies, leveraging OEM partnerships and staying ahead of regulatory changes to future-proof growth.
Adjust's Device Usage dashboard in Datascape gives ad ops teams a prebuilt view of how active users are distributed acro...
Adjust has expanded store detection and verification across multiple app storefronts, making Store Type the primary dime...
Adjust's Halloween 2025 data across six weeks shows the holiday window opens well before October 31 and differs by categ...
Adjust introduced permission groups to give ad ops teams more flexible, scalable access management. Instead of relying o...
Japan's finance app category is outperforming, with H1 2026 installs up 8% YoY and sessions up 40%—nearly 5x the install...
Adjust’s Türkiye 2026 spotlight report positions Türkiye as a high-growth, mobile-first market for ad ops teams. Mobile ...