Mobile

What’s the rationale behind AppLovin’s bid to merge with Unity (kicking ironSource to the curb in the process)? Adam Foroughi, AppLovin’s CEO, got into the details on the company’s Q2 earnings call.

TFW you think you have a date to the dance … and then it turns out you don’t. On Tuesday, AppLovin offered to buy Unity in an all-stock merger valuing Unity at $20 billion – but the offer doesn’t include ironSource.

What does a bloody third-person shooter game about robbing banks at gunpoint have in common with a hyper-casual game that involves flipping a strip of cartoon bacon from a skillet to try and make it land on random objects? The answer: Not much, but both are classified as “action” games, according to Apple and Google in their respective app stores.

The details are still sketchy, but it looks like Apple plans on launching a demand-side platform of its own. And so we asked the experts: Is it surprising that Apple appears to be launching DSP – and why will this succeed when iAd failed (or won’t it)?

Google released a batch of new monetization, targeting and measurement features for AdMob on Thursday, with a focus on (what else?) data privacy. “Everybody is thinking about how they can evolve in this new world,” David Mitby, Google’s senior director of product management for app ads, told AdExchanger.

Unity will merge with ironSource in an all stock transaction that values the latter at $4.4 billion. The companies expect the merger to help deliver a $1 billion run rate by the end of 2024 and $300 million in annual EBITDA synergies the year after that.

Verve Group, the ad tech subsidiary of German ad software holding company MGI, has struck again with the acquisition of mobile DSP Dataseat. Terms of the deal were note disclosed.

Steve Webb, the former global head of Facebook’s Audience Network, has joined Unity Technologies as VP of revenue for ads under its Operate division. Webb’s first day was June 13 and he replaces Julie Shumaker, who was elevated to SVP of revenue for Unity’s Create division in October. (Unity, which went public in September 2020, […]

Adjust and its parent company AppLovin laid off roughly 12% of their combined staff on Monday. The layoffs come as many tech firms announce hiring freezes, hiring slowdowns and general belt tightening against a backdrop of recession fears, economic uncertainty and public market volatility.

T-Mobile is sharpening its programmatic sales pitch and releasing new ad platform features this week. One cosmetic adjustment: The ad revenue group’s name is changing from T-Mobile Marketing Solutions to T-Mobile Advertising. But T-Mobile has also launched App Insights, an app-based analytics platform that’s been in beta for the past year.

This is the unlikely story of an Israeli social casino game app and its partnership with the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, a Minor League Baseball team in South Carolina.

Airship has acquired app store optimization specialist Gummicube for an undisclosed sum. Combining Airship and Gummicube makes sense, says Airship CEO and President Brett Caine, because marketers want greater insight and control over the full app marketing funnel, from discovery and download through to monetizing and retaining users.

Mobile ad platform LifeStreet released a new version of its DSP on Tuesday that shows developers what’s happening behind the scenes when they make a programmatic buy. “Supply transparency is table stakes,” said CEO Levi Matkins. “The question isn’t just what are you bidding on; it’s why are you bidding on it?”

AppLovin is looking at software as its main cash cow. Going forward, the company told investors that plans to prioritize its software platform and focus less on its apps business. Software is now responsible for 40% of AppLovin’s revenue compared with 14% when the company went public in April of last year.

It’s your friendly neighborhood ad platform. At least, that’s the pitch by Nextdoor as its advertising business matures. Nextdoor launched a consolidated ad platform called Nextdoor Ads (if you can believe it), which brings self-service tech and new formats and features to its local and small business advertisers.

AppLovin and The Trade Desk announced twin news items today. The mobile gaming and advertising giant launched an integration with Unified ID 2.0, and The Trade Desk buy directly from AppLovin for the first time. The Trade Desk has historically been a major demand partner for MoPub, said Meagan Martino, AppLovin head of demand for EMEA and the Americas, who came to AppLovin with the acquisition. “Getting The Trade Desk to migrate and transition to AppLovin was one of the top priorities for my team.”

Ad tech companies are buying gaming companies, and gaming companies, like Zynga, are buying ad tech. In May, Zynga, maker of FarmVille and Words With Friends, spent $250 million to acquire in-app monetization platform Chartboost. But don’t call Zynga a “content fortress,” says Scott Koenigsberg, Zynga’s chief product officer.

AppLovin is in the process of fully integrating MAX and MoPub, which AppLovin bought from Twitter in October for around $1 billion. Since the acquisition, the number of apps monetizing with MAX, AppLovin’s in-app bidding software is up by more than 60%,, according to CEO Adam Foroughi.

Apple and third-party developers have grown so far apart, it’s difficult to tell when they’re talking about the same mobile app ecosystem. In 2021, Apple’s Services business earned $72 billion, making it big enough to be a Fortune 50 company in its own right, said Apple CFO Luca Maestri on the company earnings call.

It’s become a familiar tale over the years: a major telco makes a big investment in ad tech followed by buyer’s remorse. AT&T and Verizon offloaded their respective ad tech stacks, Singtel is reportedly looking to divest Amobee and Telenor sold Tapad. But T-Mobile is defying the trend. On Monday, T-Mobile Marketing Solutions, its ad […]

When customers walk down a grocery aisle from Thanksgiving through the December holidays, they’re surrounded by Campbell’s products: soup cans and broth accompanied by in-store displays and sales tags. When walking the grocery aisle means breezing a mobile feed of online grocery items and 10-foot-long shelves are squashed into a phone screen, how does a […]

The recent bonanza of mobile M&A has more to do with the maturity of the market than it does with any defensive measures related to Apple’s new privacy features, according to Paul Müller, CEO and co-founder of mobile measurement company Adjust. Müller knows a little something about M&A. He sold his company for roughly $1 […]

The subscription business has never been easy. But this is perhaps the toughest season ever for subscription-based companies. On the one hand, physical product shortages and ecommerce delivery struggles make digital subscription deals more compelling. Consumer products like Masterclass, Peloton and Audible all sell subscriptions. But those same businesses are among the most keenly affected […]

Despite Apple’s ATT curveball, Zynga is having its best revenue and audience growth year since the company was founded in 2007. The social game developer, whose titles include Words With Friends and the FarmVille franchise, grew its advertising business 99% year-over-year in the third quarter to $134 million. Total quarterly revenue was $705 million, a […]

Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency framework for iOS 14.5+ made it way harder to measure and optimize app campaigns. That’s just the new reality for app marketers and publishers. But creative assets are a largely untapped performance data source developers can use to measure campaign success in the absence of an IDFA. “If you get down to the […]

Developers have been reporting allegedly strange behavior from AppLovin’s MAX Unity SDK. At least one developer discovered that MAX, AppLovin’s in-app monetization solution, appears to have been capturing iOS 15 postbacks for installs generated by other ad networks automatically and without permission. The tip was shared anonymously with the mobile ad industry forum Mobile Dev […]

This is part one of a two-part deep dive series on the changing face of attribution. Facebook’s had a tough time of it recently. There was the explosive Wall Street Journal Facebook exposé, whistleblowing on Capitol Hill and the stock market’s reaction, which shaved tens of billions off Facebook’s valuation in a single day. But […]

Mobile ad platform AppLovin loves acquiring companies. On Wednesday, AppLovin entered into a definitive agreement to buy MoPub from Twitter for $1.05 billion in cash. The move makes a lot of sense. Recently-public company AppLovin has been on a mobile ad tech buying spree, with more than a half-dozen acquisitions under its belt in the […]

Inmar Intelligence is adding mobile to its cart. On Thursday, the retailer-focused tech and data platform reached an agreement to acquire mobile ad platform Aki Technologies to take advantage of the high-growth retail media category. Aaron Kechley, Inmar’s GM of media and SVP of strategy, declined to share a deal price. But he did elaborate […]

Unified auctions yield better results for app publishers than waterfall-based mediation … right? In theory. But developers aren’t making as much money as they could from in-app auctions despite the promise of increased average revenue per daily user. In-app auctions generate better CPMs for publishers because advertisers can compete for impressions in real time … […]