2022: New challenges for User Acquisition (Apps)

During last year we experienced several changes in the App Ecosystem* as:

1. Spent time in Mobile apps: reaching 4.8 hours/day in the top mobile-first markets
2. Ad Spend: During 2021, $295 billion, and $350 billion are forecast for 2022
3. App Store Spend: $170B ($320K/minute)
4. Downloads increasing: Global consumers downloading more than 430k apps/minute

And the figures continue increasing year by year, and the challenge to get more installs, improve the retention rate, decrease cost per install, and be relevant in some verticals like gaming, finance, social media, food & drink, and shopping are not the same.

During the last months, after having conversations with User Acquisition leaders from several GEOs and Verticals I tried to understand more about their needs, instead of pushing the solutions for them. The final objective was to have a better understanding of the overall situation in the industry and the challenges that they're facing, for that reason I started a quick poll on Linkedin:

https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6925883511576891392/

As we can see, the #1 was to find new channels to grow, this gives a high opportunity for DSP, Influencers Promotion, and Referral, among other cool things.

The #2 was to improve the retention rate, this requirement is general for main verticals, especially for short video and gaming apps, that are fighting for the time on screen.

Decrease the CPI was not so relevant, and that gives a good insight for sales leaders in the industry: Listen more, instead of offering lower CPI at first stage. If a UA Manager are having an issue with their retention rate, why offer a lower CPI if this is not the issue?

It was very interesting the #participants with this specific question and also the GEO distribution of responses (is affected because my networking is bigger in some Latam countries, and less in other Geos) but is relevant to have an idea about the challenges that are facing our colleagues:

The opportunities are there, let's grow.

Albert

*Info extracted from data.ai (The State of Mobile in 2022)