Fraud has been a significant concern for mobile apps and the industry has been working to maintain quality and transparency. A report from Pubmatic revealed that strides in combating app fraud and in-app growth led to an increase of in-app ad impressions. Meanwhile, Google Play’s revamped interface makes it easier for users to find games. Read all about it in this week’s Mobile Monday!
Google Play Shines A Spotlight on Games
Google announced recently that it has redesigned its Google Play Store to improve the over store experience for their two billion monthly active users. The completely redesigned interface will make it easier to discover apps, especially mobile games. The Play Store now has separate destinations for apps and games due to the surging popularity of mobile gaming. In-app purchases from games have accounted for 74% of consumer spend on apps. This huge portion of the app business is likely a reason why Google would give gaming a prominent space on their store.
Google has also created additional resources specifically for game developers. The landing page “Games on Google Play” contains guides and tools with various topics including a launch checklist, how to create a store listing, and monetization strategies. These changes come about a year after they released their Instant App technology, which allowed Android users to try a small selection of games without needing to go through the normal install process. As the mobile gaming audience broadens, Google Play is ensuring that it is offering an optimal experience not only for fans but also for the creative and financial forces behind the games.
Growth of In-App Impressions
The sell-side platform, Pubmatic released their Quarterly Mobile Index for Q2 2019 in which they analyzed advertiser bids through their platform to develop key insights into the current state of mobile advertising. The report states that in-app ad impressions grew 26% since the previous year.
Pubmatic’s report also revealed that about 12% of the top 1000 apps have published app-ads.txt files as of July 2019. IAB Tech lab launched the app-ads.txt specification this March to combat app fraud and to facilitate transparency in the mobile app ecosystem. App developers are still learning why app-ads.txt adoption is essential to buyers. While there is still a long way to go, this is a positive sign that both publishers and developers are prioritizing the protection of inventory quality.
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