India leads APAC in mobile ad request growth: Smaato report

Smaato, the global in-app advertising platform, has announced results from its Global In-App Advertising Trends report. Examining the first half of 2019, the report reveals valuable new insights into the programmatic growth of in-app advertising. 

Smaato found significant growth across key advertising metrics, including ad request volume and eCPMs.

• Smaato experienced a 27% increase in eCPMs globally, when comparing H1 2019 to H1 2018
• Smaato experienced a 16% growth in mobile ad requests globally, when comparing H1 2019 to H12018

The company reported phenomenal CPM growth in several countries. These soaring ad prices indicate insatiable demand as the competition to reach today’s engaged mobile app increases. 

Mobile eCPM Growth on the Smaato Platform

South Korea saw the most significant eCPM growth at 179 per cent, more than double the growth of Spain, which had the second-highest growth year-over-year. South Korea has the highest smartphone penetration rate globally at 95 per cent, according to Pew Research Centre. This makes South Korea the world’s most mature smartphone market, and advertisers are competing for these consumers’ eyeballs. 

A key factor driving global eCPM growth is the greater availability of user data. Mobile apps can provide a wealth of user data – data shared by users in exchange for in-app perks and conveniences such as location-based services and personalised discounts. 

The more data included in a single ad request, the more advertisers are willing to pay for the impression. For instance, the eCPM of an ad impression with device ID and user age was 27 per cent higher than one without any additional data in H1 2019 on the Smaato platform. Add user gender and GPS location to that ad impression, and the eCPM increased an extra 117 per cent. 

Mobile Ad Request Growth 

APAC also saw significant mobile ad request growth. The top four countries in the region in terms of mobile ad request growth were:

1. India - 201%
2. Japan – 40%
3. Australia – 38%
4. Singapore – 27% 

As advertisers direct more money into mobile advertising and consumers continue to adopt smartphones around the world, demand and supply both increased year-over-year, indicating a healthy mobile ad market. 

Commenting on the report, Delynn Ho, Vice President, Supply, APAC at Smaato, said, “Despite the impressive growth in ad requests across the APAC markets, eCPMs are still rising. This could point to marketers actively looking to reach consumers where they are nowadays – on their mobile apps.” 

She added, “As the region’s mobile publishers better understand their opportunities for monetisation, we are seeing advertisers capitalise on richer, more impactful placements such as rewarded video and native advertising.”

Smaato’s H1 2019 Global In-App Advertising Trends report delivers a number of additional insights: 

• Private marketplace (PMP) spending is growing. PMP ad spending increased 250% in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year. Advertisers are spending more of their budgets on PMPs, especially within the technology, healthcare, and food and beverage industries. The apps with the highest share of ad revenue coming from PMPs were in real estate, social and dating, and sports. 

• Spending on native ads more than tripled from the beginning of the year to the end of June this year.Native ads also have the highest performance rates of any in-app display format.