93 Essential In-App Advertising Statistics to Know in 2023

With the incredible surge in apps and app usage on mobile devices, the popularity of mobile ads and ad networks is, unsurprisingly, increasing too. 

Keeping up with technology trends and gaining smart insights into this area of opportunity will allow you to up your mobile marketing game.

Table of Contents:

• What Is In-App Advertising?
• 5 Mobile In-App Advertising Statistics
• 9 Mobile Device and Internet Usage Statistics
• 11 Smartphone App Usage Statistics
• 11 Mobile Marketing Statistics
• 11 Mobile E-Commerce Statistics
• 7 Social Media Statistics
• 5 Mobile Entertainment Statistics
• 13 Mobile Video Statistics
• 5 Mobile Voice Search Statistics
• 9 Global Mobile Advertising Demand Statistics
• 7 Mobile Website Optimization Statistics
• Conclusion

What Is In-App Advertising?

In-app advertising is a mobile marketing strategy that involves serving app users' ads through a mobile ad network.

Considering that a vast majority of apps are free, in-app advertising allows app developers to monetize their apps with ads.

For apps that use in-app purchases (IAP) for revenue, adding in-app ads to your marketing budget lets you maximize your app revenue.

Here are 93 invaluable mobile marketing and in-app advertising statistics for 2023 that you'll want to know.

5 Important Mobile In-App Advertising Statistics

1. In-app ads increase retention by 4x (Mobile Marketing Magazine)
2. The click-through rate (CTR) for in-app ads is 0.56% globally, compared to the 0.23% that mobile web ads see (Siteefy)
3. Unlike mobile web ads, mobile apps convert 3x more product viewers (Siteefy)
4. In 2021, in-app advertising reached a whopping $201 billion (App Annie)
5. In 2019, 49% of monetized mobile in-app ad impressions came from Android devices, which was down by 67% in 2018 (Semrush)

Let’s get into some of the more general mobile usage statistics.

9 Mobile Device and Internet Usage Statistics

1. Out of the global population, there are over 5.32 billion unique mobile internet users in 2022 (DataReportal)
2. By 2023, the number of mobile devices is set to reach 16.8 billion (Statista) 
3. A whopping 91% of internet users gain online access with their mobile devices—by 2025, data suggests that over half of users will access the internet solely from their cell phones (DataReportal)
4. In 2021, consumers spent 92% of their mobile usage time using mobile apps (DataReportal)
5. On average, US smartphone owners check their mobile phones 256x a day (Siteefy)
6. In 2022, consumers are spending, on average, 4 hours and 48 minutes a day on their smartphones (DataReportal)
7. By 2025, mobile data traffic is projected to increase 25% (Ericsson Mobility Report)
8. In 2019, more than half of Google searches (61%) were done on a mobile device—almost double that of 5 years ago (Statista)
9. Currently, Google makes up 95.43% of all of the mobile search traffic (StatCounter)

From these mobile statistics, we get a clear idea of how many people use a mobile device, but let's have a look at mobile app usage statistics.

11 Mobile App Usage Statistics

‍

1. Time spent on mobile apps went up 30% from 2019 to a whopping 3.8 trillion hours in 2021, with the average person spending 4.8 hours a day on their cell phone (App Annie)
2. 250 billion apps were downloaded in 2021—this number is expected to increase to nearly 300 billion by 2023 (Statista)
3. 36 billion apps were downloaded from the App Store in 2021—and there’s more competition on Google Play which got 119 billion app downloads in the same year from Android users (Statista)
4. By 2024, the App Store’s downloads are projected to increase to 41 billion, and 168 billion, respectively, for the Google Play store (Statista)
5. There were 216 million US mobile app users in 2012, and by 2020 this number rose to 3.5 billion (Siteefy)
6. In North America alone, mobile app downloads are expected to reach 15.2 billion, from the 12.1 billion that was seen in 2018 (Statista)
7. 21% of millennial smartphone users access their mobile apps at least 50x a day (Digital Examiner)
8. In 2020, mobile users had an average of 40 apps on their smartphones—with 89% of the time being spent on only 19 of these (Simform)
9. Two of the most popular mobile apps in the world are Facebook and WhatsApp (Digital Examiner)
10. Every minute of 2021, app stores gained over $320,000—close to 20% more than in 2020 (App Annie)
11. In 2020, users spent, on average, 215 minutes a day on mobile apps—by 2022 this is projected to increase by 12 minutes to 227 minutes (Semrush)

Evidently, consumers spend a large portion of their time and money not just on their mobile devices, but on mobile apps.

With consumers having instant access to their smartphones and apps, marketers have an incredible opportunity to reach their target audience with ridiculous precision.

11 Mobile Marketing Statistics

1. 87% of consumers in the US use mobile devices (Global Web Index)
2. 46% of Americans research products and services on a mobile app (Semrush)
3. 26% of consumers start their research with branded mobile apps (Siteefy)
4. In 2021, nearly 50% of emails were opened on a mobile device (Litmus)
5. A 2019 mobile usage report showed that a staggering 90% of text messages were opened within just 3 minutes of delivery (Forbes)
6. In 2019, over 84% of marketers used mobile marketing tactics based on location (Factual)
7. In 2017, leading B2B businesses generated 40% of their revenue from mobile efforts (Think With Google)
8. 91% of users in 2017 made a purchase (or planned to do so) after viewing a mobile ad (Think With Google)
9. 70% of mobile customers who find your business online will take action within an hour (Convince & Convert)
10. In 2021, 68% of paid-search clicks in the US came from mobile devices (Statista)
11. A 2019 study found that 59% of users are as comfortable with mobile ads as they are with TV ads (Digital Examiner)

These mobile marketing statistics show that the world is becoming more and more mobile-centric—your digital marketing strategy should be too.

11 Mobile E-Commerce Statistics‍ 

1. Those aged 16-34 years old are more likely to use a mobile device to make online purchases (DataReportal)
2. 55% of users aged 16-24 years old conduct online research on products before making a purchase—likewise, this number is 59% for users aged 55-64 (DataReportal)
3. 40% of mobile marketers use shoppable video ads to promote their products (MarketingDive)
4. Over 40% of all transactions happen on mobile devices (Siteefy)
5. 4 out of 5 consumers use their smartphones to shop online (Convince&Convert)
6. 73% of Millennials shop on their mobile devices up to 4x a week (Tapjoy)
7. A staggering 80% of B2B buyers use a mobile phone to make their purchases (Digital Examiner)
8. 9 out of 10 mobile users haven’t yet chosen a brand when they perform a search for a product or service (Digital Examiner)
9. Consumers are 184% more likely to purchase (and they spend 45% more) if they end up on an e-commerce website through a user-generated video (Wordstream)
10. In 2022, US mobile retail spending on e-commerce websites is expected to surpass $430 billion (Statista)
11. 60% of B2B buyers have said that mobile has played a major role in influencing a recent purchase (AppTech)

7 Social Media Statistics That Matter For Advertisers

1. 50% of the time spent on mobile devices is spent on social media platforms and communication apps (Statista)
2. Nearly 60% of the world’s population (4.65 billion people) are active social media users—unsurprising, social media apps (39%) are the most used apps (DataReportal & Smart Insights)
3. Facebook is the leading social media platform, with 2.93 billion active users a month (DataReportal)
4. YouTube comes second with 2.6 billion monthly active users, followed by messaging apps WhatsApp (2 billion), and Facebook Messenger (1.3 billion) (DataReportal)
5. Social media users spend an average of 2 hours and 27 minutes on social media every day (Statista)
6. 44.8% of internet users use social media to find information related to brands (Hootsuite)
7. Social media platforms make up more than 12.74% of all mobile data traffic (Digital Examiner)

5 Mobile Entertainment Statistics

1. In 2021, gaming apps were the most popular app category in both the Google Play store and the Apple App Store (Statista)
2. Time spent on TV decreases by 7% year-on-year, whereas, mobile time continues to increase (DataReportal)
3. 16% of people use their mobile devices to stream movies, shows, and live events (Semrush)
4. The 2 most popular entertainment apps in 2021 were Netflix with 173 million downloads, and YouTube with 166 million downloads (Statista)
5. 52% of smartphone users have mobile games on their device, whereas, over 95% have social or messaging apps, an internet browser, a utility or tool app, and an entertainment app (Statista)

13 Mobile Video Statistics

1. The majority of mobile traffic (63%) in 2020 was video traffic—by 2025 this is projected to increase to 76% (Ericsson Mobility Report)
2. Every year, mobile video consumption doubles (Social Media Today)
3. Shorter mobile video adverts (6-10 seconds long) are as effective as longer videos (Digital Examiner)
4. In 2022, US smartphone video viewers are expected to reach 205 million (Yans Media Case Study)
5. 30% of mobile users watch only 14% of horizontal video ads, whereas, most users watch up to 90% of vertical video ads (Yans Media Case Study)
6. Advertising with video content can boost your revenue by up to 49% faster than other types of content (Wordstream)
7. User spending for programmatic mobile video advertising in the US is expected to grow to $30 billion by 2022 (Statista)
8. 68% of consumers prefer watching videos to learn more about products and services (Wordstream)
9. Marketers who use videos in their ad campaigns experience 34% higher conversion rates (Wordstream)
10. Ad spending for digital video advertising is expected to increase by 41.9% from 2017 to 2024 (Statista)
11. 75% of businesses on Facebook use video ads (Wordstream)
12. Brands are 23% more likely to stay in consumers' minds if the brand appears within the first 3 seconds of the video (Wordstream)
13. 87% of online marketers use video content—the most popular types in 2021 were explainer videos (72%), presentation videos (49%), testimonials (48%), and sales and video ads (42% each) (Wordstream) 

It's unsurprising that video content makes up a large portion of mobile data traffic—people love to watch videos!

This makes video content and ads the perfect way for businesses to engage with their audiences and boost their brand awareness.

5 Mobile Voice Search Statistics You Need To Know In 2023

1. The voice search feature on mobile is used by more than 25% of the global population (Microsoft)
2. Over half (52%) of voice assistant users use this technology daily or every other day (NationalPublicMedia)
3. 52% of people aged 18-34 years old use their voice speakers to listen to music (NationalPublicMedia)
4. 27% of the global population of smartphone owners report using voice search (Digital Examiner)
5. Nearly 50% of people use voice search to research products (Social Media Today)

9 Global Mobile Advertising Demand Statistics

1. A staggering 92% of Facebook’s ad revenue is from mobile advertising (Techjury)
2. Sales statistics show that mobile app revenues could generate more than $935 billion by 2023—an increase from $693 billion in 2021 (Serpwatch)
3. In 2016, the conversion rate for mobile apps was 120% higher than the mobile web—by 2019, this increased to 157% (Siteefy)
4. In 2021, mobile advertising spend surpassed $295 billion—in 2022, it’s on its way to hitting $350 billion (App Annie)
5. The US was the biggest mobile ad market in 2020 with $120 million in advertising spend (Semrush)
6. By 2024, mobile ad spending in the US is predicted to reach $9.26 billion (Statista)
7. Over half of ad spending (51%) will go to mobile in 2022, surpassing that of desktop devices (Statista)
8. Albeit the rapid growth in recent years, by the end of 2022, the surge of mobile advertising is expected to slow by 10.4% (Semrush)
9. 63% of retailers say that social media was the best place to run ads to drive traffic to their online stores (Semrush)

On a global scale, these statistics speak for themselves on the demand for mobile advertising and the opportunity it presents.

7 Mobile Website Optimization Statistics

1. Mobile websites that offer an unsatisfactory experience can lose 9 out of 10 users (QuoraCreative)
2. 61% of users prefer businesses with mobile-responsive websites (SmartInsights)
3. 61% of people are unlikely to return to mobile sites if they had responsive issues (Siteefy)
4. Mobile-optimized websites get 15% more unique clicks (Digital Examiner)
5. With every second of additional load time (0-5 seconds), website conversion rates drop, on average, by 4.42% (Digital Examiner)
6. 89% of people are more likely to recommend a brand after a satisfactory mobile experience (Think With Google)
7. 80% of top-ranking websites are mobile-friendly (IMPACT)

These statistics show just how important a mobile-first approach is, not only to your advertising but to your overall digital marketing strategy.

Conclusion

If these mobile marketing statistics make one thing clear, it's that the popularity and opportunities of mobile and in-app advertising are truly endless.

With these smart insights and Publift's cutting-edge programmatic advertising technology, you can take your mobile marketing strategy to new heights and get the most out of your ads.

Publift has helped its clients realize an average 55% uplift in ad revenue since 2015, through the use of cutting-edge programmatic advertising technology paired with impartial and ethical guidance.

If you’re making more than $2,000 in monthly ad revenue, contact us today to learn more about how Publift can help increase your ad revenue and best optimize the ad space available on your website or app.