Marketing technology company Moloco sent out a report on Monday morning, showing shifting consumer behaviours among consumers on their phones.
The key findings were around how much time users are spending on apps within the Meta and Google ecosystems.
Although the numbers are still huge, mobile users spend 32% of their time on mobile apps using a Google or Meta-based product.
Another 18% is spent on what Moloco calls other ‘walled garden’ based apps, like Amazon or Netflix, and another 18% is spent on apps that do not deliver ads to users.
This means that the remaining ~32% is spent within independent apps. Significantly, the combined number of DAUs for these apps exceeds any of the the other major apps, like Instagram or TikTok, that most companies target with ads.
More opportunities and better ROI?
For brokers this is arguably a huge opportunity. Providers either have problems with – or get locked out of – the Google and Meta ecosystems.
The result is that advertising your services via these avenues can be much tougher. For example, IG’s French entity was blocked from Google ads for six years. As reported on TradeInformer last month, account openings doubled after the ban was lifted.
Independent apps do not tend to have these ‘walled garden’ features, which means they are more easily accessible. There is also often less competition, meaning spend can be cheaper.
Even for brokers that don’t have those logistical problems, there is arguably an upside to spending on independent apps.
In its report, Moloco said that a mix of ad spend between Google / Meta and independent apps saw ROIs go up across the board but that the trend was particularly pronounced for finance firms.
“Results get even more compelling for consumer brands in categories like finance, on-demand
services, and travel: ROl jumps by 116%” the marketing tech firm wrote.
Time to switch up your spend?
