What The Latest Twitter-AppLovin Deal Regarding MoPub Means to the Martech / Adtech Ecosystem

AppLovin is buying Twitter’s in-app advertising platform MoPub for $1.05 billion. Ever since the announcement was made, the marketing and advertising industry is bubbling with insights and speculations on what the future of in-app marketing might look like. We spoke to the industry leaders from the digital marketing space.

In-app mobile advertising trends have picked pace in recent years. Today, ad revenue is perceived to be a key to app monetization, and publishers are spending more than ever on in-app advertising campaigns to deliver contextual and meaningful experiences. In the current scenario, AppLovin is one of the top-ranked mobile advertising technology platforms that leverage AI and Machine Learning algorithms to match app users with services and experiences. By acquiring MoPub, AppLovin would enable customers with a highly adaptive machine learning technology to grow apps in a smart and profitable way.

This is what they had to say.

Levi Matkins, Chief Executive Officer at LifeStreet said: “This seems like a different type of acquisition in the gaming adtech space than what has been seen in the past. What is unique is that AppLovin didn’t buy the tech, they are heavily valuing publisher relationships and supply. It’s interesting that they focused on showing growth organically or through acquisitions while redefining themselves as a software company. There is a huge amount of consolidation; AppLovin is able to get a significant amount of extremely long-standing public integrations and at the same time they are able to eliminate a rival.”

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David Simon, Chief Revenue Officer, Fyber – a Digital Turbine Company said: “Independence in mediation is one of the most important parts of mobile monetization. As we’ve seen before, combining technology and the services industry leads to trade-offs between what’s good for the consumer and what’s good for the provider. Continued consolidation by a totally vertically integrated content-ads-mediation-attribution company can, and should, concern independent developers who trust a mediation layer to provide the best results for them.”

Jude O’Connor, Chief Revenue Officer, AdColony – a Digital Turbine company commented: “This sale is another sign of the continued importance of connections across the mobile space, but has the side effect of removing another independent player from the avenues advertisers can take to reach consumers. For an advertiser, there’s a fine line between advertising with a partner that has multiple strengths you can leverage, and bidding into a completely vertically integrated, self-attributing black box.”

The transaction will enable Twitter to accelerate the development of owned and operated revenue products and drive growth across key areas for the service including performance-based advertising, small and medium-sized business (SMB) offerings, and commerce initiatives. Twitter believes AppLovin is well-positioned to grow and evolve MoPub’s network of customers in the rapidly changing in-app industry.

Twitter’s decision to sell MoPub was announced here.

At the time of the announcement, Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO said, “This transaction increases our focus and demonstrates confidence in our revenue product roadmap, accelerating our ability to invest in the core products that position Twitter for long-term growth and best serve the public conversation. We thank the incredible teams and customers who have contributed to making MoPub a success within Twitter over the years.”

Ned Segal, Twitter CFO says, “The sale of MoPub positions us to concentrate more of our efforts on the massive potential for ads on our website and in our apps. We plan to accelerate product development and replenish the near-term revenue loss, with the goal of improving our time to market to deliver on our previously stated goal of at least doubling total annual revenue from $3.7 billion in 2020 to $7.5 billion or more in 2023.”

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Bruce Falck, Twitter Revenue Product Lead adds, “The sale of MoPub is all about increased focus, redirecting our resources and delivering faster growth in a number of key areas including performance-based ads, SMB, and commerce. We’re confident AppLovin will be a great home for MoPub as they will further invest in the business, driving strong monetization for publishers and their customers.” In 2020, MoPub generated approximately $188 million in annual revenue, which was reported in Data Licensing and Other. The Company will provide additional details regarding the estimated future financial impact when it reports financial results for the third quarter on October 26, 2021, after market close.

[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]