Applications
Ad it your way as creative variety beats Star Power in new Appsflyer report
MUMBAI: Turns out, your next great ad might need less movie magic and more messy tutorials. The 2025 edition of Appsflyer’s State of Creative Optimization report is here, and it’s throwing a curveball at every coin-flipping, celeb-splurging marketer in mobile advertising. Based on a whopping 1.1 million video creatives across 1,300 apps, the report reveals a shifting tide in what actually drives engagement, retention, and ROI and it’s not always the obvious crowd-pullers.
While top-performing creatives still rake in serious budgets (53 per cent of gaming ad spend comes from just 2 per cent of creatives), the tide is turning. In Non-Gaming, that figure drops to 43 per cent, signalling a broader pivot toward creative diversity and fatigue-fighting variety. Non-Gaming apps, especially, are turning up the volume clocking an 18 per cent year-on-year surge in creative output and even outpacing Gaming’s growth by 80 per cent.
“We’re seeing a clear shift in creative strategy, with marketers not just scaling top performers, but scaling variety,” said Appsflyer director of product gaming Adam Smart. “In Gaming, high spenders still dominate production, with apps spending 7M plus dollars per quarter to generate nearly 3x more creatives than those in the $4-$7M range. But in Non-Gaming, growth is more evenly distributed across tiers, suggesting creative scale is no longer just for the biggest players but that it’s becoming a strategic imperative for everyone.”
But perhaps the biggest shocker? Celebrity ads aren’t always the crown jewel. While movie stars bag over 80 per cent of celebrity ad spend, it’s TV stars and music artists who lead on performance metrics. In Gaming, TV personalities delivered 2x the IPM (Installs per 1,000 Impressions) of movie stars, while music-led ads generated 50 per cent higher Day 7 user retention, all on a fraction of the budget.
The data also drops some sharp truths about formats. In both Finance and Social Media apps, UGC tutorials and review-style content outperformed testimonials on every key metric. Finance-focused tutorial ads saw 37 per cent higher retention, while Social tutorials brought in 45 per cent more installs and 17 per cent better retention yet both formats continue to receive less spend.
Emotion-driven narratives are also punching above their budget. “Failure-to-Success” arcs in Hypercasual games produced a whopping 78 per cent higher IPM, while receiving 40 per cent less spend than standard “Success” stories. The same applies to Challenge and Competition narratives in casual and mid-core games high retention, low attention from marketers.
For Dating apps, sincerity wins. “Serious relationship” creatives outperform “casual” ones by 15 per cent, despite fewer appearances. Meanwhile, GenAI apps found success in flashy transformations (think before-and-after edits), but those fizzled fast, delivering strong IPM but the lowest Day 7 retention. UGC testimonials in this space delivered 36 per cent better retention, proving that substance still trumps sizzle.
And then there’s storytelling in Social, a hidden hero. Despite making up just 6 per cent of total ad spend, ads with narrative arcs and emotional hooks achieved the highest Day 7 retention at 8.4 per cent. Social proof-based ads followed closely, especially when aligned with trending content.
AppsFlyer’s global dataset, covering 2.4 billion dollars in ad spend between Q1 2024 and Q1 2025, makes one thing clear: Creative impact isn’t just about who shouts loudest, it’s about who resonates longest.
So as marketers look to optimise for attention, it may be time to ditch the glitz and embrace the grit because in the age of creative overload, real, relatable, and resonant might just be the most powerful ad currency of all.
Applications
Inshorts Group chief Deepit Purkayastha joins IAB video council for Southeast Asia and India
The co-founder and chief executive of the short-form content platform has been inducted into the IAB SEA+India Video Council, giving India a stronger voice in shaping digital video frameworks
NOIDA: India has long been the world’s most chaotic, multilingual and mobile-first digital market. Now, one of its most prominent short-video executives is getting a seat at the table where the rules are written.
Deepit Purkayastha, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts Group, has been selected as a member of the IAB SEA+India Video Council for 2026. Run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the council brings together senior leaders from Southeast Asia and India to shape standards, best practices and measurement frameworks for the fast-evolving video and digital advertising ecosystem.
The timing is pointed. According to the IAMAI-Kantar Internet in India Report 2025, over 588 million Indians are now consuming short-video content, with growth increasingly driven by rural and non-metro audiences. India’s active internet user base has crossed 950 million, with 57 per cent of users now coming from rural markets. Yet the frameworks that govern how video consumption is measured and monetised were largely designed for single-language, Western markets and have struggled to keep pace with the scale, diversity and complexity of India’s digital landscape.
Purkayastha is no stranger to these debates. He already serves on the AI Council at Marketing and Media Alliance India and as co-chair of the Digital Entertainment Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India. His induction into the IAB SEA+India Video Council extends that influence into the global video standards arena.
Inshorts Group sits squarely at the intersection of these forces. Its flagship product, Inshorts, India’s highest-rated short news app, reaches 12 million active users with 60-word news summaries. Its sister platform, Public App, reaches 80 million monthly active users across more than 700 districts and 12 languages, serving communities that most global platforms barely register.
Purkayastha said the opportunity was about building something more representative. “India today sits at the centre of the global video ecosystem, but the frameworks that define how value is created and measured have not always kept pace with the realities of our market,” he said. “Being part of the IAB SEA+India Video Council is an opportunity to contribute to a more representative and future-ready approach, one that accounts for diversity in language, context, and user intent.”
As a council member, Purkayastha will contribute to shaping regional standards across video advertising, measurement and platform governance, with a focus on frameworks that are native to India’s multilingual, mobile-first ecosystem rather than imported from global benchmarks designed elsewhere.
For years, India has been content to play by rules written for other markets. Purkayastha’s induction is a signal that it is done waiting to be consulted and ready to start writing them.
