What’s next for the mobile in-app marketplace: Verve Group’s 2024 outlook
By Marziyeh Farsi
As we step into 2024, we’re reflecting on our key product achievements from 2023. Last year was a period of significant growth for our in-app marketplace, PubNative. This has set the stage for a stronger path to value for our demand and supply partners in 2024 and beyond.
Highlights from 2023
Topping the charts for mobile scale and quality
The Pixalate SSP Market Share Report ranked Verve Group as North America’s top mobile SSP for both Apple App Store and Google Play. Verve Group maintains this lead for the third and second consecutive quarters for Google and Apple, respectively. Notably, Verve Group’s market share in Apple’s platform rose from 17% to 28% between the second and third quarters. Globally, Verve Group now ranks first in APAC on Google Play, second in LATAM, third in APAC on the Apple App Store, and fifth in EMEA.
In 2023, Jounce Media released a benchmarking report that ranked Verve Group as the leader in providing premium mobile app supply, ensuring quality ad experiences at a lower cost. Verve Group delivers 79% of premium mobile app supply — more than any other SSP. Jounce Media is one of ad tech’s most authoritative voices in programmatic supply chain management.
Performance powered by interstitial units
The interstitial ad inventory on PubNative (our in-app marketplace) increased by 115% in ad request volume. This growth is thanks to our expanding footprint of SDK publishers from a wide range of mediation and bidding platforms. This surge is also due to an increasing demand for high-impact performance ad units (especially interstitial video) on the marketplace. Advertisers prefer these ad formats because they help drive better conversions.
Our revamped interstitial suite now supports multiple performance-first features including SKOverlay and Storekit Auto Open. You’ll also find a completely refreshed ad template that balances user retention and conversion goals.
Verve Group’s in-app marketplace, now on Ironsource
Verve Group is a key demand partner for top monetization platforms, including Applovin Max, Google Ad Manager, Google AdMob, DT Fairbid, Amazon Transparent Ad Marketplace, Prebid, and Nimbus, to name a few. This year, we broadened our publisher footprint by partnering with Ironsource, a significant expansion that lets publishers (especially in the gaming vertical) access diverse demand sources from PubNative’s exchange. Thanks to the integration, publishers connected to Ironsource can now efficiently monetize their interstitial inventories through both waterfall and bidding demand.
More transparency and easier optimization with bid stream enhancements
As an ad marketplace, we strive to improve our bid streams continuously to help buyers optimize towards their goals efficiently. In 2023, we introduced a few significant updates, including “minimum bid to win” and “bid loss notifications” to drive better transparency for your bid decisions. These additions also give DSPs crucial insights into the competitive landscape of ad auctions and detailed reasons for lost bids.
What’s ahead in 2024
The year ahead will pack some significant updates relevant to our publishers and demand partners, beginning from Q1 2024. Below are some of the highlights to keep an eye on in our in-app marketplace.
Powerful SDK Updates: In the upcoming SDK updates in Q1, we will continue to make improvements that are performance-focused, while introducing new SDK modules that are critical for privacy-first monetization.
More ID-less scale with ATOM: We are making significant upgrades to ATOM to help publishers and demand partners make use of the on-device cohorts at scale to recapture unaddressable users. A new powerful version of ATOM (or Anonymized Targeting on Mobile), with updated cohorts, will be available to our publisher partners to integrate, very soon.
Privacy Manifests: Privacy manifests are essentially files (created in Xcode) that every SDK and app developer will need to fill and add to their app. These files describe which user data the app is accessing and how the app developer is intending to use it. Moving forward, whenever an app developer prepares to upload an app to the App Store, Xcode will combine Privacy Manifests from all third-party SDKs used by the app into one comprehensive privacy report. PubNative, an in-app marketplace, is addressing this change by preparing our SDK to support Privacy Manifests. Our upcoming iOS SDK will be completely compliant to the Privacy Manifest requirements, well ahead of Apple’s enforcement.
More tests with Google Privacy Sandbox: Google is finally phasing out third-party cookies for 1% of the world’s Chrome users. Verve Group will build on our 2023 momentum and continue to work closely with Google and other ad tech partners to test the Sandbox APIs and share results as we make progress towards a more privacy-conscious approach to targeting users on mobile.
Advertising is on the brink of a privacy-first era filled with potential and promising opportunities. 2024 could not be more exciting, and we are confident that the foundation we built in 2023 has positioned us to support and drive our client objectives and growth.