The Mobile App Era Will Define Publisher Success

The data is clear and undeniable. Since Google rolled out AI Overviews to all U.S. users in May 2024, zero-click searches (where users get answers directly on the search results page without clicking through) have surged to 69% of all queries, up from 56% a year earlier. Organic referral traffic to publishers has dropped from over 2.3 billion visits at its peak in mid-2024 to under 1.7 billion by May 2025.

Individual publishers have felt the impact hard. CNN saw approximately 30% traffic decline year over year, while Business Insider and HuffPost experienced drops around 40%. DMG Media reported click through rates falling as much as 89% for certain searches when AI Overviews appeared. Research from Pew confirms the mechanism: when AI summaries show up, only 8% of users click through to publisher websites, compared to 15% without AI Overviews (nearly cutting clicks in half).

Digital Content Next's survey of premium publishers revealed that over eight weeks in May and June 2025, median referral traffic from Google Search declined 10% year over year overall, with losses between 1% and 25% affecting most publishers. The declines outnumbered gains two-to-one.

Forward-thinking publishers aren't waiting around. They're investing heavily in mobile apps, and the performance metrics prove this strategy works. Newsday sees three times the engagement on their apps compared to web in terms of both page views and session duration. Industry wide analysis shows the average session duration for top performing publisher apps is 4.5 times higher than the top 100 U.S. news websites and 5.5 times higher than the top 100 UK news sites.

Apps also attract younger, more valuable audiences. One century old UK publisher found that 53% of its app audience was under 35, compared to just 38% of its web audience. This demographic advantage matters when building sustainable long term audience relationships.

The monetization advantages are equally compelling. A mobile app with 100,000 monthly active users can realistically generate between $5,000 and $100,000+ in monthly ad revenue, depending on category, user geography, and ad formats. Apps provide multiple revenue streams beyond advertising: in-app purchases reached $150 billion in 2024 with 13% year over year growth, and forecasts project this will climb to $270 billion annually by 2025.

As social media referrals decline and search becomes less reliable, apps give publishers what they need most: owned channels with direct access to their audiences. Apps enable push notifications, personalized content delivery, subscription models, and first-party data collection (all within a controlled environment where publishers set the rules).

Global in-app advertising spending is projected to reach $390 billion in 2025, with the market expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.17% through 2029, reaching an estimated $533.90 billion. In the United States alone, mobile ad spending is expected to exceed $216 billion in 2025.

The dominance of in-app advertising over mobile web is stark. In 2024, total U.S. mobile ad spending reached $202.59 billion, with in-app advertising accounting for $165.88 billion (81.9% of the total), while mobile web ad spending amounted to just $36.70 billion. This disparity reflects where audiences spend their time and where advertisers see the greatest returns.

Video formats are driving particularly strong growth. Digital video ad spending grew 18% year over year in 2024 to $64 billion and is projected to reach $72 billion in 2025. Within mobile apps, rewarded video ads consistently deliver the highest performance, with eCPMs ranging from $10-$30 on iOS and $5-$20 on Android. These formats command premium pricing because they deliver superior engagement and user acceptance (70% of app users report liking rewarded video ads due to the clear value exchange).

The broader programmatic advertising market, which powers much of this mobile growth, is projected to expand from $678.37 billion in 2023 to $2.75 trillion by 2030, growing at a 22.8% CAGR.

One significant development making mobile app monetization more accessible is the growing revenue parity between iOS and Android platforms. While Android holds approximately 72% of the global mobile OS market share, iOS has historically generated substantially higher revenue per user. In the first half of 2022, Apple's App Store generated $43.7 billion compared to Google Play's $21.3 billion.

However, this gap is narrowing. In the U.S. market (which represents the largest opportunity for publishers), iOS holds 58.03% market share while Android accounts for 41.71%. Both platforms now offer robust monetization tools, with 93% of Google Play apps and 95% of iOS apps offered for free, relying on in-app advertising and purchases for revenue.

The barriers to entry have dropped dramatically in other ways too. Regulatory pressure has forced both Apple and Google to open their previously closed payment systems, with alternative payment options now offering fees as low as 10-15% (down from the traditional 30% commission). Meanwhile, AI powered development tools and no-code platforms are cutting app development time by up to 50% and reducing costs by 40-80%, allowing publishers to build quality apps for under $30,000 instead of $120,000+.

This platform balance, combined with lower payment processing fees and AI-driven development efficiency, means publishers can build successful app based businesses regardless of which platform their audiences prefer. Modern programmatic advertising platforms and supply-side platforms provide unified solutions that work seamlessly across both iOS and Android, maximizing fill rates and eCPMs without requiring separate optimization strategies.

Just as AI search is disrupting web traffic, AI-powered optimization is revolutionizing mobile app monetization. Campaigns leveraging AI-driven creative optimization achieve up to 58% increases in return on advertising spend and 30% reductions in cost per acquisition. These technologies analyze enormous datasets in real-time, automatically optimizing ad placements to ensure advertisers reach target audiences at optimal times on the best platforms.

For publishers, AI optimization works through several mechanisms. Dynamic creative optimization automatically personalizes ad creatives based on user behavior and preferences, dramatically boosting engagement. Advanced attribution models and incrementality testing help publishers understand which demand partners deliver genuine value, enabling smarter monetization decisions. Predictive analytics forecast user behavior, allowing publishers to optimize ad placement, timing, and format selection to maximize both revenue and user experience.

Header bidding technology, enhanced by AI, has become essential for maximizing app publisher yield. This approach flattens the traditional ad waterfall, allowing multiple demand sources to bid simultaneously for each impression. Publishers implementing in-app header bidding see increased bid density, higher fill rates, and systematically maximized CPMs as demand partners compete in real-time rather than sequentially.

As privacy regulations tighten and third-party cookies disappear, contextual targeting has emerged as the preferred approach for mobile app advertising. Unlike behavioral targeting (which relies on tracking user behavior across apps and websites), contextual targeting delivers ads based on the current content or context within the app.

Contextual targeting offers clear advantages in the privacy-first era. It doesn't require personal data or tracking, making it compliant with GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy regulations. For iOS, where App Tracking Transparency has made behavioral targeting nearly impossible, contextual approaches provide effective alternatives. Users perceive contextual ads as less intrusive because they align with content they're actively engaging with, improving both sentiment and performance.

For publishers, contextual targeting within apps is particularly powerful. Mobile apps provide rich contextual signals (whether users are reading news, playing games, watching video, or engaging with specific content categories) that enable relevant ad delivery without compromising privacy.

For supply side platforms like VideoHeroes, the publisher pivot to mobile apps represents a significant growth opportunity. As publishers invest in app-based audiences, they need programmatic partners who understand the mobile ecosystem and can maximize the value of app inventory.

The opportunity is multifaceted. Publishers moving to apps need SSPs that connect them with multiple demand sources simultaneously, ensuring competitive bidding for every impression. They require platforms supporting diverse ad formats (particularly video and rewarded video, which command premium pricing in mobile apps). They need AI-driven optimization that maximizes yield while maintaining user experience. And they need partners who understand privacy safe targeting approaches that work in today's regulatory environment.

VideoHeroes is positioned to meet these needs as an SSP specializing in programmatic advertising with expertise in omnichannel formats. The combination of real time bidding technology, access to premium demand partners, and AI-powered optimization tools enables publishers to maximize revenue from every impression while maintaining the quality user experience that drives app engagement.

The shift to apps also creates opportunities for curated marketplace approaches, where SSPs help publishers package premium, context rich inventory for brand advertisers seeking high quality placements. Publishers investing in apps are simultaneously investing in content quality, engagement, and audience loyalty (exactly the attributes that premium advertisers value most).

Here's what we believe will happen by the end of 2026:

Publishers with strong app strategies will outperform web-only competitors by 2-3x in revenue per user. The combination of better engagement, multiple monetization streams, and direct audience relationships will create a widening gap between app-first publishers and those still relying primarily on web traffic.

In-app advertising spending will exceed $450 billion globally, surpassing earlier projections. As more publishers shift their focus to apps and more advertisers recognize the superior performance of in-app inventory, we expect growth rates to accelerate beyond current forecasts.

AI-powered optimization will become table stakes for competitive publishers. By late 2026, publishers using AI-driven yield optimization and header bidding will be capturing 40-60% more revenue per impression than those using traditional waterfall approaches.

Programmatic partners specializing in mobile app inventory will capture disproportionate market share. As the shift from web to apps accelerates, SSPs that have invested in mobile-first technology, video expertise, and AI optimization will become the preferred partners for publishers building app-based businesses.

Privacy-safe contextual targeting will deliver performance matching or exceeding cookie-based approaches. As AI improves at understanding context and content, contextual targeting within apps will prove more effective than legacy behavioral targeting methods, particularly for brand advertisers.

The Bottom Line: This Is an Opportunity, Not a Crisis

The narrative around AI search often frames the situation as a crisis for publishers. The reality is different. Yes, traditional web traffic from search engines is declining. Yes, AI Overviews and zero click searches are disrupting established monetization models. But publishers aren't passive victims. They're actively adapting, and many are finding the new landscape more profitable than the old one.

Mobile apps offer better engagement, younger audiences, multiple revenue streams, and direct relationships that no algorithm can disrupt. The mobile advertising market is growing faster than overall digital ad spend, with in-app advertising projected to reach $533.90 billion by 2029. Programmatic technology, powered by AI optimization, is making it easier than ever for publishers to maximize the value of app inventory.

For programmatic partners like VideoHeroes, this evolution means moving beyond traditional web inventory to embrace the app ecosystem. It means supporting publishers with the technology, demand access, and optimization capabilities they need to succeed in mobile-first environments. It means recognizing that context-rich, high-engagement mobile inventory represents the future of premium digital advertising.

The app era isn't coming. It's already here. And 2026 will be the year that separates the publishers who recognized this shift early from those who waited too long. For publishers willing to invest in direct audience relationships and for programmatic partners ready to support them, the opportunity has never been bigger.