Industry Insights
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Seasonality & Sports Apps: What it means for mobile marketers in 2022

Seasonality and sports apps What it means for mobile marketers in 2022

Sports events in the post-COVID era

As the world recovers from COVID-19 since its first outbreak in 2020, many sporting events can be seen opening their doors to the larger public, which garner viewers from across the globe. The viewership for sporting events is enjoyed by people worldwide, like the Euro 2020 finals, where the cumulative live match audience was recorded at 5.23 billion. With major sporting events taking place this year, such as the FIFA World Cup, Wimbledon, UEFA Champions League Finals, and many more, the numbers alone give an insight into how significant these events are, and how marketers should leverage them for advertising their sports apps. 

With so many eyeballs to grab, it enables endless possibilities for mobile marketers to stand out from the crowd where they can get peak visibility to showcase and advertise their sports apps. 

First, let us look at the past viewership of some of the major sporting events which will take place in 2022 globally.

Sports Events Viewership Stats

This will help mobile marketers identify the most relevant ones to tap into newer and more extensive audiences within mobile OEMs, allowing them to increase the reach and audience for their mobile app in the sports category.

Expand your reach with mobile OEMs

Mobile OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) are smartphone manufacturers like Xiaomi, Huawei Oppo, Vivo, and Samsung who have global user audiences with a combined worldwide market share of 48% as of December 2021. These mobile OEMs have their own app stores for their devices, also known as alternative app stores, and resell their inventory, thus enabling mobile app developers and marketers to leverage the vast user bases they own during these peak sporting events in 2022. Mobile OEMs get sports apps in front of billions of viewers globally and help mobile marketers reach closer to their app’s user acquisition goals. 

Sporting events create millions of daily viewers and are an excellent opportunity for sports app marketers to tap into markets of such colossal potential where they can get access to the most relevant users in their category with mobile OEMs and generate user action on their apps. 

Why should sports app marketers make the best of major sporting events in 2022?

Sports are a universal language that connects all. The whole industry is benefitting from the revolution of smartphones globally. As per a report by PR Newswire, the global sports market is expected to grow from $354.96 billion in 2021 to $501.43 billion in 2022 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 41.3%. 

This statistic denotes a massive opportunity for mobile marketers to acquire new and relevant users for their sports apps during these sporting events season. There will be a positive response from users in the sports category in the coming years, as sports apps on Google Play will reach nearly one billion downloads by 2023

Gamezy, one of AVOW’s clients in the sports category took a step forward by placing their bet on smartphone OEMs and this is what Minhaz Hazarika, their Director of Digital Marketing has to say about Gamezy’s journey with AVOW – 

“IPL is an important season for app developers like us to reach out to the larger masses. Standing out from the crowd during this peak season is a big challenge. However, with the help of AVOW and their Mobile OEM partnerships, we were able to tap into new users all across the country,” 

Some of the top advantages for mobile marketers to consider advertising their sports apps with OEMs during peak sporting events – 

  • With mobile OEM app advertising, mobile marketers can leverage an exclusive app store featuring per day and specific dates with multiple advertising formats such as video ads, rewarded ads, native ads, and banner ads with unique ad placements.
  • Get exclusive screen takeovers with splash ads so marketers can show the best of their sports and gaming apps on the entire smartphone screen in a video format to create instant brand awareness and interest among users. 
  • Make way for Appographic Targeting to help promote apps to users with similar interests beyond category and ownership to elevate app install rates.
  • Mobile OEMs offer customized push notifications to target high-value users during sporting events to enable app discovery, as there is a 72.71% YoY growth for gaming apps.
  • Explore PMP deals at private marketplaces (PMPs) with mobile OEMs. Marketers can bid on suggested inventories for a specific time, such as seasonal events, to get the best out of their user acquisition campaigns.
  • Mobile OEMs provide brand-safe, fraud-free, and more cost-effective opportunities for mobile marketers due to lower CPIs, thus offering the same benefits as 3rd party networks such as Google and Facebook. 

How can AVOW help?

With access to over 1.5 daily billion active users, AVOW has premium partnerships with OEM inventories such as Xiaomi, Samsung, Oppo, Vivo, Oneplus, Huawei, Realme, and Transsion that sell inventories to advertisers like yourself and provide a huge opportunity for apps like yourself to target and reach out to potential customers for achieving their user acquisition goals.