US Mobile Advertising Forecast and Trends 2025

AI Drives Growth Even as Tariffs Loom

Report by Yoram Wurmser  | UPDATED: May 22, 2025
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About This Report
Nearly two-thirds of digital advertising spending in 2025 will be delivered on mobile devices. Tariffs may dampen spending growth but shouldn’t reduce mobile’s share of the digital advertising pie.
Topics
Mobile Ad Spending
Mobile Advertising
US

Mobile advertising continues to take a bigger slice of the total media advertising pie each year, aided by strong AI ad buying tools in social media and the open web. Although increases should continue, tariffs could cut down growth significantly.

Key Question: How should advertisers allocate their spending as silos in mobile advertising begin to break down?

Mobile Ad Spending Has Enough Resilience to Grow Nearly 5% Even With Heavy Tariffs
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Key Stat: Mobile advertising spending will grow in 2025, but heavy tariffs would take a roughly $14 billion bite out of growth seen under limited tariffs.

This report can help you: 

  • Develop media strategy and allocate budget for campaigns (brands and agencies)
  • Showcase opportunities to customers and develop go-to-market strategy (media platforms and solution providers)

Here’s what’s in the full report

1file

Exportable files for easy reading, analysis and sharing.

9charts

Reliable data in simple displays for presentations and quick decision making.

8expert perspectives

Insights from industry and company leaders.

    Charts in This Report

    Mobile Ad Spending Has Enough Resilience to Grow Nearly 5% Even With Heavy TariffsDespite CTV's Rapid Growth, Mobile Will Continue to Add to Its Share of Digital Ad Spend
    Mobile Advertising Is a Collection of Several Different Ad MarketsMobile Web Still Attracts an Outsize Portion of Ad Spending for the Little Time Spent It Captures
    Mobile Video Ad Spending Will Surpass All of Mobile Search Ad Spending in 2026Video Will Drive Most of the Increased Mobile Social Ad Spending Through 2029
    Direct's Dominance Over Mobile Programmatic Wanes When Social Ads Are ExcludedMobile Game Ad Spend Will Not Grow Enough to Maintain Its Small Share of the Digital Ad Market, (billions in US mobile game ad spending, % change, and % of digital ad spending, 2025-2029)
    AppLovin Will Continue to Rapidly Gain Share of the US Mobile RTB Nonsocial Display Ad Market, (billions in US AppLovin mobile ad platform revenues, % change, and % of mobile real-time bidding (RTB) nonsocial display ad spending, 2023-2027)

    Interviewed for This Report

    Will Doherty
    The Trade Desk
    Senior Vice President, Inventory Development
    Interviewed April 11, 2025
    Casie Jordan
    Liftoff
    Senior Vice President, Revenue Platforms
    Interviewed March 10, 2025
    Andrey Kazakov
    Adjust
    CEO
    Interviewed February 20, 2025
    Jimmy Morrow
    Moloco
    Director, Marketing
    Interviewed February 19, 2025
    Kunal Nagpal
    InMobi
    Chief Business Officer
    Interviewed March 12, 2025
    Lashanne Phang
    PubMatic
    Vice President, Mobile and Native Monetization
    Interviewed March 17, 2025
    Brian Quinn
    AppsFlyer
    President and General Manager
    Interviewed February 12, 2025
    Mike Schoelch
    Unity
    Director, Client Partner, Ads
    Interviewed March 14, 2025

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    First Published on May 20, 2025

    authors

    Yoram Wurmser

    Contributors

    Rahul Chadha
    Director, Report Editing
    Vladimir de Leon
    Chart Editor
    Vladimir Hanzlik
    Executive Editor and SVP, Content
    Kyndall Krist
    Senior Copy Editor
    Penelope Lin
    Director, Data Visualization
    Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf
    Senior Analyst, Digital Advertising & Media
    Emma Noyes
    Graphic Designer, Data Visualization
    Andrew Spink
    Senior Forecasting Analyst
    Zia Daniell Wigder
    Chief Content Officer