AppLovin and SDK-first adtech gain from in-app ads

That matters because the targeting tools built for the open web are losing relevance in mobile environments. Apps do not use cookies and sit in silos, Apple’s ATT opt-in rate is around 35%, Safari and Firefox block third-party cookies by default, and Google retired Privacy Sandbox in October 2025. In that environment, first-party signals gathered through SDKs have become the most reliable basis for measurement and targeting, according to the report. The implication is that independent adtech firms with broad SDK footprints can keep competing even as the broader ecosystem becomes more privacy-constrained.

The report singles out AppLovin, InMobi and Liftoff as the best positioned beneficiaries because they already sit inside large numbers of apps and can see the audience, the ad and the outcome in one place. That is economically important for publishers too, but not always equally so: the report said publishers receive only about $50 to $55 of every $100 spent in-app, a reminder that the value chain remains fragmented even as the market grows. Large platforms still dominate overall digital ad spend — Google, Meta and Amazon account for an estimated 70% to 75% of global online advertising — but the open internet continues to account for about 60% of online time, underscoring the gap between attention and monetization.

The next battleground may be AI-native consumer products, where the case for advertising is tied directly to unit economics. Every query incurs an inference cost, and subscriptions alone may not be enough to fund mass-market usage if AI tools remain free at point of use. Published pricing suggests inference costs have fallen by more than 99% since 2023, making an ad-supported model more plausible. But unlike conventional digital inventory, AI assistants, lockscreens and agentic commerce flows may not present a webpage or a standard ad tag, which raises the value of code already on the device.

That is why the SDK thesis matters beyond mobile advertising. If AI products are distributed through apps, assistants and embedded experiences rather than browsers, the companies with the deepest SDK integrations could become the new brokers of attention and measurement. For Google and Meta, that means another competitive front in an already concentrated market. For independent adtech firms, it opens a path to participate in a new ad format cycle without waiting for the web to rebuild its targeting infrastructure.

The risk for investors is that the opportunity is real but uneven. The bull case is that SDK-first platforms own scarce distribution and first-party data precisely when privacy rules and platform controls are tightening. The bear case is that the largest walled gardens will still capture most monetization, while AI ad formats take longer than expected to mature. Still, with in-app advertising already a $400 billion market and AI products looking for a way to subsidize compute-heavy usage, the companies controlling SDK access may be among the most important intermediaries in the next phase of digital advertising.