Sensor Tower: Mobile Game Ad Monetization in 2026 - sponsored by PWN Games
One of the very few reports, that is covering games ad monetization so throughly.
The report is based on Sensor Tower data covering ~5 million MAU across 19 countries in the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.
Ad revenue is estimated using CPM benchmarks by format and network, supplemented with direct CPM data from winning bids at ad auction. Networks covered: AppLovin, AdMob, Meta Audience Network, Mintegral, Unity Ads, InMobi, Supersonic, Digital Turbine (the rest fall into an Other category).
Download and IAP data cover January 1, 2014 through March 31, 2026; ad metrics are mostly reported for January 2025 - May 2026.
❗️In my experience, Sensor Tower’s ad revenue estimates have larger fluctuations than its IAP revenue estimates.
Market Overview
❗️Ad revenue estimates cover 19 markets: Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, the UK, the US, and Vietnam.
Mobile games generated $12 billion in ad revenue across 19 countries. 2.4 trillion ad impressions were served to users. 25 billion downloads of ad-monetized games in 2025.
A word from our sponsor
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Ad-supported games accounted for 84.1% of all mobile game downloads in May 2026 (vs. 88.5% in July 2021).
In 2025, ad-monetized games drove 24.6 billion downloads.
The share of games with ad monetization grew from 45% (mid-2021) to 56% (May 2026). This is happening not so much because the number of ad-focused games is growing, but because the number of games without ads is shrinking. While IAP revenue is stagnating, projects are experimenting with hybrid monetization.
In growing markets (India, Indonesia, Brazil), ads deliver roughly 55-70% of revenue.
In mature markets with higher-spending audiences (US, Canada, South Korea, Japan), it’s the opposite: IAP accounts for 77-90% of all revenue.
❗️Dream Games’ and Playrix’s experiments with ad monetization are aimed precisely at markets where there are fewer payers, and where their average check is much lower.
Genres in Ad Monetization
The main drivers of in-game ad revenue are hypercasual and casual projects (roughly 40% each). Hybridcasual projects hold 16% of total revenue.
Puzzle games account for 53% of all ad revenue; arcade projects come second (13%).
Among sub-genres, Block leads (10%), followed by Match Pair, Sort, and Match Swap (roughly 7% each).
❗️Where exactly Sensor Tower draws the line between hypercasual, hybridcasual, and casual projects within the same genre/sub-genre isn’t entirely clear to me.
Hypercasual Match Pair posted the biggest absolute gain in ad revenue, +$105 million. The growth came from Vita Mahjong, which grew from $38 to $90 million. Other standouts: Tile Explorer ($20 million), Goods Puzzle ($13 million), Foodie Sizzle ($12 million).
Hybridcasual projects in the Sort genre (sub-genre?) grew by $41 million on the back of two titles - Pixel Flow! ($38 million in revenue) and Magic Sort! ($11 million).
Hypercasual solitaire grew by $64 million thanks to the successful launch of Solitaire Associations Journey.
Ad Networks
From January 2025 to May 2026, AppLovin and Google AdMob captured 65% of global mobile game ad revenue. AppLovin holds 36% across all segments, AdMob 29%.
AppLovin is stronger in the hypercasual and hybridcasual segments; Google AdMob leads in casual and mid-core.
AppLovin leads by revenue in Western countries. Google AdMob is more diversified and holds a larger revenue share in developing countries.
It’s probably fair to say that AppLovin focuses more on high-value users, while Google is focused on volume.
For most networks (AppLovin, Meta Audience Network, InMobi, Unity Ads), puzzle games deliver more than half of ad revenue.
AdMob has a more even genre mix, while Mintegral carries more arcade games in its revenue structure than others.
Looking at specific cases, King is the outlier - 50.8% of its revenue comes through AdMob. Sensor Tower explains this by the fact that the company shows ads only to users who show no intent to buy. That’s why AdMob’s toolkit fits the company better.
Advertisers
Across the top 100 ad-monetized games in each genre, non-gaming brands consistently account for 31-49% of all impressions.
These brands buy ads most aggressively in sports games (49.3% in Q1’26). The biggest share belongs to fintech (9% of impressions); in puzzle games it’s shopping apps (the same 9%).
Entertainment brands and apps are also active buyers - the only category to appear in the top four of every genre.
The biggest advertisers inside mobile games (January to May 2026): TikTok (6.42 billion impressions), Facebook and Gossip Harbor (5.35 billion each), Arrows Puzzle Escape (4.99 billion), Kingshot (4.93 billion), Temu (4.62 billion), Pixel Flow! (4.04 billion).
In the US, Pixel Flow! is the single largest advertiser (2.4 billion impressions), outspending every social platform and e-commerce app.
Top Games by Ad Revenue
Block Blast! ($127 million), Vita Mahjong ($89.8 million, up more than 2x YoY), Candy Crush Saga ($81.1 million), Solitaire Associations Journey ($73.3 million), Wordscapes ($42.6 million) are the ad revenue leaders from January to May 2026.
Every casual game in the top 10 earned less in the first 5 months of 2026 than in the same 5 months of 2025.
Hungry Studio is the ad revenue leader from January to May 2026. The company earned $131 million in ad revenue, almost all of it thanks to Block Blast!. It generated 60% of that revenue outside the US.
In the US, the revenue leader is Easybrain.
A word from our sponsor
Still paying for impressions and clicks that never convert? Advertise your PC game with PWN Games! With our CPA model, you only pay when a player installs, engages, or pays. 250+ PC games promoted, 42M+ players acquired, 10 years in the business. Trusted by top PC game publishers worldwide.
Arrows Puzzle Escape was the most-downloaded game worldwide in May 2026, with Arrows GO! in 5th. The first similar title appeared in WeChat mini-games in late 2024; Lessmore GmbH brought Arrows Puzzle Escape to the global market in July 2025.
Top titles by MAU in May 2026 among primarily ad-monetized projects: Block Blast! (181 million users), Subway Surfers (92 million), Ludo King (79.1 million).
IAP Revenue Is More Concentrated Than Ad Revenue
Games outside the top 1,000 (by revenue) account for 29% of all ad revenue, but only 9% of IAP.
The top 10 games hold 11% of all ad revenue vs. 22% in IAP; the top 50 hold 26% vs. 47%.
❗️With IAP monetization, the “winner takes all” rule applies more often.
That said, Sensor Tower notes that top hybrid-casual projects with IAP monetization earn several times more revenue than projects where ad monetization dominates.
Case Studies
Candy Crush. The game launched without ads but moved to hybrid monetization. Ads now account for 10-15% of revenue.
The game targets non-paying users and shows them ads in exchange for extra lives or boosters.
Pixel Flow! The game launched in August 2025. The project grew to $34 million a month (IAP ~$26 million, ads $7-8 million) in under a year.
Players spend 52.5 minutes a day in the game across an average of 9.4 sessions. That’s twice as good as its closest competitors.
At the same time, the project’s live ops calendar is hard to call heavy. There’s no seasonal content, no meta, no complex offer system. The game runs on its core gameplay.
Gecko Out. This is Rollic’s most successful hybrid casual launch. 81-90% of the project’s revenue comes from IAP. By its 10th month of operation, revenue reached $3.5 million a month. And it’s holding that level, unlike Hole People and Knit Out (both declined after their peak).
Roblox. Even the giants are experimenting with ad formats. Roblox launched its ad infrastructure in January 2026 and has been growing revenue steadily since.
In May 2026, the game earned $516K - practically nothing against its IAP earnings, but it’s still an experiment for now. On top of that, much of Roblox’s audience is under 13, and under COPPA rules they can’t be shown ads.
Roblox shares part of its ad earnings with creators.