Check out our latest report: “The State of app-ads.txt 2024”! In it, you’ll find: app-ads.txt adoption by app store, app-ads.txt adoption by category, the top ad partners overall, the top 'direct' ad partners, the top ‘reseller’ ad partners, tips and tricks for using app-ads.txt to grow your business, and more.
Download now: “The State of app-ads.txt 2024”
Key takeaways from the report:
- Vizio Smartcast has the highest overall adoption and the highest adoption among CTV app stores (70%), while Huawei AppGallery has the highest adoption among mobile app stores (19% in total).
- Google Play offers the most app-ads.txt-compliant mobile apps (632,592), while the Roku Channel Store offers the most CTV apps that use the standard (4,872 apps).
- The top mobile category by penetration is Huawei’s “Card & Board” (54%), while the top CTV categories by penetration are Vizio’s “Gaming + Anime” (100%) and “Featured” (100%).
- Across all app stores, google.com is the most commonly listed domain.
About app-ads.txt
Launched by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), app-ads.txt was designed to combat fraud in the mobile advertising ecosystem. Much like the ads.txt standard, it provides a mechanism for app publishers to declare who is authorized to sell their digital advertising inventory, thereby fostering transparency among app publishers, supply-side platforms (SSPs), demand-side platforms (DSPs), advertisers, and other businesses involved in the process of buying and selling mobile ad space.
However, as SSPs, DSPs, Ad Networks, and other AdTech companies have come to realize, the value of app-ads.txt extends beyond the prevention of mobile ad fraud. Use cases now include everything from lead generation to app publisher onboarding and monitoring, compliance auditing, competitor analysis, market research, cross-platform ad inventory validation and quality assurance, ad verification, and more.
If that wasn’t enough, app-ads.txt is also beginning to play a pivotal role in the connected TV (CTV) market. As platforms like Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, and Google TV continue to supplant traditional linear offerings in living rooms across the globe, CTV advertising has grown in lock step, flourishing in an increasingly fragmented entertainment landscape.
So, what does this all mean? To be brief, it means demand for app-ads.txt intelligence is at an all-time high. With this in mind, we at 42matters used our mobile and CTV app data tools to analyze the state of app-ads.txt across 12 leading app stores, including:
Google Play | Apple App Store | Amazon Appstore | Tencent Appstore |
Huawei AppGallery | Roku Channel Store | Apple TV | Fire TV |
Google TV | LG Content Store | Samsung Smart TV | Vizio SmartCast |