The hottest advertising platform in the US is the one that’s trying to monetize mobile games of solitaire.

In 2024, the mobile-app advertising platform AppLovin brought in $4.7 billion in revenue, a YoY increase of 43%, the company disclosed to investors earlier this month. Business was so good, in fact, the company announced plans to sell its gaming apps business as part of a shift “to a pure advertising platform,” CEO Adam Foroughi said on the company’s earnings call.

AppLovin, which sells and brokers advertising placements within mobile apps, claims to reach more than 1 billion mobile gamers daily and has sold Wall Street on both its AI-powered ad tech and new tools for advertisers that might be unaccustomed to mobile gaming. The company’s stock is up more than 550% YoY, and its market cap is nearly four times that of The Trade Desk, which is generally considered to be the largest ad-tech company in the US besides Google.

While the platform has historically courted other mobile games as advertisers, the company has widened its aperture. Last year, it began a beta program geared toward e-commerce and DTC brands, the kind of advertisers that have bolstered Meta’s business for years, and in December, Business Insider reported that AppLovin was explicitly courting Meta advertisers, inviting them to try the platform with ad credits of up to $10,000.

For a decade, platforms like Reddit, Pinterest, and Snap have jockeyed to pull ad dollars from companies like Google and Meta, and for some buyers, AppLovin has already surpassed these platforms when it comes to interest.

“Based on what I’m seeing, if I were a buyer, [AppLovin] is a very strong No. 3,” said Olivia Kory, head of strategy at Haus, a marketing software company that enables incrementality testing—meaning that the platform falls just behind Google and Meta, the two largest ad platforms in the world.

But whether the platform can be as efficient as those platforms remains largely unknown.

“Exactly how much you should be investing here is the open question,” Kory said.

Read more here about what advertisers have learned from testing AppLovin.—RB

Hard Rock Stadium is largely known as the home of the Miami Dolphins and the University of Miami Hurricanes. But with football season in the rearview mirror, the stadium will soon be flooded with fans of a different sport.

During the first weekend in May, Miami will welcome Formula 1 fans to the Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix, the sixth of 24 F1 races in the 2025 season. It’s one of the newer additions to the Grand Prix lineup after being introduced in 2022, and one of three F1 races that take place in the US.

Over the past few years, the race has built up some awareness in Miami and beyond, but it’s still relatively new on the Grand Prix scene compared to races like Monza and Monaco, which have been around since the 1950s. This year, the team at Hard Rock Stadium is focused on building the identity of the event, solidifying it in the Miami community, and getting it on the calendars of a growing US F1 fanbase.

“We do want people to think about this race differently,” Pri Shumate, SVP and CMO of the Dolphins, Hard Rock Stadium, and the Miami Grand Prix, told Marketing Brew. “It’s about the experience itself that we’re offering, from food to entertainment to the ‘see and be seen’ opportunities to access. I think that all of those things will help the long-term health of this [event].”

Click to read more about the marketing supporting the Miami Grand Prix.—AM

The Philadelphia Eagles’ decisive 40-22 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in this year’s Super Bowl was cause for celebration among Eagles fans, but preliminary data suggests that advertisers might not have as much reason to cheer.

Average unaided brand awareness for Super Bowl advertisers, meaning the share of people who can name an advertiser from the game without being given a list, dropped slightly from 2024 to 2025, according to data that marketing analytics company Big Chalk shared exclusively with Marketing Brew. Proper attribution, or the share of people able to name a brand based on a description of its ad, declined even more dramatically. Both factors could be concerning for marketers who shelled out up to $8 million for 30 seconds of ad time in this year’s broadcast.

“A bad game can be bad for brands,” Big Chalk partner Rick Miller said. “I can’t tell you with definitiveness that this is going to hurt sales, but it’s not a good indicator.”

Continue reading here about how Super Bowl advertisers fared.—AM

Get ready to hear from Flora Kelly, VP of Research at ESPN, as she brings her expertise to the table at The Sports Marketing Playbook! With deep insights into fan behavior, data, and market trends, Flora is ready to share how brands can stay ahead in the fast-moving world of sports. Don’t miss it!

Lina Khan’s FTC revolutionized data privacy and pushed for tighter regulations on digital ad practices. Learn how her leadership reshaped industry standards and enforced consumer protections.