---
title: "The Next Big Opportunity in Mobile Advertising"
description: "Discover why mobile app re-engagement advertising will grow to a $10B+ market opportunity, surpassing user acquisition. Key data and trends for founders \u0026 VCs."
categories: ["trends"]
keywords: ["mobile advertising","mobile app re-engagement","user acquisition","Criteo","Facebook Reengagement Ads","Google deep linking","venture capital","SaaS marketing","Tomasz Tunguz"]
ai_summary: "Mobile app re-engagement advertising is set to become a $10B+ market, shifting focus from user acquisition to retaining existing users."
date: 2013-11-21
lastmod: 2026-07-28
canonical_url: https://www.tomtunguz.com/mobile-reengagement/
author: "Tomasz Tunguz"
---

The typical mobile phone's home screen is occupied by [more than 30 applications](http://mashable.com/2013/09/05/most-apps-download-countries/). A digital tragedy of the commons, each additional mobile application a user downloads decreases the odds of an average application re-engaging a user. After all, the time spent on mobile isn't [increasing fast enough](http://www.emarketer.com/Article/US-Time-Spent-on-Mobile-Overtake-Desktop/1010095) to cover the marginal application.

Developers have used push notifications effectively to [re-engage users](http://urbanairship.comhttps://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/image/upload/q_auto/f_auto/w_auto/uploads/white-papers/Good_Push_Index.pdf), but push overload drives more and more users to [opt out of push](http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=stop+push+notifications#q=stop%20push%20notifications&cmpt=q).

Because of this app over-population and [the tremendous reach](http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/15/5107794/candy-crush-saga-500-million-downloads) many [mobile developers have](http://www.businessinsider.com/there-are-almost-900-different-app-developers-that-have-over-1-million-active-users-2013-11), mobile advertising spend will shift from new customer acquisition to re-engagement.

The mobile cost-per-install market is measured [in the billions](http://allthingsd.com/20131030/facebook-beats-again-as-mobile-ad-revenue-surges/). But the mobile re-engagement market will be measured in the tens of billions. After all, most of the internet ad spend is on re-engagment.

The largest internet ad spend categories, retail, financial, telecom, auto and travel all spend extensively on re-engagement. [The growth of Criteo, a retargeting company,](http://allthingsd.com/20131030/investors-decide-they-like-ad-tech-again-just-in-time-for-criteos-ipo/) is just a small indicator of the size of the re-engagement ad market. Search Google for a flight from San Francisco to Las Vegas and you'll see a [re-engagement ad](https://www.google.com/search?q=sfo+to+las&oq=sfo+to+las&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0l5.1365j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8).

This shift hasn't gone unnoticed. Facebook launched [Reengagement Ads](https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2013/10/01/beyond-installs--announcing-mobile-app-ads-for-engagement-and-conversion/). Google is also forging ahead with [deep linking](http://tomtunguz.com/kitkats-best-feature/) for mobile app re-engagement. Startups will of course forge innovative paths to market and unlock new opportunities.

Ultimately, the mobile app ecosystem will experience the same tectonic shift from a directory of applications both in the App Store and on the device to intent driven discovery - a parallel shift from Yahoo's directory to Google's search, search ads and content ads on the web. Fortunes will be made in the process.