The cost of advertising apps is rising.
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The cost of acquiring mobile app users soars to highest level in 2 years

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

In July, the cost of acquiring new loyal mobile app users in the U.S. rose to its highest level since 2011, according to data collected by mobile app marketer Fiksu.

That’s scary for indie app developers who don’t have the marketing budgets to promote their products like the big brands can. Since many apps these days are free-to-play, developers often have to make a calculated bet in spending money on promotion. If they spend more on marketing than they reap from the lifetime value a user generates, then they will lose money, and that’s a recipe for financial ruin.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.