• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, December 20, 2018

The app advertising market is on fire.

A new forecast from AppsFlyer expects the category to surging 136% from $27.1 billion in 2017 to $64.1 billion in 2020. That works out to about 34% growth, per year, according to the mobile attribution firm.

In North America, app install ad spend growth is expected to double, reaching $12.9 billion by 2020.

Similar to the global projections, the average year-over-year change in the region will be approximately 21%.

However, while growth of app installs driven by marketing activities will be significant in the coming years, the growth rate will not match the expected rise in media costs, per the new report.

The data provided by AppsFlyer shows that global non-organic app installs will grow by 110% into 2020, while North American non-organic installs will increase by 73%.

With both the ad spend and growth rates of non-organic installs expected to maintain the same ratio through 2020, marketers will have to be increasingly efficient in their marketing efforts amid rising media costs, according to Shani Rosenfelder, head of content and mobile insights, AppsFlyer.

“To seize the competitive edge, marketers will need to become more data-savvy, but it’s no less essential to be threat-savvy,” Rosenfelder notes in the new report. “Fraudsters are vying for billions of dollars in revenue and securing the app economy will demand ongoing monitoring and protection.”

Looking beyond 2020, AppsFlyer expects app ad growth will gradually decrease as the market begins to mature.

Yet, the firm believes it will be sustained by substantial increases in media costs and mobile usage, as well as the number of paid campaigns, apps available and mobile users overall.