• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, February 17, 2025

AppLovin could surpass the performance and scale TikTok has seen since the company launched, according to independent analysis seen by MediaPost.

Prescient AI's marketing-mix modeling measures and predicts campaign performance across the media mix. It sees advertising data for brands it works with, as well as return on ad spend (ROAS) per channel and campaign. 

“We partnered with AppLovin at the beginning of the pilot program to give advertisers an option to measure AppLovin performance alongside the rest of their marketing channels,” Will Holtz, vice president of strategy and operations at Prescient AI, told MediaPost in an email. “Analyzing it as part of the overall mix is what gives customers the confidence to scale into the platform.”

Data from November, December and January 2025 shows evidence that AppLovin's ecommerce platform that launched in beta during Q3 2024 can return higher returns on ad investments (ROAS) compared with TikTok, which is why Holtz has a positive attitude about the ecommerce model.

“Brands like what they see so far, so many have increased the percentage of spend they're allocating to the platform,” he wrote.

During AppLovin's Q4 2024 earnings calls last week, Adam Foroughi, CEO, co-founder and chairman of AppLovin, announced the company would divest its gaming studio apps business for $900 million, comprising $500 million in cash and a minority equity stake in the combined private company. The goal is to move deeper into ecommerce.

Holtz believes AppLovin could become a core part of the marketing mix, like Google and Meta, for consumer brands.

This is due to early indications that the model works. It has become a top-performing channel and the scale potential is essentially unlimited.

Early analysis also shows that during the three months analyzed, the average ROAS on AppLovin was 20% higher compared with TikTok. The AppLovin model is still in its infancy, but the expectation is that it will only get more efficient as it ingests more data. 

Brands working with Prescient AI have spent an average of 7% of their total media budget on AppLovin, with some brands spending more than 20%. That share of ad spend grew consistently from week to week during the months analyzed.

TikTok hovers around 2% of total budget, barely more than what is considered experimental for most brands.

Prescient AI’s most recent data also suggests TikTok’s ad platform has been unpredictable, difficult for advertisers to master without being skilled in its ad platform.

AppLovin has already surpassed TikTok in several key areas, according to the data. The company has more than 140 million U.S. daily active users, and about 1.4 billion globally.

TikTok is estimated to have 136 million in the U.S. and 1.9 billion globally.