How do you maintain growth when the rules of privacy, payments, and App Store Optimization change all at once? Between the retirement of Google’s Privacy Sandbox, the rise of AI-driven ASO, and the complex new legal realities for Apple in the US and EU, 2025 was a stress test for the industry. How did these shifts impact the app monetization strategies of mobile app publishers?
- The iOS attribution landscape has come a long way with the latest AdAttributionKit updates. More advanced re-engagement support is now available, making it much easier for UA managers to track retargeting campaigns. Additionally, the inclusion of country codes in postbacks improves geo-targeting. This year, Apple was also encouraging everyone to move from older versions to the AdAttributionKit (AAK) framework. However, the catch is that despite these technical improvements, the ecosystem’s adoption remains extremely slow, with most networks still relying on SKAdNetwork 3;
- The industry landscape shifted on October 17, 2025, when Google confirmed it was retiring the Privacy Sandbox framework on Android. The retirement follows earlier reversals on related privacy-tracking plans: for example, Google had already reversed its long-standing plan to eliminate third-party cookies in Chrome, opting instead to keep cookies while offering user controls;
- In the United States, recent legal changes have been great news for publishers. After Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ May 2025 ruling, which cited Apple for “willful violation” of earlier injunctions, developers now have a clear way to guide users to external payment platforms. Before this, Apple charged a 27% commission on external link sales and used pop-up warnings to discourage users from paying outside the app. However, the situation in the US contrasts sharply with Europe. In June 2025, Apple updated its EU terms to comply with the Digital Markets Act, which resulted in a more complex fee structure;
- In 2025, we have moved past the phase of AI simply influencing ASO strategy and entered the era of full-scale automation. Predictive science allows developers to forecast high-potential keywords, automate competitor analysis, and manage thousands of user reviews instantly. Additionally, among others, app store search results are no longer static; they are now highly customized based on user behavior and context, meaning publishers must optimize for user intent. If you wish to learn more about App Store Optimization trends, we recommend reading an article on the optAd360 blog.
2025 at Bidlogic: year of growth & expansion
While the industry wrestled with privacy and legal battles, at Bidlogic, we focused on one thing: stability in your ad revenue. Apart from tasks like managing eCPM and bidding instances, as well as continuous testing and updating of bid floors, we started using a double ad unit approach. This method allows creating different auctions per each ad format with different price floors, which ultimately significantly increases app publishers’ ad revenues.
On the Bidlogic blog, we kept up our popular “eCPM Growth” series, sharing quarterly numbers to help you see whether your eCPMs levels were driven by the market trends. We also looked further afield. In 2025, we focused for the first time on the Asian Markets, helping Western publishers understand how to make money in China and Japan, which are becoming very important for global growth. As you plan for 2026, we suggest looking back at the three articles that shaped our readers’ year:
