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What is AppLovin and How to Leverage it For Marketing Success
If you haven’t heard of AppLovin yet, it’s time to crawl out from under that rock. Long known in the mobile gaming world, AppLovin is now breaking into direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising — and early adopters are seeing impressive results.
With a massive user base, fresh ad formats, and a self-service platform in beta, AppLovin is quickly becoming one of the most exciting new channels in performance marketing. And it’s not just hype — top brands are reporting Meta-like results at a fraction of the cost.
So what exactly is AppLovin, and why is it working so well for ecommerce brands? Let’s break it down.
A new player in the DTC ad game
AppLovin is a mobile ad network originally built for monetizing mobile games and apps. Its network reaches 1.4 billion users — on par with platforms like TikTok — and has traditionally been used to promote other games. But that’s changing fast.
AppLovin is now opening its doors to ecommerce advertisers, offering a suite of performance-driven tools, ad placements, and a robust algorithm that seems tailor-made for DTC brands.
Why AppLovin works for ecommerce
The psychology is different — in a good way
Mobile gamers aren’t doomscrolling — they’re engaged, focused, and relaxed. When someone beats a high score or clears a level, they’re in a positive emotional state — and that’s when your ad shows up. You’re inserting your brand into a dopamine-rich context, not between two stressful news stories or a chaotic social feed.
This makes a huge difference. Ads feel less like interruptions and more like surprises. That novelty drives higher engagement — and better performance.
The reach is broad
Americans now play more mobile games than they watch cable TV. Over 200 million adults in the U.S. play mobile games weekly, and AppLovin’s network gives you access to all of them. That’s a massive opportunity for building frequency and brand awareness outside the saturated social ad ecosystem.
The ad formats are fresh, but familiar
AppLovin’s ad placements support vertical video and static creatives, and because the context is so different from social, you can often re-use top-performing Meta or TikTok assets without major changes. That’s rare in emerging channels — and it means lower creative lift and faster testing.
The tech is built for performance marketers
From the algorithm to the onboarding process, AppLovin feels like it was built for DTC. Their team has already put together an ecommerce wiki, and their roadmap is aggressively focused on delivering what performance marketers actually need: scale, efficiency, and data transparency.
How to add AppLovin to your marketing mix
AppLovin isn’t a replacement for your core channels — but it’s a powerful complement that can help you reach new audiences and diversify your acquisition strategy.
Here's how to get started:
Start With What You’ve Got
Repurpose your best vertical video or static creatives from Meta, TikTok, or YouTube Shorts. Lean into hook-driven content and test simple iterations to find what resonates.
Track Everything
AppLovin opens up a brand-new slice of time in the customer journey — users playing games. When you track AppLovin touchpoints through Northbeam, you’ll get a complete view of how these ads contribute to conversions across platforms. Whether someone sees your ad in a game and converts via branded search three days later, or after getting hit with a Meta retargeting ad, Northbeam helps you connect the dots.
Think Frequency + Novelty
Your goal isn’t just conversion — it’s attention. AppLovin gives you a way to layer on impressions in a high-engagement setting, helping your brand break through in a fragmented landscape.
The Bull Case for AppLovin
Performance marketers are always chasing the next edge — and, as of April 2025, AppLovin may be it. It combines:
- High reach
- Fresh context
- Low creative lift
- Affordable CPMs
- Early-mover advantage
And when paired with a measurement platform like Northbeam, it becomes even more powerful. You get full visibility into how AppLovin is contributing to your performance across the funnel — so you can scale with confidence, not guesswork.
Grüns’ Power Play: How Northbeam Became the Daily Fix for a Fast-Growing Brand
Grüns’ superfood gummies promise to streamline health into a bite-sized, fruit-snack experience. But the real magic isn’t just in the product—it’s in how they get it in front of the right people. That’s where Northbeam comes in.
We sat down with Claire Yi, VP of Growth at Grüns, to break down how a health & wellness brand in its infancy has already become one of the most exciting DTC players in the space, thanks to a potent mix of aggressive channel testing, a creative-first marketing ethos, and a data backbone that gives them clarity amid the noise.
Northbeam gave Grüns enough integrity and confidence in their data to 22x their spend, which resulted in 40x total revenue. Here’s how they did it.
A Platform Worth Waking Up To
The decision to integrate Northbeam wasn’t a lengthy deliberation for Grüns.
“Our CEO, Chad, was already plugged into a network of DTC founders who swore by Northbeam,” Yi explains. “So, we were early adopters by default.”
The result? Northbeam quickly became the company’s gospel. “I check in every day,” Yi says. “Our CFO checks in. Our CEO checks in. It’s the first look of the day for all of us.”
Moving at the Speed of Growth
Startups live and die by speed, and Grüns is no exception. With the brand not even two years old, Yi’s team needs to pivot on a dime.
“We’re constantly testing new channels,” Yi says. “I rely on Northbeam very heavily every single day. The most useful part of it is just specific metrics like percent new visits by channel, new customer acquisition costs and others. Having that really helps me know if a new channel that we test into is actually bringing in incremental new users to our site.”
That word—incremental—is a big one at Grüns. It’s not enough to get a new customer; they have to be truly new. And that’s where Northbeam shines.
The Obsession With nCAC
If there’s one number that runs the show at Grüns, it’s new customer acquisition cost (nCAC).
“Our entire model is built around it,” Yi says. “We look at nCAC across all our channels—Meta, YouTube, and more —and it helps us benchmark against our holistic goal.”
Northbeam’s ability to separate actual first-time customers from returning buyers or cross-sales means that Grüns isn’t throwing money at inflated metrics. “We don’t trust platform data alone,” Yi adds. Relying on platform data is like letting a chef be the food critic for their own restaurant. It’s almost like being able to have an “Ads Manager” view of all platforms in one view, but without each channel overattributing their conversions across all your orders.
Grüns saw the cost incurred to acquire net new customers decrease by over 14% after implementing Northbeam
Creative is King—And Northbeam is the Court
Grüns isn’t just a performance brand; it’s a creative-driven performance brand. With a heavy emphasis on visuals and storytelling, they need to know immediately which ads are working and which ones need to be optimized.
“We don’t just optimize at the campaign level—we optimize at the creative level,” Yi explains. “Which ad, which visual, which CTA is truly working? Northbeam tells us. We don’t even look at platform data for this anymore.”
And with that kind of granular view into what is truly working, Northbeam becomes a tool to validate all the others. “I use Shopify with Northbeam because it helps us look at day-of performance very sharply, especially during holiday periods or sale periods” Yi says. “We want to be able to scale back if the day is looking a little off from a conversion rate standpoint.”
This ability to instantly separate high-performing creative campaigns from flops means that Grüns can pour budget into winners before a campaign fizzles, maximizing returns with ruthless efficiency.
Expanding the Channel Playbook
In an ever-evolving digital landscape, staying agile is non-negotiable. Grün leverages Northbeam to explore emerging platforms with precision and confidence.
"We've seen exciting new customer growth opportunities by expanding into platforms we had not previously tried," Yi notes. "The ability to quickly test and optimize creatives for new audiences has made a huge impact."
Northbeam’s data-driven insights ensure that every new channel test is informed, measured, and refined—giving Grün the confidence to invest wisely and grow strategically.
More Than Just Numbers—Confidence in the Boardroom
At the end of the day, Northbeam isn’t just a marketing tool—it’s a confidence booster.
“I've been able to use those metrics–nCAC, percent new visits, and more–to explain to stakeholders that a specific channel isn't a priority channel for us right now.” Yi explains. “It also saves us a lot of time in being able to understand at a high level, revenue, new orders, returning orders, marketing spend, and if we're pacing towards our nCAC goals. And it also helps me pull reports really easily to know how much we spent on each channel by month.”
When Grüns needs to decide whether a platform, ad, or creative direction is worth the investment, the answer is already waiting for them. And that’s the real power of Northbeam.
Grüns is building a health & wellness empire with the speed of a tech startup. And in a world where decision fatigue is real and ad dollars vanish into the void faster than you can say "platform algorithm update," Northbeam is their secret weapon for staying sharp, strategic, and relentlessly efficient.
Northbeam’s Profitability Benchmarks: Tailored Performance Targets for Your Business
In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, understanding what defines a successful ad campaign is crucial for sustainable growth. Profitability Benchmarks is a tool within Northbeam designed to help you set personalized performance targets based on your unique business data.
Why Profitability Benchmarks?
Traditional benchmarking often relies on external industry data, which may not accurately reflect your business's unique dynamics. Profitability Benchmarks shifts the focus inward, allowing you to set personalized performance targets, enhance decision-making with real data, and simplify complex data into the metrics that matter.
By establishing performance targets for each of your campaigns, you can demystify what constitutes a “good” or “bad” ad campaign in the context of your specific business.
How does it work?
Profitability Benchmarks give brands the flexibility to define their own success metrics by analyzing past performance and filtering out misleading anomalies.
Here’s how it works:
- Select your baseline days: Choose historical data that best represents your typical performance; this ensures that benchmarks are grounded in real business outcomes rather than industry-wide assumptions.
- Adjust for profitability: Factor in COGS to create profitability-based benchmarks to ensure that your targets reflect actual margins, not just revenue.
- Manage outliers: Promotional periods, product launches, or unexpected downturns can distort performance data. You can remove these fluctuations so that your benchmark reflects normal business operations for a more accurate view of long-term performance trends.
- Consider incrementality: Not all sales are directly attributable to a single ad or campaign. You can adjust benchmarks to exclude non-incremental conversions, ensuring that your targets focus on true revenue impact.
- Compare and optimize: Once your benchmarks are set, you can track performance against your targets in real-time. This helps identify which campaigns are overperforming, which need adjustment, and where to allocate budget more effectively.
Why does it matter?
With Profitability Benchmarks, brands can move beyond vanity metrics and focus on what actually drives profitability. They can improve budget allocation, scaling the right campaigns and cutting inefficient spend with data-backed confidence. Finally, they can drive sustainable growth by setting realistic, performance-based goals that ensure long-term profitability.
With Profitability Benchmarks, success is no longer defined by generic industry data — it’s defined by you.
If you’re interested in gaining access to Profitability Benchmarks, get in touch with our team to learn more.
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