AppLovin is an advertising company. Its AppLovin Ads platform places ads inside mobile games, which it says more than a billion people play every day, such as Subway Surfers, Candy Crush and Words With Friends. Each ad is a full-screen video shown between game levels, or one that a player chooses to watch in exchange for a reward. AppLovin also makes MAX, a mediation tool that game developers use to earn money from ads.
An advertiser uploads videos, images and playable ads, chooses a goal (return on ad spend, purchases at a target cost, leads or in-app events) and a budget, and AppLovin's AI engine sets the bids, the audience and the creative for each impression. To learn which ads lead to sales, a website installs the AppLovin Pixel, a small script that reports visits and purchases, through the Shopify App Store or Google Tag Manager. App advertisers connect an MMP (mobile measurement partner, a service such as Adjust or AppsFlyer that attributes installs to ads).
It is a self-serve ad platform: the advertiser sets the budget and pays for the ads delivered.