The end of the year is here, and 2026 is just around the corner – meaning it’s time for Yodel Mobile’s annual predictions!
Many factors impact app growth, and in an ever-evolving ecosystem, planning for the future should be a priority. Thinking about your strategy for next year should be at the forefront of your mind.
That is where Yodel Mobile’s annual app marketing predictions come in. Drawing on performance data, platform shifts and hands-on experience across app growth, these predictions reflect what we are already seeing shape results, not speculative trends or distant theory.
They focus on the practical changes app teams will need to make across creative, personalisation, discovery, retention and measurement to stay competitive in 2026.
2026 Yodel Mobile predictions
AI assistants will become the new App Store
Igor Blinov – AI Innovation & ASO Director
“User discovery will shift away from app stores and into LLM-powered interfaces such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and agent-based assistants.
More users will find apps by asking AI for solutions, not by browsing categories or typing keywords. This creates a new optimisation layer: visibility inside LLM answer streams. ASO teams will need to move beyond app store keywords and optimise for how AI models interpret an app’s purpose, metadata structure, trust signals and wider web footprint. The next generation of mobile marketers will compete for LLM visibility, where the first recommendation inside an AI response is as valuable as a top keyword ranking is today.”
What this means for app marketers?
Treating app discovery as an app store-only problem will become a strategic risk. ASO teams must expand their remit to influence how AI systems understand, trust and recommend their app across the wider ecosystem.
App Store creatives will evolve into adaptive, trailer-like experiences.
Sandip Patel – Creative Lead
“In 2026, app marketing creatives will move beyond static assets and into adaptive, video-first systems that respond to user intent in real time.
Screenshots will not disappear, but they will become supporting elements to lightweight, trailer-style visuals built for a scan-and-scroll culture. Value will need to be communicated within seconds through fast, benefit-led storytelling.
Dynamic creative optimisation will mature beyond simple variation testing. Teams will build modular systems in which UI, features, calls to action, and even colour systems adapt automatically to the audience. Personalisation will shift from surface-level messaging to flexible creative frameworks that scale without production bottlenecks.
The teams that win in 2026 will treat creative as a living product, continuously tested, data-responsive and designed to evolve with every impression.”
What this means for app marketers
App store listings must be designed as trailers, not galleries. Teams relying on static creative variations will struggle to compete against adaptive, video-first systems built for clarity, speed and intent.
Personalisation will become invisible but fully dynamic
Megan Dean – Strategic Growth Director
“Personalisation is no longer a differentiator; it is an expectation.
In 2026, as AI integrations mature, personalisation will become less visible but more deeply embedded across the entire app experience. Instead of being labelled or called out, the UI itself will dynamically adapt to context, location and behaviour. Personalisation will shift away from offering choices and towards proactively determining what the user needs next.”
What this mean for app marketers?
To stay competitive, marketers must move into data and product design, shaping experiences that adapt in real time to context and intent. Personalisation is no longer a feature to optimise; it is the underlying logic of the entire experience.
Retention will overtake acquisition as the key to app growth
Mick Rigby – CEO
“User expectations have changed, and the most successful apps have already adapted. In 2026, the permission economy will go mainstream for apps.
Discovery is becoming more fragmented and tracking more constrained, which makes users who actively choose you and keep you installed the real advantage. Retention, not acquisition, will be the primary growth engine. The growth marketers who win will act less like media buyers and more like permission architects, focused on genuine engagement, clear utility and journeys that deliver value for users and app owners alike.”
What this means for app marketers?
Continuing to prioritise acquisition volume over retention will become an increasingly expensive mistake. As discovery fragments and tracking tighten, sustainable growth will depend on how effectively apps earn ongoing permission from their users.
Growth teams must reorient around engagement, utility and long-term value, acting less like media buyers and more like architects of durable user relationships. Loyalty, not reach, will define performance in 2026.
Signal Engineering will decide the real winners in 2026
Rishan Weerakoon, Strategy Growth Director
“In 2026, the biggest performance unlock in app marketing will not be a new channel but the signals we send into existing ones. As privacy-driven signal loss continues, results will increasingly depend on how well teams design and feed first-party signals into ad platforms.
Instead of optimising for cheap installs, leading teams will define smarter in-app events that act as early predictors of long-term value, such as completing a critical onboarding flow or reaching a meaningful usage threshold. These signals will be fed back into platforms so bidding algorithms learn what high-value users look like long before revenue appears.
The strongest teams will align early value scoring with their conversion value schemas across SKAN, Google App campaigns and paid social, and allocate budget based on forward-looking signals rather than lagging payback windows.
The teams that win in 2026 will treat data not as reporting output, but as a product they actively engineer to guide every optimisation decision.”
What this means for app marketers?
Optimising for cheap installs will actively limit growth in 2026. Teams that fail to engineer strong first-party signals will train platforms to find the wrong users.
Winning teams will invest in event design, early value prediction and signal alignment across paid media and ASO, using data to guide optimisation before revenue appears. Data will no longer be a reporting layer; it will be a core growth product.
2025 app marketing predictions – how did we do?
Apple intelligence will revolutionise app discovery and engagement
Verdict: Directionally right, but ahead of adoption
Apple laid important groundwork in 2025, particularly through App Intents, but meaningful user impact has yet to materialise. Delayed Siri upgrades and uneven third-party adoption meant 2025 delivered infrastructure rather than behaviour change. The real test now shifts to 2026.
There will be a surge in micro-subscriptions due to fatigue and affordability
Alexis foresaw a rise in micro-subscriptions due to subscription fatigue and user affordability concerns. That trend definitely surfaced, but execution challenges slowed adoption.
Verdict: Demand was real, execution lagged
Shorter subscription models gained traction, particularly in education, health and entertainment. However, operational complexity and retention challenges prevented widespread adoption. For most apps, micro-subscriptions remained experimental rather than foundational.
Hyper-personalised search will improve ASO
Verdict: Vision ahead of tooling
While early signals emerged, most ASO strategies remained traditional in 2025. Resource constraints and immature tooling slowed adoption. Momentum is expected to accelerate in 2026 as AI-driven optimisation becomes more accessible.
AI personas will redefine personalisation for deeper user connections
Verdict: Early prototypes, not scalable
We saw experimentation with adaptive flows and chat-based onboarding, particularly in finance and wellness. However, privacy concerns limited deployment. 2026 is likely to bring more structured frameworks for scaling these experiences responsibly.
Read more about our 2025 predictions here.
What do our 2026 predictions mean for your app?
Taken together, these predictions point to a clear shift in how app growth will be won in 2026.
Static creative, surface-level personalisation and keyword-only ASO are no longer sufficient. The next phase of app marketing will be adaptive systems, engineered signals, AI-driven discovery and long-term user value. The advantage of 2026 will belong to teams that act on these shifts early. If you want to test your strategy or understand how these changes apply to your app, speak to the Yodel Team.
