Most Publishers Are Prioritizing Revenue Growth Over UX This Holiday Season

With the holiday season fast approaching, publishers are entering one of the most vital times of the year. User activity spikes, advertiser budgets swell, and competition for attention is fierce. To finish the year on a high note, publishers must rebalance their monetization strategies. Bidease surveyed 100 monetization managers for mobile apps to figure out which of these strategies will win the remainder of 2025.

Today, we focus on how publishers are approaching the heart of the Q4 challenge: how to maximize revenue during the busiest time of the year while reducing churn.

Key Takeaway

• Prioritize strategies that maximize holiday revenue. Set clear retention guardrails to prevent over-monetization and driving users away once the season ends.

Balancing Monetization and User Experience

The holiday season may be the year’s biggest opportunity for mobile revenue, but it also forces publishers into one of their toughest tradeoffs: how far to drive monetization without sacrificing user experience. The data shows that most are still walking that line carefully.

A third of respondents (32%) said they’re slightly prioritizing revenue growth while minimizing user experience impact. It’s a cautious but growth-minded approach. For these publishers, success will likely depend on tight control loops. They need to watch key user metrics in real time, and be ready to dial things back if early signs of fatigue or churn emerge.

Another 28% are aiming to maintain an even balance between revenue and UX, suggesting that many teams see retention as equally critical to holiday gains before they rebalance in January. Together, those groups represent a clear majority of publishers striving for growth, but not at the expense of churn or a decrease in activity.

That said, the appetite for aggressive monetization hasn’t disappeared. One in four publishers (25%) admitted they’re leaning heavily toward revenue growth, even if it risks user experience. This group may be feeling competitive pressure or trying to recover from softer quarters earlier in the year. For teams in this position, the key is to mitigate long-term fallout. Layer in value exchanges, target high-LTV cohorts, and plan a January cooldown strategy to recover loyalty.

“When more than half of publishers are openly prioritizing revenue over experience, it shows just how much pressure Q4 brings. Smart teams see this not as a permanent shift, but as a short-term test. Push harder now, then pull back in January to protect lifetime value.” Dennis Mink, CMO of Bidease

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How Publishers Are Adjusting Strategies

Publishers are approaching the holidays with sharper monetization playbooks, testing more, optimizing placements, and pushing harder where it counts. The data reveals how teams are fine-tuning their Q4 strategy to balance short-term gains with long-term health.

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More than 16% of publishers plan on increasing ad placements, making it the most popular strategy among those surveyed. This signals a willingness to trade a bit of friction for a surge in Q4 revenue. It’s a great tactic for teams that rely on immediate and predictable gains, but overextending can have drawbacks. If you’re in this camp, make sure your teams are closely monitoring session lengths, churn indicators, and app store feedback. A short-term gain that leads to long-term erosion isn’t a win.

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Almost as many respondents are investing in A/B testing, focusing more on precise ad optimization over volume. These teams are adjusting variables like timing, frequency capping, or creative pairing to find more efficient ways to monetize without inflating ad load. Publishers looking to scale revenue responsibly should start here, making small optimizations that compound over time.

Holiday Revenue Expectations

Confidence among publishers heading into Q4 is unmistakably high. Nearly three-quarters of respondents expect stronger monetization results this year compared with last season. That optimism isn’t just surface-level: 28% predict gains of 20% or more, while another 44% anticipate a moderate lift of up to 20%. Only 3% expect a downturn, suggesting a bullish consensus among app publishers this holiday season.

Most of that confidence is coming from experience. Publishers have spent the past few years adapting to tighter privacy rules, new bidding dynamics, and fluctuating CPMs.  They’re now heading into Q4 with sharper playbooks. On top of that, the holiday season is the most profitable window of the year for mobile ecosystems, where user activity, advertiser budgets, and engagement peaks converge. And consumer spending is expected to increase 5.3% YoY this holiday season, with mobile channels forecasted to grow at an even faster rate of 8.5%. That increase doesn’t correlate to IAP monetization perfectly, but it does show that app users are primed to spend more this holiday season.

Where Will Revenue Come From?

In-app purchases (IAP) continue to lead revenue projections this holiday season. Forty-four percent of respondents identified IAP as their primary revenue driver for Q4, reaffirming its place as the cornerstone of mobile monetization. Ads followed closely at 35%, while subscriptions made up the remaining 21%.

This distribution points to a maturing monetization landscape where most publishers are no longer leaning on a single stream of income. Ads and IAPs now work in tandem, with many teams using ad revenue to complement the more volatile economics of in-app spending. The narrowing gap between IAP and ad-led models also underscores a broader shift: ads are no longer viewed as the fallback option, but as a strategic lever for growth.

“In-app purchases, ads, and subscriptions form the foundation of mobile monetization. What’s interesting in this year’s data is how close ads are to IAP in expected revenue contribution, reflecting how much weight publishers are placing on mobile and ad revenue.” Dennis Mink, CMO of Bidease

Publishers seem to believe they’ve found a more sustainable balance between revenue and retention

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Publishers seem to believe they’ve found a more sustainable balance between revenue and retention that’s tested, data-backed, and built for scale. If those instincts hold true, this holiday season could mark a turning point in how mobile teams think about growth.

Which Formats Are Publishers Betting On?

When asked which creative formats will be most important for monetizing their apps this holiday season, video ads (71%) and banner ads (58%) led the pack, outperforming both rewarded and playable formats. It’s a striking split, because video ads are among the most expensive creative formats, while banners are typically the least expensive. That suggests that publishers are pursuing demand from a variety of sources and verticals.

While rewarded (50%) and playable ads (51%) didn’t top the list, their presence in roughly half of responses underscores their ongoing value as engagement-friendly, opt-in formats. These placements remain critical for publishers who want to increase revenue without disrupting user experience, especially when ad fatigue risk is high.

The most effective strategies now blend monetization and user experience rather than treating them as competing forces. For example, rewarded and playable ads are being positioned as middle-ground solutions, ways to generate meaningful revenue without compromising user experience. In a high-stakes Q4 environment, those nuances matter more than ever.

“Rewarded and playable ads work because they make the ad fun and engaging for users. In Q4, when every impression counts, formats that offer a moment of fun or a clear incentive turn attention into engagement and engagement into long-term revenue.”

‍Dennis Mink, CMO of Bidease

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We Recommend: Prepare for Volatility

A sudden CPM dip on Christmas Eve or a stalled auction on Black Friday can erase weeks of revenue gains in just a few hours. Conversely, catching those swings early and reallocating demand lets advanced teams turn chaos into upside.

With only weeks before the busiest season begins, here are practical steps mobile app publishers can take to mitigate volatility today:

• Align Your Retention Goals: Define what “balance” means for your app. Is it maintaining a 30-day retention benchmark while growing ARPDAU? Or keeping churn under 5% while scaling ad placements? Setting thresholds will help you know when monetization experiments are going too far at the cost of user experience.
  
  
• Prepare for CPM Volatility: Use historical data from last year to anticipate which geos or categories saw the biggest swings. Work with monetization partners that allow real-time floor adjustments or hyper-responsive service to protect fill rates.
  
  
• Segment and Personalize: Don’t treat all users the same. Light users may need rewarded prompts earlier in a session, while whales may value a clean experience with fewer ads. Personalizing your monetization rules is increasingly possible with today’s monetization and in-app messaging tools.
  
  
• Test, Measure, Iterate: Keep testing fast and flexible. Rather than running long A/B tests, use real-time optimization and shorter tests to route more impressions to what’s working best. Publishers who adapt placements often see steadier revenue and less user fatigue.

Heading Into the Holidays

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The holiday season is always a sprint, but this year’s data shows publishers are pacing themselves more strategically. Instead of chasing raw volume, they’re focused on smart, balanced monetization.

That shift aligns closely with Bidease’s monetization solution. The Bidease SDK gives publishers direct access to premium demand without the usual middlemen, helping them increase ARPDAU, maintain full UX control, and integrate seamlessly with MAX, AdMob, or LevelPlay. It’s designed for stable, diversified, and transparent monetization enables smart execution with data-driven insights. Contact us today to maximize your app revenue with the Bidease SDK.