What if one of the most profitable ad platforms for ecommerce wasn’t Meta, Google, or TikTok, but a network hiding in more than 100,000 mobile games? And what if that network quietly reached over 40 million Americans every day, more than a billion people worldwide, and consistently produced conversions within the first hour after the click?
Most marketers don’t realize it yet, but this platform already exists. It’s called AppLovin’s Axon Ads, and according to Pep, CEO of Smart Marketer Agency, it might be the biggest paid traffic opportunity since the golden era of Facebook ads in 2015. While the majority of advertisers continue fighting for the same oversaturated audiences on Meta, early adopters are shifting budget to this under-the-radar channel and seeing performance strong enough to change their media mix entirely.
AppLovin’s story began in 2012 as a simple gaming app designed to help friends share what they were playing. But when traditional marketing tools couldn’t support their growth, the founders pivoted. Instead of building another consumer-facing app, they built a marketing platform to solve their own acquisition challenges. Over time, that platform grew into a massive advertising network exclusively serving mobile gaming studios. And as it expanded, it learned. Every swipe, tap, level completion, and in-app purchase fed into what became Axon AI, a behavioral engine trained on billions of interactions across more than a billion daily users.
That decade of data became a turning point. In 2024, AppLovin realized that the same behavioral patterns that predict which gamers will make in-app purchases also predict which consumers are likely to buy ecommerce products. Someone who willingly spends $4.99 on extra lives or bonus gems is already demonstrating the kind of impulsive, low-friction purchase behavior that translates extremely well into ecommerce. When AppLovin quietly opened its ad technology to direct-to-consumer brands, the results surpassed even their own expectations. Brands saw profitable customer acquisition at scale, and the early momentum led to the launch of Axon Ads Manager, a self-serve platform giving ecommerce advertisers access to the massive inventory inside mobile games.
What makes this opportunity unusual is the mindset of the audience. The stereotype of “gamers” misses the mark entirely. Today’s mobile gamers are overwhelmingly adults, many of them women in their 30s and 40s with above-average household incomes. They’re professionals unwinding during commutes, parents relaxing at soccer practice, or everyday consumers enjoying a quiet moment between tasks. These people aren’t doom-scrolling through angry political threads or comparing themselves to influencers. They’re relaxed, focused, and open to value exchanges, especially rewarded video ads, where they choose to watch a full 30–60 seconds in exchange for in-game bonuses. That opt-in experience creates an unusually captive environment where attention is high and friction is low. It also explains why most conversions happen within the first hour after the click and why a large portion of purchases come from completely new customers.
Axon is a video-only platform, which means creative strategy matters. The good news is that many brands can start by repurposing their best-performing Meta videos, as the storytelling format often transfers effectively. The real difference comes at the end of the video, where Axon presents an interactive screen, essentially a mini landing page, that drives the majority of clicks. When brands combine a strong creative with a clear value proposition and a compelling visual end card, they often see click-through rates higher than what they experience on Facebook or Instagram.
Another major advantage is attribution. Axon uses click-through tracking only, with either same-day or seven-day attribution. There are no view-through windows, no inflated conversion reporting, and no guessing. Because so many purchases cluster quickly after the click, brands can validate performance directly in their analytics or third-party tracking tools. For marketers who have struggled with Meta attribution since iOS14, this level of clarity is refreshing.
Access to the platform, however, is still limited. Until recently, AppLovin only accepted brands earning over $10 million per year. That revenue requirement has now been removed, but the platform remains invite-only as they expand slowly and strategically. Brands can get in through referrals, partner agencies like Smart Marketer, or by waiting for the full public rollout, which Pep predicts could happen within the next six months. In other words, this is still early. And as we’ve all seen in digital advertising, early movers tend to win the biggest.
Twelve years ago, AppLovin built a solution for its own marketing challenges. Then it helped gaming studios grow into global companies. Now it’s poised to become one of the most important ecommerce acquisition channels of the decade. Very few marketers know about it today, but that window won’t stay open forever. Those who learn the platform now will have a competitive advantage that others won’t catch up to until it becomes mainstream.
To sign up for AppLovin (Axon), use this link https://axon.ai/en/inviteonly and use this referral code: MK7GQDTPQT
Pep’s full breakdown dives deeper into why this opportunity exists, how Axon AI works, how to structure your campaigns, what creative styles perform best, and what you need to know before applying for access.
If you want to stay ahead of the curve, and hear about emerging platforms before they go mainstream, Pep is covering all of it on his brand-new YouTube channel.
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