During my first trip to Asia, I was astonished when I a couple sitting together in a fancy bar captivated by their own devices, gaming for at least an hour without even looking at each other. I couldn't believe it, but the friend I was with acted as if everything was completely normal. Now, three years later I’m witnessing this same phenomenon in my own country. You must’ve heard of “Pokemon Go” by now, a new app that allows gamers to use the world and their smartphone together as a gaming console. I’m finally convinced; mobile apps are the new normal. So what does that mean for you as a marketer?

The more time a user spends in an app, the more ad inventory there is for you to reach them with your offer or message. Adweek shared an infographic from Delvv that shows App usage in the U.S. has reached 778 billion minutes per year, or about 1.5 million years of collectively staring at a mobile screen. On a per day basis in 2015, time spent on smartphones is 3.6 hours per day, up 3.3x times from just 50 minutes in 2010. Clearly you should have a mobile strategy, but also a strategy to reach folks on mobile apps.

This massive amount of time spent is dominated by Facebook and by entertainment apps. Global data from Facebook IQ shows that 68% of mobile gamers discover these apps on social networking platforms. Additionally, 28% of people who spend on mobile gaming apps each month actively download from social networks. Social network are trusted sites for mobile gamers and thus provide a great avenue for you to reach acquire new users with ads.

To capitalize on this mobile app trend, marketers should use their first party data to target these apps and acquire new customers. Banana Republic, an example from our upcoming webinar, creates a Facebook lookalike audience using their high value customer base to acquire new customers with a 60% higher CTR at 4x the return on ad spend. The Facebook Audience Network allows marketers to use the same targeting capabilities they use on Facebook to reach users in other mobile apps.

Join our webinar on retail advertising changes and learn how to increase ROI on Facebook & Google.