A staggering 92% of all iOS ad spend now goes to remarketing as re-engagement budgets surge worldwide. On Android, remarketing also climbed to 85%, AppsFlyer’s 2026 State of eCommerce App Marketing report reveals.
The remarketing trend is clear. Remarketing and re-engagement attribution accounts for 27% of all attribution queries in AppsFlyer’s AI assistant. The single largest subtopic. And for good reason. The State of eCommerce App Marketing report shows that remarketing lifts install-to-purchase conversion in the UK by 179% on Android and 139% on iOS.
“Acquiring new users has become expensive. The competition for installs is fierce, CPIs have risen, and China-based shopping apps have flooded paid media channels with enormous budgets,” comments Sue Azari, Industry Lead for eCommerce at AppsFlyer. “Because of this, brands have decided to spend less on acquiring new app users but focus on remarketing. They are looking at who they already sell to and how they can get more value from them,”
“We’re seeing brands re-engage lapsed buyers, personalising offers and messaging based on purchase history, and using push notifications and deep-linked campaigns to bring people back into the app at exactly the right moment,” adds Azari.
The effect has been immediate, loyal users who make two or more purchases now make up a third of buyers in the UK on both iOS and Android.
Meanwhile, fraud is migrating toward the highest-value traffic. Whilst global iOS fraud dropped 34%, in the UK iOS Fraud grew from 11.4% to 20.0%. The pattern suggests fraudsters are rotating toward high-CPI Western iOS markets where payoff per fraudulent install is larger. Agency fraud spiked to 41.2% in Q4, aligning with peak holiday UA season.
