Top Cost Per Install (CPI) Networks

Marketing your application is one of the most crucial stages when developing a mobile app. You might have the best app out there or the next big thing, but without reaching the users you need, it will all be for naught and all of your effort will go to waste. Especially with over five million apps on the App Store and Google Play combined and counting, the competition is getting tougher, which is why different mobile app marketing techniques arise to help overcome that.

Cost Per Install (CPI) networks allow you to create ad campaigns that target your desired audience and prompt them to install it, helping you grow your user base, increase your number of monthly active users (MAU), and consequently push your app up the stores charts, increasing its discoverability and opening new doors for you.

CPI networks (also sometimes called pay per install networks) take the popular CPM (cost per thousand) and CPC (cost per click) models, where you're either charged based on user impressions or clicks and take it one step further, only charging when the user installs your app.

CPI is now one of the most popular models by mobile app marketers. And while these channels might be great, they only provide you with exposure and can only do so much for you on their own. However, CPI networks can guarantee you to reach high-quality users and your target audience, allowing you to measure actual ROI (return on investment) for your app marketing efforts and budgets.

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CPI networks and mobile app install models are currently growing at high rates, with a multi-billion dollar industry. In fact, a study by Business Insider showed that over 80% of the top 100 grossing mobile app developers noted that they plan on increasing their spend on app-install ads in the next year.

Find below a list of the top Cost Per Install networks to help you get more app installs and expand your user base.

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"Mobile apps can play a key role in growing your business. Facebook App Install ads help you connect with the people who are more likely to install your app – and get more people actually using it.

App Install ads can be shown across Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network. They link directly to the App Store, Google Play and Kindle Fire store, so people can download your mobile app immediately."

• Founded: 2004
• Company Size: 10,001+ employees
• Location: Menlo Park, CA
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Kindle, tvOS, Unity, Web.

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"App install campaigns are the perfect way to connect with X’s mobile-first audience and drive more app downloads. This objective helps promote widespread visibility of your app to the people who are most likely to convert seamlessly from X to the app store. This is great if you’re looking to showcase new features or reach new mobile audiences. And with improved prediction, supply, and measurement capabilities, this campaign is stronger than ever.

X users are +38% more likely than Non-X Users to have downloaded an app directly from an ad online"

• Founded: 2006
• Company Size: 1,001-5,000 employees
• Location: San Francisco, CA
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"Universal App campaigns allow you to promote your app across Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, Gmail, and within other apps and mobile websites on the Display Network. Universal App campaigns use Google’s machine learning to optimize your bids, build ads and match them with the right people.

How do they work? They make the smartest decision for each ad, analyzing millions of potential signal combinations in real time — like where people are engaging with your ads and which creatives and keywords perform best."

• Founded: 1998
• Company Size: 10,001+ employees
• Location: Mountain View, CA
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"Make an impression on a huge audience with the most engaging ad formats on mobile, inspire potential customers to lean in and learn more, seamlessly driving them to your website or content, and drive foot traffic, sign-ups, app installs, and more with ads that make an impact, fast, and are fun to interact with."

• Founded: 2011
• Company Size: 1,001-5,000 employees
• Location: Venice, CA
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"Promoted app Pins are an effective way for Pinners to install your mobile app directly from Pinterest. This format provides an alternative to competitive app stores. Plus, downloads from Pinterest generate more lifetime value, with Pinners spending more time and money in the apps they’ve purchased.

People love the ease of finding mobile apps designed to meet their needs, and then downloading them immediately, all on Pinterest."

• Founded: 2010
• Company Size: 501-1,000 employees
• Location: San Francisco, CA
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"InMobi is a global mobile advertising platform that specializes in delivering the best ROI for mobile marketers. A mobile-first and mobile-only platform, InMobi has been pioneering the next generation of ad experiences, including video advertising, on the back of deep learning based optimization engines.

InMobi platforms help brands, performance marketers and app publishers engage mobile users across different stages of their lifecycle, converting each mobile moment into an opportunity to drive engagement and revenue. Recognized by Fast Company as one of The Most Innovative Companies in 2016, InMobi reaches over 1.5 billion unique mobile devices worldwide, and is redefining business models for the mobile ecosystem."

• Founded: 2007
• Company Size: 501-1,000 employees
• Location: Singapore
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android, Web.

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"Chartboost is the world’s largest mobile games-only platform, helping developers grow their audience, monetize, and make better data-driven decision. We work with 90% of the top-grossing iOS and Android game developers and are currently being leveraged by over 300,000 games, reaching over 1 billion active players around the world every month. We offer a simple SDK enabling cross promotion, direct deals, and a mobile ad network - all with 100% transparency and full control for our users, empowering them to run campaigns when, where, and how they want."

• Founded: 2011
• Company Size: 51-200 employees
• Location: San Francisco, CA
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"NativeX, a Mobvista company, is the leading native ad technology for mobile apps and games. We provide publishers with successful native mobile app monetization through a wide range of both reward and non-reward rich media ads, including Lightning Play™ video, offer walls, interstitials, banners, and other innovative native formats.

We are experts in effective user acquisition strategies and ad performance solutions for growth, app store ranking (Chart and Keyword Search) and targeting LTV users so you get the best ROI every time. Our recent acquisition by Mobvista now gives partners a greatly expanded international reach to deliver even more quality international campaigns."

• Founded: 2000
• Company Size: 11-50 employees
• Location: Minneapolis, MN
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android, HTML5, Unity.

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"AppLovin offers a comprehensive platform where app developers of all sizes can connect with their ideal consumers and get discovered. Founded in 2012, the company is focused on helping both indie and established developers grow, with the expertise and insights they need to finance, market, and expand their businesses – all in one place. App developers view AppLovin as a trusted partner, the rare company that understands what it takes to succeed in the mobile app ecosystem and the ability to help them reach their goals."

• Founded: 2012
• Company Size: 51-200 employees
• Location: Palo Alto, CA
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"A Leading mobile and in-app video advertising since 2012, Appnext has partnered with the top app, game, mobile web publishers, as well as OEMs and mobile operators to help them grow their mobile businesses by promoting apps. With a growing community of over 60,000 developers and 650M users worldwide, we’ve created a marketplace that connects publishers and advertisers directly and transparently, amplifying their monetization and advertising efforts."

• Founded: 2012
• Company Size: 51-200 employees
• Location: London, United Kingdom
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"Tapjoy’s Maximum Impact Platform provides mobile engagement and monetization services for leading advertisers and app developers. Advertisers rely on Tapjoy’s diverse suite of rewarded Interplay ads including video and rich media to impact performance. Developers utilize our technology and mobile expertise to acquire and monetize users. The Tapjoy SDK is currently embedded in over 15,000 mobile apps, reaching 520 million monthly active users. A 2016 comScore study confirmed Tapjoy Interplay ads deliver an unprecedented 3x lift across all brand metrics. The company works with Fortune 500 brands and the Top 200 grossing app developers. Founded in 2007, Tapjoy is a global organization with more than a dozen offices worldwide and is headquartered in San Francisco."

• Founded: 2007
• Company Size: 201-500 employees
• Location: San Francisco, CA
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"Trademob was acquired in 2017 by the French advertising market leader Adikteev. Adikteev is the mobile advertising company offering the unique combination of state-of-the-art creatives with strong data and machine learning expertise.

Adikteev provides advertisers and app developers with a global solution for their communication needs in every steps of the user lifetime: from awareness through branding and qualified traffic to conversion through user acquisition and retargeting. Adikteev follows mobile users' behavior closely and addresses them with a message adapted to each brand's needs."

• Founded: 2012
• Company Size: 51-200 employees
• Location: Berlin, Germany
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"Yeahmobi is a leading mobile marketing company that helps mobile businesses to reach global growth. Driven by technology, data, and innovation, we offer a complete suite of mobile performance and programmatic marketing solutions that include Performance Network, Social, Search, Display and Offline, as well as providing ad-based monetization solutions for mobile apps through proprietary SDK and API Integrations."

• Founded: 2011
• Company Size: 201-500 employees
• Location: Xian, Shaanxi
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"Mobfox is a world-leading, data-driven mobile SSP and exchange, providing publishers with all the tools they need to manage their ad serving, data layers, and monetization stack efficiently, transparently, and automatically. Mobfox is connected to over 200 diversified and global demand sources, and offers comprehensive support for all major ad formats including video, native, rich media and display."

• Founded: 2010
• Company Size: 201-500 employees
• Location: Vienna, Vienna
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"Mobvista is a world-leading mobile marketing platform providing user acquisition, analytics and monetization solutions to worldwide mobile developers and brands.

As the largest mobile ad tech company in Asia, Mobvista’s comprehensive solution has empowered 1000+ direct global advertisers in reaching and engaging consumers across the world through performance-based ads, ASO tools and more. For developers, Mintegral, the native and video ad mediation platform, has helped 500+ developers in maximizing ad revenue with its premium ad sources mediation, diverse native ad formats, and smart dynamic algorithm."

• Founded: 2013
• Company Size: 201-500 employees
• Location: Guangzhou, Guangdong
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone.

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"PropellerAds is one of the largest Ad Network, with over 100 million desktop & mobile users a day across thousands of premium online publishing partners. We've combined up-to-date technologies and our deserving experience of working with numerous ad networks to provide you with the best advertising solution.

We totally understand what is important for you and we take the stress out of your campaign. To ensure highest possible results of an ad campaign in the shortest time period with the cheapest budget – that becomes real with our help."

• Founded: 2011
• Company Size: 201-500 employees
• Location: Limassol, Cyprus
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"Start.io is a sell-side omnichannel advertising platform powered by real-time mobile audiences. We deliver hundreds of millions of ads per day across more than 500,000 active apps. Our platform uses artificial intelligence to deliver more efficient, effective and precise digital advertising campaigns. Our direct integration with thousands of mobile publishers gives us access to more than 50 billion first-party data signals per day across the globe. Marketers use these anonymized signals to understand and predict consumer behavior, identify new opportunities and fuel business growth.

• Founded: 2010
• Company Size: 51-200 employees
• Location: New York, NY
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"Instal is a worldwide mobile marketing platform designed for Apps and Games. The proprietary technology and performance model (CPI = Cost per Install) support advertisers to maximize results and to reach mobile business goals. Instal’s technology is designed to offer advertisers top-level services in terms of app promotion, users’ acquisition and retention combining performance with branding, engagement & innovation."

• Founded: 2014
• Company Size: 11-50 employees
• Location: Florence, Italy
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"GOWIDE is a top user acquisition platform that puts all of your advertising solutions in one convenient place. Our services support app owners and agencies so that we can bring in high-quality leads and publishers to monetize inventory.

For many years working with many different clients from countless countries, we understand that mobile and digital advertising is the leading way to deliver your message to the right audience and to call your target customers to action. We’re aware of all the stepping stones of app marketing, and we know that growing a loyal user base takes time and effort—which is why GOWIDE offers the most successful, effective and, impactive services for mobile apps."

• Founded: 2013
• Company Size: 11-50 employees
• Location: West Vancouver, Canada
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone.

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"Adcash is a technology-driven advertising network, that delivers high performing solutions to online publishers and brand advertisers globally. Each month, Adcash serves 20 billion ad impressions around the world on all major desktop and mobile devices.

With Adcash, publishers are able to monetize their digital content with relevant ad campaigns at industry-leading rates. For Advertisers, Adcash provides the reach they need to engage with their target audience across a network of top-tier publishers, worldwide."

• Founded: 2007
• Company Size: 51-200 employees
• Location: Tallinn, Harjumaa
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"AppBrain Promote is a cost-per-install platform for Android. Over 70,000 publisher apps are using the AppBrain SDK to show non-incentivized advertisements and drive installs to your CPI campaigns. AppBrain Promote gives extensive reporting on your promotion campaign and has one of the easiest setup processes in the industry."

• Founded: 2009
• Company Size: 1-10 employees
• Location: Zurich, Switzerland
• Supported Mobile Platforms: Android.

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"Whether Self-Service, or Managed; minimob provides its dynamic CPI-bidding platform, both delivering and enhancing your campaign results in real-time. Advertisers and agencies monitor results as they happen – benchmarking acquisition outcomes against a predefined set of performance metrics.

minimob runs tens of thousands of campaigns every month, allowing access to unique, exclusive and direct offers with just one click – and of course, minimob fully supports third-party tracking for clarity on mobile app conversions. Need volume, fast? minimob has the scale you’re looking for!"

• Founded: 2013
• Company Size: 51-200 employees
• Location: Singapore, Singapore
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"IconPeak is a leading mobile advertising platform. We build apps from scratch, monetize existing ones and acquire audiences for top app developers.

As a TUNE Certified Partner, we help advertisers such as Machine Zone, Science Inc. and Elex Tech to discover new users; be it through Social Media Influencers, native placements or video ads. We also offer monetization solutions for developers looking to drive revenue through their apps."

• Founded: 2012
• Company Size: 11-50 employees
• Location: Berlin, Berlin
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Unity, Web.

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"Digital Turbine aims to deliver the right app to the right person at the right time, around the world. We provide products and solutions for mobile operators and OEMs, app advertisers, and mobile publishers, to make the most of the app ecosystem.

Our app marketing solutions enable brands and app developers to acquire users and promote their brands, while giving mobile content publishers an efficient means of monetization. While our mobile operator and OEM products enable white-label billing and content marketplaces as well as monetization solutions through app recommendations. Digital Turbine has delivered more than 150 million app installs for hundreds of advertisers, and more than 31 million customers use our solutions each month across more than 20 global operators."

• Founded: 2011
• Company Size: 51-200 employees
• Location: Austin, Texas
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"Once upon a time, advertising was about the mad men and the media agencies: the creative and the commercial. Advertisers needed smart strategies, great relationships with media owners, and buying power.

Then digital came along, with its trillions of data points and real-time media buying. Advertising became data-driven overnight, and buying power made way for brain power.

What was required was a solid understanding of automation and data. That’s when Brainlabs was born. Founded by Daniel Gilbert in 2012, we were on a mission to drive real results from marketing."

• Founded: 2013
• Company Size: 11-50 employees
• Location: California
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.

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"ironSource builds monetization, engagement, analytics and discovery tools for app developers, device manufacturers, mobile carriers and advertisers. Our comprehensive solutions help industry leading companies achieve greater business success, enabling them to find, understand, engage with and monetize their target audiences more effectively.Over 80K app developers are using our developer solutions, and our enterprise technology is shipping on hundreds of millions of devices worldwide, giving ironSource the ability to reach over 800 million unique users every month, globally."

• Founded: 2010
• Company Size: 501-1,000 employees
• Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
• Supported Mobile Platforms: iOS, Android.