New Year New Ad Platform: A Look At AppLovin

Jan 1, 2026

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This episode is a tactical breakdown of AppLovin as a scaled acquisition channel—what's actually different vs Meta, what you should change in creative + campaign structure, and how to think about incrementality + reporting so you don't judge it with the wrong yardstick.

Miranda Pettinger, Performance Marketing Manager at 365 Holdings explains how they onboarded to the platform when Meta was underperforming and AppLovin started popping off in buyer circles. They used a Triple Whale onboarding credit to test with low risk, and at the time it wasn't even self-serve (you had to Slack the rep for changes).

The short on "why AppLovin works" is AppLovin's rewarded inventory creates an opt-in attention trade ("watch this 30s ad, get coins"), which changes the psychology from "I'm annoyed by ads" to "I'm choosing to watch this." That makes the creative game feel closer to a 30-second TV spot: you've got time to explain, objection-handle, and sell in one sitting. From there it turns into a playbook with these Keytakeaways:

18:30 Bidding / structure: ROAS vs cost-per-purchase, why value doesn't work for some catalogs and how to structure campaigns
19:40 DPAs + catalog control: Why DPAs can help if you've got lots of variants and the importance of controlling what products show up.
25:50 Measurement reality: AppLovin tends to under-report purchases, especially at scale, so you want to validate with post-purchase survey, MER/traffic lift and/or a 3rd party data tool.
29:30 Incrementality / overlap: The Meta+AppLovin overlap and how Meta+Google overlap is likely way bigger.
33:55 Creative testing: unlike Meta where "testing vs scaling" can feel walled off, AppLovin can allow new winners to climb fast inside the same campaign, without dumping spend on junk.
38:30 End cards: offers matter a lot. How animation helps, and showing variants (colors/metal types) can lift clicks

To connect with Miranda, you can follow her on x at https://x.com/mirandpettinger

To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email Andrew@foxwelldigital.com

To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch

To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck

Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/