Ad Aversion and In-App Purchases

Freemium apps often feature reward ads, enabling users to access premium content in exchange for voluntarily viewing ads. Although users differ widely in their ad aversion, app publishers have a limited understanding of how this aversion affects simultaneous decisions to view reward ads and make in-app purchases. This study analyzes granular user data from a mobile game app, revealing a U-shaped relationship between users’ ad aversion and in-app purchases: Users with both high and low levels of ad aversion make more in-app purchases than those with moderate aversion. These findings highlight the importance of identifying and leveraging the user-level heterogeneity in ad aversion in app publishers’ monetization strategies and suggest directions for future research.