Working in rewarded advertising often means defending it.

The industry has grown from nearly non-existent a decade ago to a meaningful share of mobile ad spend today. And yet, it still carries a number of misconceptions.

Today we’re turning one of those — the audience composition of rewarded advertising — into a positive. First, because we get to reveal the truth behind this lucrative user base. And second, because breaking this misconception creates a huge opportunity for app businesses to hop on while competitors are missing out.

To understand who these users really are, we analyzed first-party data from over 26 million Playtime users across the US and Europe in 2025.

What Is Rewarded Advertising?

Rewarded advertising is built on a principle of value exchange.

Instead of interrupting a user’s experience with ads, rewarded formats allow users to choose to engage on their own and receive something valuable in return. That value can take different forms: points, in-app currency, loyalty rewards, or other benefits inside an app.

The interaction is voluntary. The user decides whether to participate.

A typical rewarded experience follows a simple flow:

1. A user sees an opportunity to earn a reward
   
2. The user chooses to engage
   
3. The user completes an activity from an advertiser
   
4. The user receives a reward

This structure fundamentally changes the role of advertising in an app. For app publishers, this approach offers a UX-safe alternative to traditional advertising models that rely on interruption. Rewarded engagement integrates into the user experience more naturally because it is initiated by the user and tied to a clear benefit.

This principle shapes how we think about monetization. Mobile advertising works best when it respects the user’s time and attention. Rewarded engagement is one way to achieve that balance: users gain value, and apps gain a sustainable way to monetize engagement.

The Misconception: “These Are Just Mobile Gamers”

Rewarded advertising first gained widespread adoption in mobile game promotion. For years, game studios used rewarded experiences to acquire players by offering rewards for trying new games.

Because of this origin, the format became closely associated with mobile gaming. Rewarded users were often unfairly assumed to be:

• younger audiences
  
• lower purchasing power
  
• lower value for brands outside gaming
  

That perception stuck but the ecosystem around rewarded engagement has evolved. Today, the format is no longer limited to game publishers, game advertisers, or gamer-only audiences.

In the latest app monetization development, non-gaming apps now participate in rewarded ecosystems in two ways:

• as publishers, integrating rewarded experiences into their apps to increase engagement and monetize activity
  
• as advertisers, using rewarded formats to promote fintech apps, shopping apps, delivery services, and other mobile products
  

When you look at the users behind rewarded gaming experiences, the audience turns out to be far more diverse than the stereotype suggests.

Rewarded engagement users in both the U.S. and Europe are deeply embedded in everyday app categories like finance, retail, and services.

Regional patterns do emerge in the data, but the differences are not that drastic. U.S. rewarded engagement users show slightly stronger adoption of fintech and service platforms such as delivery and mobility apps, while European users engage slightly more with grocery and retail ecosystems.

These are not niche gaming users, but active participants in the whole spectrum of mobile economy.

Painting the Picture: The Rewarded Gaming User Is… 

Now, let’s move beyond the misconception and look at what the typical rewarded engagement user actually looks like.

The Mature User

Across the US, EU, and the UK datasets, the 20–39 age group universally represents the largest segment of rewarded engagement users. At the same time, the same segment skews female.

Teen users exist in the ecosystem, but they are in minority. Instead, rewarded engagement is largely used by working-age mobile users who are already deeply integrated into the mobile economy. 

Interesting enough, the U.S. rewarded engagement audience is even older than that of the European markets, with a significantly larger 50+ segment.

This age profile helps explain many of the behaviors we see in the dataset. Users in this range are more likely to rely on mobile apps for everyday needs: managing finances, shopping online, ordering food, commuting, and accessing services. Rewarded experiences fit naturally into these routines because they provide a way to earn value during small app-use moments throughout the day.

In other words, rewarded advertising does not primarily reach a niche gaming audience. It reaches a broad population of digitally active mobile users whose daily lives already revolve around apps.

The Financially Active User

One of the clearest signals in the data is how deeply rewarded users are integrated into the digital financial ecosystem. Actually, finance apps represent the single most widely used category among rewarded engagement users.

Nearly 79% of users who get rewarded for engaging with games or apps also do their finances on the phone. And what’s important here is that these users rarely rely on a single financial app. Instead, they participate in a broader ecosystem of mobile banking, payments, and financial tools (think Cash App, PayPal, traditional banking apps, and so on).

This level of adoption challenges the stereotype that rewarded users represent low-value audiences. On the contrary, widespread usage of fintech platforms suggests that many rewarded engagement users are active participants in the digital economy, regularly handling transactions, shopping online, and interacting with financial services through their smartphones.

The Online Shopper

Retail apps represent the second most widely used category among rewarded engagement users, highlighting: the rewarded gamer shops!

Across the analyzed global markets, about 76% of rewarded users also engage with retail apps where they spend over 50 minutes in a day of engagement. This includes some of the largest shopping platforms in the mobile ecosystem, such as Amazon Shopping, Walmart, or Temu, browsing and completing purchases directly from their phones.

This level of retail activity places the rewarded users as active participants in the digital commerce ecosystem. For publishers and advertisers, this matters because it highlights a user base that is already comfortable discovering and engaging with commercial experiences on mobile.

The Everyday Consumer

Across the analyzed markets, nearly half of rewarded users engage with grocery apps, while 42% use quick-service restaurant apps and around 33% use delivery platforms. 

Consumers often use multiple apps within the same service category – think DoorDash + Uber Eats or Lidl + Carrefour + Walmart –  creating a competitive environment where incentives can influence which platform they choose.

Rewarded engagement users are mobile-first consumers who rely on their phones to navigate everyday life: managing money, shopping, ordering services, and moving through cities.

If users in this audience already rely on apps in your category, introducing rewarded engagement creates a natural opportunity to attract their attention. When a competing app offers additional value through rewards, users are often willing to explore it; especially in categories where consumers commonly use multiple services.

This context also helps explain when rewarded engagement naturally fits into the user experience. Activities such as commuting, waiting in line, or short breaks throughout the day create small pockets of time where users actively engage with their phones. Rewarded gaming experiences often occupy these “micro-moments” of mobile usage.

So, Who Is the Rewarded User?

When the behaviors across finance, retail, food services, and mobility apps are viewed together, we can see that this user is not defined by gaming alone. Instead, they are best described as a mobile-first consumer who actively optimizes everyday life through apps.

A typical rewarded engagement user is:

• in their early 30s
• mobile-first, with their smartphone as the central interface for daily life
• actively using apps for banking, shopping, food ordering, and commuting
• open to exploring new apps that offer clear value, convenience, or financial benefit

Rewarded gaming fits naturally into this ecosystem because it aligns with how these users already interact with their devices. Small windows of idle time throughout the day (during commutes, while waiting for orders, or during short breaks) become opportunities to engage with rewarded experiences and earn additional value.

Don’t Miss the Key Insight Here

For app publishers, the key insight is not just who these users are, but where they already spend their time.

The data shows that rewarded engagement users are heavily present across major app categories. In other words, many of the apps reading this report are already serving this audience today.

This has an important implication. Integrating rewarded engagement does not mean introducing an unfamiliar user behavior into your app. Instead, it allows you to activate a behavior that already exists within your user base.

If your competitors offer rewarded experiences while your app does not, users may naturally gravitate toward the platform where they can earn additional value. Conversely, when rewarded engagement becomes part of your app’s experience, it creates an additional reason for users to stay engaged within your ecosystem. This means rewarded engagement is not simply a monetization tool. It is a way to deepen how users interact with your app.

Take Playtime. It turns this behavior into a retention and engagement advantage within competitive app categories.

If your users are already here, it’s time to activate that behavior. Talk to adjoe.