The Crowded Market: Unveiling P2P Payment Advertising Strategies

Key Takeaways:

• Amidst the burgeoning expansion of neobanks, many of which also offer P2P payment features, the payment market in the US has grown increasingly crowded, posing challenges for the P2P payment cohort in acquiring new users. While the neobank cohort witnessed robust double-digit (+11% YoY) growth in downloads during 1Q24, P2P payment apps experienced a decline of 5% in the same period

  • While Cash App, Venmo, and Zelle, the leading P2P payment apps, saw downloads decline 9%, 7%, and 3% YoY, respectively, in 1Q24, Remitly and Boss Money, P2P payment apps offering international payment services, showed sustainable YoY growth in both downloads and average MAUs in the same period, indicating a growing demand for international payment services

• Cash App and Venmo cater to distinct user bases. While Cash App's user base aligns with other finance apps, such as neobank apps (MoneyLion, Varo, and Dave) and buy now pay later apps (Afterpay, Zip), Venmo's extends beyond finance. According to Sensor Tower data, in the past 90 days, Venmo users were more likely to fall into the frequent car renters (+128%), frequent flyers (+121%), hotel hoppers (+115%), and sports fans (+99%) persona vs average smartphone user

• With the rising popularity of P2P payment apps among millennials and gen Z, Cash App has strategically shifted its ad spending towards TikTok, allocating over one-third of its digital budget to the platform through YTD 2024, up 9ppts compared to 1H23

• Venmo's strategic shift in ad investment towards Facebook and Instagram, away from TikTok and Snapchat, reflects a change in its target audience towards parents of teenagers for its teen account. Venmo boosted its teen account ad investment by 41% in 1Q24 QoQ, and continued with a 60% MoM increase in April '24

For more information, request the full report from reports@sensortower.com.