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  "documentTitle": "AppLovin (APP)",
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  "authorName": "Muddy Waters Research",
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  "presentationDate": "2025-03-27 00:00:00",
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  "notes": "Uses a direct quote from the CEO to highlight the discrepancy.",
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      "kind": "callout",
      "text": "Therefore, we believe that likely only ~34% of purchases attributed to APP are incremental.",
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      "text": "incrementality: 25-35%",
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      "text": "Of the remaining ~48% of sales in which APP had the first click, ~29% show touch points from other ad networks. Therefore, we believe that likely only ~34% of purchases attributed to APP are incremental. After adjusting for the typical e-commerce repeat customer rate of ~28%, this number drops to ~25%.",
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      "kind": "quote",
      "text": "Early data has exceeded our expectations, with the advertisers in the pilot seeing substantial returns, often surpassing those from other media channels and, in many cases, experiencing nearly 100% incrementality from our traffic.",
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      "kind": "quote",
      "text": "\"Early data has exceeded our expectations, with the advertisers in the pilot seeing substantial returns, often surpassing those from other media channels and, in many cases, experiencing nearly 100% incrementality from our traffic.\" — APP CEO Adam Foroughi, Q3 2024 earnings call",
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      "text": "APP CEO Adam Foroughi, Q3 2024 earnings call",
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      "kind": "source-note",
      "text": "2 52% - 100% = 48%. 48% - (29%*48%) = 34% 3 A Shopify blog cites a study indicating an average of 28.2% (20.9% low ~ 36.2% high) of e-commerce customers are repeat customers, therefore it is possible or likely that some of those 34% were in fact returning customers, and true incrementality is even lower. Adjusting for the ~28% Shopify repeat customer rate, this figure could be as low as 25%.",
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      "text": "Sales Are Only ~25-35% Incremental, but APP's CEO Claims it's ~100%",
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