11 tips for Killer UA operations (Q3 2025)
Simple, practical & efficient. That’s it, no bullshit & brutally honest!
Here we go again! The previous UA killer articles were super successful, so I started writing a UA killer tips segment. I will keep sharing these tips; don’t worry.
Keep reading the tips to improve your UA. They are simple, practical, and efficient! That’s it, no bullshit and brutally honest! No fluff intro, straight to the point.
1. Peers talk about the number of UA channels
Respondents are spread across 5–11 UA channels, with a small group using over 20. Budget allocation is shifting to what performs: Google dominates Android, while Meta and Applovin share iOS leadership.
Platform Spend & Channel Dominance
iOS Spend Breakdown:
Meta: 35.5%
Applovin: 27.4%
Google: 11.3%
TikTok: 11.3%
Apple Search Ads: 3.2%
Unity/Other: 11.3%
Android Spend Breakdown:
Google: 67.7%
Applovin: 14.5%
Meta: 11.3%
Others: 6.5%
Full report below:
2. Applovin best practices?
When it comes to attribution windows on AppLovin, it's not just about how long you track users. Each window targets a different type of player.
D0 campaigns are best suited for short-term monetizers and games with fast payback.
D7 campaigns offer more stability, capturing users with better retention and mid-range value.
D28 campaigns go after long-lifetime, high-value players who tend to deliver the strongest return.
As Alexis put it, “You’ll see D0 campaigns with ROAS half or even a third of what D28 delivers. But over time, D28 wins big.”
These windows work best when run together, helping advertisers capture a broad spectrum of user behaviors and LTV profiles.
To optimize AppLovin campaigns effectively, start by matching your ROAS goals to the right attribution window. Be patient.
D28 campaigns need at least 10 to 14 days to calibrate, while D7 campaigns typically stabilize in 3 to 5 days.
Avoid changing goals too often, especially for longer windows.
If a campaign stops spending, lower the ROAS target drastically to restart delivery, then increase it slowly in 10 to 15 percent steps every few days.
Budget is another critical factor. For IAP-focused games, low spend will not work. You need at least $500 per day to give the algorithm enough data.
Also, tailor your ROAS goals by geo and campaign type. A universal goal across all markets and formats is a common mistake. The best results come from setting goals that reflect the value of each user group.
3. Everything is a 4X (UA funnel)
Everyone’s hunting for the lowest possible CPI, pulling every trick in the book to get there.
The latest Two and a Half Gamers episode dives right in, so let’s break it down:
Social casino games dressed up as idle games.
No casino hints in the app store.
Ad creatives blend right in with the crowd, no obvious social casino vibes.
What’s the secret?
It’s all in the onboarding.
Players start with a “fake” idle or sim experience, nowhere near the real core gameplay.
Other examples:
Idle + social casino.
Idle + 4X.
Idle vs simulation.
Match3 + “fake” levels.
Onboarding has become the new creative cheat code.
So, what’s your secret sauce?
4. Diversification on the creative side
It’s a real thing.
6-layer creative system (UGC, meme, classic gameplay, Ugly Ads, Altered gameplay, playable).
Today, I want to talk about playables. You have to diversify the length and number of clicks.
Check the latest podcast around Screw Master 3D:
As you heard, you have to have:
short playables: 1-3 clicks playables
3-5 clicks playables
5+ clicks playables
Different playables bring different types of users. Think about it!
5. Creative iteration
How do you approach creative iteration, and what's the ideal balance between new concepts and iterative development?
The optimal ratio varies depending on the game's lifecycle stage. In the early phases, prioritize innovation: approximately 80% new concepts and 20% iterative improvements.
However, even during iterations, stick to the golden rule. Limit yourself to a maximum of three iterations. If no significant improvement emerges after three attempts, it's time to move on.
As the game matures, shift your strategy towards a balanced approach—around a 50-50 split between new ideas and iterations. By this stage, you've typically gathered substantial insights into your audience's preferences and behaviors, gaining a clear understanding of what resonates with them.
Double down on these insights on successful concepts through thoughtful iteration.
Eventually, at a more advanced stage (which varies significantly from game to game) the strategy shifts toward a heavy emphasis on iteration. Allocate roughly 80% of your resources to iterative improvements and 20% to new concepts. Keep that cheeky 20% reserved for bold, daring ideas. Yep, those "might-break-brand-guidelines" ideas.
Because if you're not pushing boundaries, you're probably just playing it too safe.
6. A deep dive across recent 1:1 interviews
Marketers reveal consistent pressure points in User Acquisition (UA), Monetization, Platform Strategy, and Creative Execution. Despite different game genres and team sizes, recurring themes emerged:
Rising CPIs (no shiiiiiiiiiiit)
Creative fatigue
Monetization model fragility
Channel dependence
Here’s a consolidated view of the current pain points and, more importantly, what you can do about them.
User Acquisition: CPI Crisis & Channel Saturation
Challenges Identified:
CPIs rising across the board
Over-reliance on AppLovin, Facebook, or Google
Self-publishers with small budgets are struggling to validate games without high CPIs.
TikTok conversion tracking is still limited, but the creative opportunity is strong.
Opportunities:
TikTok Creator Challenges to generate low-cost, authentic content at scale.
You can replicate on other channels with AI
Diversify spend across 3–5 networks
Creative Strategy & speed is key
Challenges Identified:
Creative fatigue is a top UA killer.
Lack of narrative or gameplay-led ads is driving poor IPM.
Store assets don’t align with ads, hurting CVR.
Opportunities:
Storytelling formats (e.g., "Save Her" hooks) and gameplay-first videos outperform.
AI tools and UGC content scale output cheaply and fast.
Consistent A/B testing of ad angles, art style, and CTA messaging improves results.
Recommended Next Steps:
Build a creative calendar with 5–10 new variations per month
Test both static and video with performance hooks and narratives
Align store visuals with ad themes (iOS Custom Product Pages, Play Experiments)
Use AI tools or/and the TikTok Creator Marketplace to scale UGC content
7. Global launching like a boss
Launching a mobile game globally is a high-stakes endeavor, but with the right UA strategy it can yield tremendous growth. Success relies on: careful planning (soft launches and data-driven iteration), diversified acquisition channels (don’t rely on one source; expand to where your audience lives online).
Always keep a pulse on your core KPIs – if retention or ROAS targets aren’t met, be ready to pause and polish the product or pivot marketing tactics. Remember that genre matters: tailor your approach to the player profile and LTV economics of your game’s category, whether that means chasing volume for a casual title or high-value users for a mid-core game.
Finally, here are five actionable recommendations for your global launch:
Nail the Soft Launch. (I know a few things about soft-launching games)
Diversify but Focus: Embrace a mix of UA channels– but focus spend on top performers. Kill underperforming channels quickly and reallocate to those hitting your CPI/ROAS goals.
Invest in Creatives: Make creatives a central pillar of your strategy. Plan for a steady pipeline of new ads (statics, video, playable, etc.)
Good creatives will improve both CPI and retention (by attracting the right players).
Monitor KPIs & Adapt: Set concrete KPI targets (CPI, retention, ROAS) and watch them like a hawk. If Day 7 retention or ROAS is below expectations in a certain region or channel, investigate why and adapt – whether that means tweaking the game, changing targeting, or pausing spend. Let data guide your decisions.
Scale with Your Budget in Mind: For a $100K budget, be scrappy and precise – concentrate on the highest ROI tactics. For $500K, use a balanced multi-channel approach and layer in influencers and community. For $1M, go big with a full-funnel campaign (awareness to conversion) but remain ROI-conscious. Always match your spend to your game’s monetization capacity – as one expert put it, “You can only scale your budget until the LTV allows you to do so”
By following these strategies and tailoring them to your game’s genre and budget, you can maximize your chances of a successful worldwide launch. In doing so, you’ll not only acquire volumes of players but the right players who stick around, generate revenue, and become advocates for your game – the ultimate recipe to save the studio and set your title up for long-term global success.
If you need a detailed global launch strategy, hit me up!
Remember, you are not Supercell. You can’t hand out flyers and get away with it. Even they didn’t. But only thanks to their creator program.
8. When to Scale a Mobile Game?
1. Analyze Soft Launch Performance (again, super important as mentioned above)
Before scaling, a game must pass a soft launch and ideally some time after global launch. This phase serves as a litmus test for:
Cohort Profitability: Tracking how different cohorts of players perform in terms of lifetime value (LTV).
Retention Metrics: This includes Day 1, Day 7, and Day 30 retention rates. Successful scaling typically requires a minimum of 10-15% retention after Day 30.
Monetization Consistency: Ensure that in-app purchases (IAP) and ad revenues are consistent and can be predicted over time.
2. Confirm Cohort Consistency
While early cohorts may perform well, consistency is key. The game must maintain solid performance across multiple cohorts rather than relying on a single high-performing group. This is crucial because a single cohort success does not guarantee future profitability when scaling.
3. Track Marketing Efficiency
The efficiency of user acquisition efforts is a critical consideration before scaling. Track metrics such as:
Cost Per Install (CPI): Evaluate if the CPI is sustainable as user acquisition scales.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Look for a positive net ROAS over multiple cohorts and ensure that the ROAS is sustainable at higher spend levels.
4. Financial Readiness
Scaling a game demands significant financial resources. Game developers must ensure that they have enough cash flow to support the scaling phase without jeopardizing other areas of the business, such as product development or operational costs. In cases where internal resources are not sufficient, options like venture capital or cohort financing can be explored. Debt financing or cohort-based credit lines offer non-dilutive funding for scaling while aligning the lender's risk with the game’s success.
5. Establish Clear Metrics for Scaling
Develop a clear set of metrics that will guide scaling decisions:
Profitability Metrics: Achieve 100% net dX ROAS, which indicates that the game is paying back its marketing spend and delivering sustainable profit.
Scale Limits: Understand each channel's limitations and adjust spending accordingly. For example, some channels may have diminishing returns after reaching a specific spending threshold.
All of this is from my recent talk at Appfest in Barcelona!
6. Testing and Creative Refreshment
Scaling requires constant testing, especially on the creative side. Marketers should not rely on one "hero" creative. Instead, continuously test new creative concepts to maintain performance across various channels.
7. Predictive Models and Forecasting
Use predictive models based on cohort data and historical performance trends to forecast future performance. Predicting the terminal ROAS (the point where user cohorts will no longer generate a positive return) can help marketers and developers make informed scaling decisions.
9. Creative output is skyrocketing
To no one’s surprise, the volume of ads keeps growing. As mentioned in the Creative report by Appsflyer.
If you think cranking out thousands of creatives is enough to win in 2025, you are right. The latest State of Creative Optimization 2025 by AppsFlyer report makes one thing clear – churning out more ads won't save you if they all feel the same. The mobile marketing winners are those who mix it up, test new angles, and truly.
Non-gaming apps spending $7M+ per quarter now produce an average of 2,365 creative variations each quarter – an 18% year-over-year increase. Interestingly, that growth rate is 80% faster than gaming apps of a similar scale.
Yes, even though gaming giants still crank out more total creatives – about 2,743 per quarter on average – non-gaming marketers are rapidly catching up.
This reflects a fundamental difference in approach: big gaming studios often double down on a few proven ads for quick impact, while non-gaming advertisers tend to test more broadly, iterating on creatives to sustain engagement.
The result? Everyone is creating more ads, but the ones that will win in 2025 are those that experiment with different concepts and niche messaging, alongside volume.
In Q1 2025, the top 2% of ad creatives (the big “winners”) still pulled in about half of total ad spend. In gaming apps, the top 2% of creatives drove 53% of spend, whereas in non-gaming apps, it was 43%.
That 10-point gap hints at a shift: non-gaming marketers are relying a bit less on one-hit wonders and spreading their budgets across more ads. In fact, both gaming and non-gaming saw a ~3-4% drop in top-creatives’ share since last year, signaling a move toward broader creative distribution.
Creative is key! Pay attention. Discuss the testing methodology and ideation with your team.
10. AI = Creative at Scale
Gone are the days when a design team could only make a handful of ads a week. Now, with AI-powered creative generation, marketers can quickly and easily produce a high volume of ad variations. Need 100 different ad concepts by tomorrow? Give an AI some prompts, and you might have it. Allowing even small teams to play the multivariate testing game that was previously reserved for large budgets.
We’re in a “relentless numbers game” where you may need to sift through hundreds of options to find a winner. AI is the enabler that makes that feasible. (I’ll admit, as a marketer, tools like Midjourney, Gemini, Claude, GPT-5 + dozens of others have become my handy sidekicks – cranking out ideas, copy variants, visuals – you name it.)
With all these AI tools, you might think the creative director’s role is diminishing. The opposite is true.
AI doesn’t replace creativity – it enhances it. AI can serve up suggestions or even full ads on a platter, but deciding what emotion to tap, what story to tell, and how to connect it to your brand is a profoundly human endeavor. AI is great at optimization and iteration; humans are great at inspiration and big-picture narrative.
The best outcomes in 2025 come from a symbiosis: AI generates and analyzes, human marketers strategize and empathize. In my own work, I’ve found that AI often surfaces non-intuitive insights (like “hey, who knew fear of missing out was such a strong driver for this segment?”) and then I get to craft a creative concept around that insight. It’s a team effort – the silicon brain and the human heart.
11. Automation in UA
The role of automation and AI in user acquisition is expanding. No shit Sherlock.
My recent AMA discussions revealed how UA teams are adopting AI-driven tools to streamline campaign management.
UA toolkit could include AI services for competitor research, automated ad script writing, video creative generation, and even automatic ad uploading via API integrations.
There is a vision of creating an “AI agent” team to handle many tasks traditionally done by UA managers – from analyzing competitors and calculating predictive LTV, to drafting creative briefs – thereby augmenting or even partially replacing the manual work of a UA team.
Why do it manually when you can use AI to do it for you?
Embracing these AI and machine learning tools can lead to efficiency gains, faster creative iteration, and more data-driven optimizations. The consensus was that UA managers should leverage automation for repetitive tasks (like bulk campaign setups or bid adjustments) so they can focus more on strategy and creative strategy.
Incorporate AI-driven tools into your UA workflow to save time and improve decision-making.
In fact, I am utilizing a suite of AI tools (Veo3, Midjourney, Kling AI, Sora, Runway, etc.) to automate various tasks, from researching competitor ads to creating videos and uploading them via API (still WIP, but almost ready).
Please do me a favor and share this with someone in your network who you think would benefit from the insights and brutal honesty. It would mean a lot to me!
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