11 tips for Killer UA operations (Q2 2025)

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. When should we start Applovin as a channel?

I often get the following questions: When should we start? Is it a good channel? Are we ready?

First, we must ensure that our in-app purchase volume is strong enough for the algorithm to optimize effectively. We aim for at least 10–15 unique purchases per day. We can do a quick math exercise to determine if we’re ready using our D7 cost per purchase (CPPD7).

For example, if our CPPD7 is $800, then multiplying that by 10 tells us we need a $8,000 daily budget to kick things off. If our CPPD7 is lower, say $150, then around $1,500 per day is what we’d need. This calculation helps us determine whether our current spending can support a successful campaign.

More importantly, we must assess our creative depth. Even if our budget is in place, our campaign will only succeed if we have enough creative concepts to keep the content fresh. We should be prepared to refresh our creatives weekly or bi-weekly.

Although we might get by with 2–3 playables, we should ideally have at least 5 different video creatives ready to go, and these should be pre-tested on other channels to give us the best possible headstart.

In short, we should only start on Applovin once we meet both our budget requirements (based on our CPPD7 and desired daily spend) and our creative assets are robust enough to support ongoing testing and optimization. launch?

So, are you ready to launch?

Also, if you are on MAX mediation, you don’t ask any of the questions above. You launch “yesterday!”

2. People often ask how to get low CPIs in any ad platform

Finding a low CPI is like trying to catch a Legendary Pokémon in the wild; it requires strategy, patience, and a sprinkle of luck! Here are the keys to help you snag those installs without emptying your wallet:

1. Targeting: Get those audiences dialed in! Use customer segmentation and target specific demographics to reach users more likely to install your app, like finding the right squad for your Fortnite team!
2. Creative Assets: the magic of eye-catching ad creatives! Test different visuals, ad formats, and messages like you’re trying to figure out which combo works best in Smash Bros. Quality ads get more clicks, which ultimately leads to a lower CPI!
3. Platform Optimization: Each platform has its quirks. Make sure your campaigns are optimized for the specific ad network, whether it’s Facebook, Google, or even TikTok! Think of it like learning character moves, each one has a sweet spot!

All of this is only one side of the equation. I always say the CPI is only one KPI, which doesn’t say anything.

Retention Rate & LTV: Don’t forget about it! Users who stick around after installing can help improve your metrics. It’s like building a gaming guild; the stronger the members, the more likely you’ll dominate! Measuring retention rate on a creative level is crucial to understand if your FAKE ads work well or if players churn immediately.

Just FYI: Low CPIs don’t matter if you are getting shitty traffic.

3. Why Multi-Channel UA Matters?

Expanding your UA efforts across multiple channels is essential for comprehensively understanding your game’s KPIs. Especially early in development, this approach may require a higher budget, but it provides valuable data for benchmarking and optimization.

Running campaigns across various platforms allows for comparative analysis, helping identify which channels yield the best results and where improvements are needed.

Relying on a single channel can be risky due to algorithm changes or policy shifts. A multi-channel strategy mitigates this risk by diversifying your acquisition sources.

Remember to tailor your creatives to each platform’s specific audiences and formats, enhancing engagement and effectiveness.

You always want to benchmark a few different UA sources against each other.

4. UA & Creative strategies

This hierarchy highlights platform-specific strategies for user acquisition (UA) campaigns.

Key Breakdown:

• Facebook: Prioritizes vertical formats for Reels/Stories with flexible video lengths.
• Google: Favors longer videos (30+ seconds) in both orientations.
• TikTok: Short, hook-driven TTCC videos for quick engagement.
• Moloco: Mix of static and mid-length videos.
• Applovin: Combines videos with interactive playables.
• Mintegral: Short videos paired with playables.

5. How to define a target audience?

When thinking about your creatives, what is the most important thing you have to do? Play the f***ing game! Then the next most important thing is to know your target audience.

Define your target audience. Who are they? What makes them tick? This is like choosing the character class that your game appeals to.

Example: Tower Defense Strategy Game

1. Core Demographics

Age:

Primary: 18–35-year-olds, particularly strategy enthusiasts familiar with tower defense mechanics and mid-core mobile gamers 35.

Secondary: Younger players (13–17) drawn to fast-paced, visually engaging gameplay, though monetization barriers (e.g., expensive in-app purchases) may limit long-term retention in this group

Gender:

It is likely male-dominated (common in strategy/war-themed games). Female players may engage in cooperative modes (e.g., Facebook-linked base coordination)

Global reach: Strong presence in English-speaking countries (U.S., U.K.) and emerging markets (Brazil, India) with high mobile adoption.

2. Player Motivations & Behaviors

Strategy Enthusiasts:

Players who enjoy tactical planning, upgrading defenses, and unlocking weapons (e.g., autocannons, mammoth tanks) to counter escalating enemy waves

Likely to engage deeply with progression systems (e.g., ranking up via missions)

Competitive Mid-Core Gamers:

Focus on daily missions and achievements to optimize base productivity

Player Review sentiment analysis:
Frustration with pay-to-win (P2W) mechanics at higher levels (e.g., Level 37 requiring heavy spending) suggests a segment willing to spend but critical of unbalanced monetization

Dive into reviews often, you can find some interesting shit there.

Casual Players:

Drawn to short sessions (10–30 minutes) and simple touch controls. However, intrusive ads and paywalls for features like 1.5x speed may drive attrition

6. Skills of a UA manager in 2025

I have been thinking about the role of UA and how its evolving nowadays. A Senior User Acquisition (UA) game manager typically combines deep analytical capabilities with strategic marketing and leadership skills. They are responsible for planning, executing, and optimizing campaigns to drive high-quality players into a game at scale. Below are some of the core skills and competencies that are commonly expected of a senior UA manager:

1. Performance Marketing Expertise

• Ad Platform Proficiency
  In-depth knowledge of major advertising networks (Facebook, Google, TikTok, Unity Ads, AppLovin, etc.) and how to optimize for each platform’s specific audience, format, and bidding structure.
• Campaign Optimization
  Ability to run and iterate on campaigns daily, including bidding adjustments, targeting refinements, and creative rotations based on performance metrics.
• A/B & Multivariate Testing
  Designing, implementing, and analyzing experiments (e.g., new creatives, landing pages, geos, user segments) to improve conversion rates.

2. Data Analysis & Reporting

• Analytical Mindset
  Skilled at interpreting user data, engagement metrics, and key performance indicators (KPIs) such as CPI, ROAS, LTV, retention, and funnel conversion.
• Cohort Analysis & LTV Projections
  Ability to break down user behavior by cohort and forecast their potential lifetime value to ensure campaigns are profitable over the long term.
• Attribution & Tracking Tools
  Familiarity with mobile measurement partners (MMPs) like AppsFlyer, Adjust, or Singular; comfortable setting up event tracking and ensuring accurate attribution.
• Dashboarding & Reporting
  Proficiency in Excel, BI tools (Tableau, Looker, Power BI), or internal reporting platforms to convey insights clearly to stakeholders.

3. Strategic Planning & Budget Management

• Goal Setting & Prioritization
  Working with leadership to define user acquisition goals (e.g., target cost per install (CPI), cost per paying user, retention metrics) and prioritize channels and tactics.
• Resource Allocation
  Effective planning and distribution of multimillion-dollar budgets across geographies, channels, and creatives to maximize return on ad spend (ROAS).
• Market & Competitive Research
  Keeping a pulse on industry trends, competitor strategies, and emerging ad platforms to stay ahead of the curve.

4. Creative & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Creative Collaboration
  Partnering with designers, artists, and copywriters to brainstorm and test multiple creative variations (videos, banners, interactive ads) that resonate with target audiences.
• Creative production

  With the rise of AI, this becomes really important.

• ASO & Marketing Funnel Alignment
  Collaborating with product marketing teams on App Store Optimization (ASO) and ensuring that messaging in ads aligns with the store listings and user onboarding.
• Stakeholder Management
  Communicating UA results, challenges, and strategic shifts to product teams, executive leadership, and other non-marketing stakeholders.

5. Leadership & Team Management

• Mentorship & Coaching
  Leading and mentoring junior UA managers, analysts, or other team members, providing guidance on best practices and career development.
• Cross-Department Coordination
  Coordinating with product, analytics, data science, and finance teams to align on product roadmaps, budgets, and performance goals.
• Vendor & Partner Relationships
  Negotiating with ad tech vendors, agencies, and platform representatives to secure better deals, early access to beta features, or dedicated support.

6. Technical Familiarity

• Mobile Game Ecosystem
  Deep understanding of free-to-play (F2P) mechanics, monetization models (IAP, ads, subscriptions), and user behaviors.
• Analytics & Event Tracking
  Capable of defining in-game events (tutorial completion, level-ups, in-app purchases) to measure and drive player engagement.
• Scripting & Automation (Nice to Have)
  Some UA managers benefit from basic SQL or Python skills to automate data pulls or custom analyses.
  • I don’t really know how to code! But it’s a useful skill to have 🙂

7. Play (love) games

• You need to play games and ideally love gaming. Its really important!

Why These Skills Matter

A Senior UA Manager in the gaming industry is expected to drive both short-term and long-term results: maximizing installs and revenue while ensuring sustainability and profitability of marketing efforts. Their combination of data-driven analysis, creative collaboration, and strategic thinking is critical for today’s highly competitive and fast-paced mobile gaming market.

UA managers are not just media buyers anymore—they are integral players in shaping a game’s growth strategy, balancing the art of compelling creative with the science of data optimization to attract and retain valuable users.

7. Creative competencies for UA managers in 2025

In 2025, UA is undergoing a transformative shift with a pronounced emphasis on creative excellence. The convergence of storytelling and motion design will become pivotal in crafting compelling narratives that captivate audiences and drive engagement. And ROAS! DUH!

Key Competencies for UA Managers:

• Creative Brief Development: Articulating clear, concise, and inspiring creative briefs will be essential. These briefs serve as the foundation for campaigns, guiding the creative process to ensure alignment with strategic objectives.
• Storytelling Mastery: Crafting authentic and relatable narratives will be paramount. Story-first ads, which prioritize compelling stories over direct selling, are anticipated to dominate, fostering deeper emotional connections with audiences. This doesn’t mean you must have high production value AKA expensive videos.
• Motion Design: The ability to produce dynamic and engaging visual content will set professionals apart. You need to be able to build those creatives by yourself. Jesus Christ, AI is everywhere.
  • Nice to have: Advanced animations and visual storytelling can significantly elevate user experience, making motion design skills increasingly valuable.

As you know already, creative diversity and volume are pivotal in the evolving digital advertising landscape. Implementing a strategy that distributes many creative assets across multiple ad groups—ideally 5 to 8 creatives per group—facilitates effective experimentation and optimization. This approach enables advertising platforms to identify and prioritize the most effective creatives, enhancing campaign performance.

Regularly refreshing creative content is crucial, directly influencing an ad group’s longevity. Introducing new assets consistently—transitioning from a weekly update to 2 or 3 times per week on platforms like Facebook and TikTok—has proven beneficial. This practice prevents audience fatigue and maintains engagement, ensuring that campaigns remain dynamic and effective.

We are shifting towards creative quantity. Producing a higher volume of diverse creatives will likely become a key strategy, leveraging the power of variety to capture audience attention and drive campaign success.

To sum it up. The UA skill for 2025? Everything is around creatives. Right? Writing a creative brief, telling a story, and producing the creative by yourself is gonna be necessary. Storytelling + Motion design FTW!

PS: Storytelling is only one step away from … Prompt Engineering! and you know what that means for 2025.

8. Prompt Engineering

Experimenting with Runway prompts taught me how subtle changes can completely transform the outcome of a video. Here’s how I refined my process:

1. The Iteration Process

First Attempt:

The camera shakes wildly while zooming in. Not ideal, but it kickstarted experimentation.

Second Attempt :

Prompt: “The camera slowly pushes in on the bird looking at the egg and then on the machine in the background. The machine slowly rotates its arm.”

Result: Improved focus, but the random opener didn’t feel cohesive.

Final Version:

Prompt: “Subject sadly looks at the egg, machinery in the background slowly moves its arm.”

Added the MidJourney-generated image as the first frame to set the tone.

Focused prompts on subjects and actions, which dramatically improved consistency.

2. Prompt Refinement

Subjects Are Key: Use descriptive prompts like “subject sadly looks at egg” instead of generic descriptions.

Camera Movement Tips:

For dynamic movement: “The camera slowly pushes in” or “The camera pans to the side.”

For static elements: “The camera slowly pulls back” works beautifully to establish mood.

3. Trial and Error

Much like with MidJourney, small prompt tweaks—changing 1-2 words—can produce vastly different results. This unpredictability requires patience and iteration, but it’s worth it.

4. The Gamechanger

Adding the MidJourney image as the first frame sets the narrative foundation. Coupled with descriptive subject-based prompts, this approach tied visuals together cohesively, creating a polished final product.

9. Creative testing, anyone?

Creative testing has evolved beyond rigid benchmarks like acquiring a specific number of installs or impressions. My current approach emphasizes agility and precision to identify and scale effective creatives swiftly.

You don’t need 100 installs to evaluate creatives. Or 5000 impressions. Or whatever the “magic” number people try to aim for.

It doesn’t exist. After running campaigns, you get the read on your creative performance. You can clearly see which creative is going to be a winner and which is going to suck.

Only after spending a few USD/EUR can you evaluate the performance. Either your creative is picking up traffic immediately, or it is dead. There is no middle ground.

Also, adding creatives into your BAU (business as usual) campaigns doesn’t really break the campaign or restart the learning phase. It is actually boosts the performance.

More creatives, better performance.

Also: Have you seen the new showreel! YAAAY!

Creative quantity will win over quality

Success lies in embracing AI-generated UGC, AI-driven creatives, rewarded UA channels, and playables for driving engagement, slashing CPIs, and scaling effectively.

If there is one thing that is going to be super, super, super important in 2025, it’s this segment where I talk about:

Ugly Ads FTW

• Go lo-fi for greater authenticity (avoid polished videos) = shit works! There is already a movement to use ugly ads outside of the gaming industry.
• Feature people (creators, players, you, your wife, your dog, your kids… No, exclude kids)
• Leverage sound for extra impact (“TikTok” AI voice is a must!)

Creative Quantity & Diversity

• Running a large number of creative assets allows for better asset selection optimization. Spread your creatives across multiple ad groups, with 5-8 creatives per group. This helps you experiment and test while allowing the system to learn what works best for you.

• Creative refresh frequency is the #1 factor determining an ad group’s lifespan. Regularly refreshing and uploading new assets to your campaign works better than initially putting out too many creatives.
  • Once a week was usually my frequency, but I moved to 2 to 3 times per week on Facebook and TikTok.

Don’t fall behind—future-proof your UA strategy now!

11. When & how to add a new UA channel?

Look, testing new channels is always risky, but you can’t grow without taking risks. New channels will underperform at first. That’s normal. Expect 20–30% higher CPIs and lower ROAS initially. Your goal is to learn, not to profit immediately.

Kill Fast, Scale Faster:

• If a channel isn’t showing promising signals (e.g., decent ROAS, install volume, or retention) after 2–3 weeks, cut it. Don’t waste time or money. But if it works, double down aggressively.

When to Say It’s Enough and Move On?

This is where most people mess up. They either give up too soon or waste money chasing a dead end. Here’s my rule of thumb:

1. Set Clear KPIs:
   • Define what success looks like upfront. For example:
     • CPI within 20% of your target.
     • D1 retention above X%.
     • ROAS breakeven within Y days.
2. Give It Time, But Not Too Much:
   • If a channel isn’t hitting your KPIs after 3–4 weeks, it’s time to move on. Don’t fall for the sunk cost fallacy. Kill it and reinvest elsewhere.
3. Look for Trends, Not One-Off Wins:
   • A single day of good performance doesn’t mean much. Look for consistent trends over time. If the data isn’t improving, it’s probably not worth it.
4. Trust Your Gut (But Back It with Data):
   • Sometimes, you just know when something isn’t working. If the numbers are borderline but your gut says it’s a dead end, trust it. But always have the data to back up your decision.

UA diversification isn’t optional—it’s survival. But you can’t just throw money at new channels and hope for the best. Be strategic, test smart, and don’t be afraid to kill what doesn’t work. Remember, the goal is profitable growth, not just growth.

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!