How to choose the right UA strategy for your game

Welcome to the first article in the series on best practices for growing UA with Unity Ads. This article focuses on how to choose the right campaign type for your specific game.

Selecting the right campaign type for your game can significantly impact your performance. But with so many available options to choose from such as CPI, Retention, Event optimization, Creative testing, and ROAS, understanding which one is best suited for your game and your specific UA goals can be overwhelming. In this article, we’ll break down the various campaign types available in Unity Ads, provide insight into when you should use each, compare their tradeoffs, and help you determine which is most well suited to your targets based on their monetization model.

Breaking down Unity Ads campaigns

Unity Ads features four main campaign types:

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) optimization campaigns: A ROAS campaign goal allows you to optimize your campaigns toward a target revenue return – for example, a 4x ROAS goal means you're aiming to generate $4 in revenue for every $1 spent on ads.

The goal of these campaigns is to bring in users who are most likely to purchase In App Purchases (IAP) or watch ads in your game, generating monetization value. It uses dynamic bids to help acquire these users at the right price, which can help maximize your user acquisition ROI. If your KPI is ROAS and you’re looking to optimize towards better IAP / Ad monetization or both across different user cohort windows, this campaign type is ideal.

ROAS is always measured over a defined time window, which determines how long after install you're tracking revenue. Unity supports multiple optimization targets and windows for ROAS campaigns, including IAP ROAS (D7, D28), Hybrid ROAS (D7,D28) and Ad Revenue ROAS (D0,D7,D28).

CPI (Cost per Install ) campaigns: The goal of these campaigns is to maximize the number of installs.

Event optimization campaigns: These campaigns are geared toward players who are most likely to perform specific actions, whether they’re making purchases or completing levels. This campaign type currently supports three default events: Retention, Payer, and Level complete.

CPE Retention optimizes toward users predicted to remain active in the game on Day 7. CPE Payer targets players who are likely to make their first in-app purchase within 7 days. CPE Level Complete targets users who predicted to reach a specific level milestone

Creative testing campaigns: These campaigns help you identify your best-performing creatives by giving an even number of starts to each creative pack and seeing which delivers the highest conversions. If your goal is to learn which creatives drive the most conversions or installs, this campaign type is your best bet.

Best ROAS campaign types for your monetization model

If you choose ROAS campaigns, there are several optimization campaigns available on Unity Ads. They include:

In order to help maximize performance and diversify your user portfolio, Unity recommends running multiple ROAS campaigns in parallel.

So which campaign mix is best for your use case? The ideal solution will depend on your monetization model and your campaign’s goals. Here are our recommendations based on the monetization model you choose:

100% ads monetized: If your game is only monetized via in-game Ads, we recommend the mix of Ad D0, Ad D7, and Ad D28. This way, you can leverage the full Ad Revenue optimization window to help capture engaged ad-watchers across different cohorts.

100% IAP monetized: If your game monetizes purely based on IAP, your ideal mix is IAP D7 and IAP D28. This way, you can reach both early and longer cohort purchasers, while diversifying user segments and improving retention.

Hybrid – heavy IAP: If your game is designed with a hybrid monetization approach, but with heavier monetization share on IAP; you should run D7 Hybrid + D7 IAP + D28 Hybrid + D28 IAP campaigns. This combination helps you leverage the Hybrid ROAS and IAP combination, using both D7 and D28 optimization windows across both, to help capture their full LTV potential.

Hybrid – heavy ads: If your game is designed with a hybrid monetization approach, but with heavier monetization share on Ads monetization; you should employ D7 Hybrid + D7 Ad Revenue + D28 Hybrid + D28 Ad Revenue. This enables you to take full advantage of all Ad Revenue optimization windows across the D7 and D28 cohorts, so you can capture their full LTV potential.

Help maximize your campaign performance with Unity Ads

While UA strategy can seem daunting at first, the path forward becomes clearer when you identify your key metrics and understand which campaign types deliver against them. Get even more insights on how Unity Ads can help maximize UA, revenue, and performance.

Ready to try Unity Ads for yourself? Get started now!