Brutally Honest #107: UA in the Post IDFA World

This analysis explores current user acquisition (UA) strategies and market trends within the mobile gaming industry during the post-IDFA era. The primary focus is on optimizing creative volume and campaign management to maintain return on ad spend (ROAS) in a privacy-centric landscape. By examining specific campaign structures, the findings challenge standard platform recommendations, such as Facebook’s suggestion of maintaining 20 active ads per campaign. Instead, data-driven insights suggest that creative volume should be strictly proportional to daily spend. For instance, a $500 daily budget is best served by 4-5 live ads, while a $5,000 budget can support 12-14 ads. Effective management requires pausing creatives based on a combination of spend share, impressions per mille (IPM), and overall ROAS targets.

The scope of the analysis extends to specific genre trends, particularly the evolution of idle RPGs. A case study of AFK Journey highlights a shift toward high production values, seamless gameplay, and narrative-driven UA strategies. Unlike many competitors, this title avoids deceptive "fake ads" in favor of long-form, story-based content, streamer collaborations, and user-generated content (UGC) styles. This approach reflects a broader industry movement toward quality and transparency in marketing to engage more sophisticated audiences.

Geographically and chronologically, the insights are rooted in the 2024 mobile gaming market, drawing from industry events like the MAU conference. The methodology relies on professional experience in UA operations and qualitative reviews of successful market entries. Ultimately, the findings emphasize that success in the current environment requires a disciplined creative framework, the integration of AI in creative testing, and a move away from high-volume, low-context ad deployments in favor of strategic, budget-aligned campaign structures.