The Rewarded UA Handbook

The handbook presents rewarded user acquisition (UA) as a mature, mainstream channel now accounting for roughly 31 % of the marketing mix in studios that use it—comparable to Meta spend. A 2025–2026 survey of 912 UA professionals across ten tier‑1 markets, supplemented by data from over 1,200 live advertisers on Freecash, shows that 93 % of studios already allocate budget to rewarded video, up from 77 % a year earlier, and 61 % plan to increase spend in 2026. The report argues that rewarded video is less a performance channel and more a loyalty mechanism, extending rewards beyond the typical D30 window to D60, D90 or even D180, which correlates with higher long‑term retention and incremental revenue.

Key performance insights include the importance of multi‑event optimization—campaigns targeting three or more distinct in‑app events outperform single‑event campaigns—and a minimum daily spend threshold of $3,000 per campaign to achieve statistically robust A/B testing. The handbook also highlights a shift in the broader app economy: non‑gaming apps surpassed games in IAP revenue for 2025, with fintech and iGaming leading the adoption of gamified retention mechanisms that align closely with rewarded video objectives.

Methodologically, the study relies on a mixed‑methods approach: quantitative survey data from industry professionals and qualitative case studies from Freecash advertisers. The authors caution that the whitepaper’s vendor affiliation may bias success stories, yet they maintain that the strategic playbook and benchmark data remain actionable for studios seeking to optimize rewarded UA.