UNITY ADS ⟶ GUIDE

TH E GU I DE TO
MOBILE GAME
M O N E T I Z AT I O N
S T R AT E G I E S
A step-by-step guide on how to monetize your players
 W H AT ’ S I N S I D E
How do you ensure that the game you are
developing is going to find its audience and be a
success?

With Unity, developers can create, operate, and

monetize their games with solutions that support
game development lifecycle from end-to-end,
including the crucial steps of monetizing and
engaging those players.

We put together this guide to detail all of the

tactics you can use to help grow your game.

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 CO N T E N TS
Best monetization practices 4

Metrics and KPIs to evaluate 9

5 organic tips for player engagement 13

Key takeaways 15

Additional resources 16

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 T M O N E T I Z AT I O N P R AC T I C E S → B E S T M O N E T I Z AT I O N P R AC T I C E S → B E S T M O N E T I Z AT I O N P R AC T I C E S → B E S T
B E S T M O N E T I Z AT I O N
PR ACTICES
Success for a game is more than just a big launch – it’s about stability. This means figuring out a way to
monetize your game.

Keep the following best practices in mind:

→ Incorporate ads seamlessly into your game to enhance the player experience and not hinder it.

→ Offer valuable and relevant things to your players balanced for where they are in the game.

→ Think long term and optimize for lifetime value of your players.

The type of game you are making will likely determine which monetization strategy you start with. As it
is the most prevalent format, this guide will focus on strategies for free-to-play games.

Let’s take a look.

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 I N -A P P A DV E RT I S I N G
(IAA)
The way IAA works is that, as a game creator, you can create different ad
“placements” within your game, such as between levels, at the bottom of the
screen, or when the game first loads.

Once you have identified these placements, often called “surface points”,
advertisers bid to get their ads in the spots you have allocated.

You can use many different formats of advertising, like:

BANNER ADS R E WA R D E D V I D E O S
One of the longest-serving mobile These are video ads in game that
game advertising forms, banner ads reward players for watching. What
place static or animated image ads rewards would players value most?
above or around a game. Is it an extra life or a crossword
clue? Whatever it is, use it to your
advantage.

INTERSTITIAL ADS O F F E R WA L L
An ad that appears during gameplay Lists multiple “offers” that users can
at a predetermined break. These complete in exchange for in-app
ads typically appear during natural currency.
break points during gameplay such as
between levels or activities.

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 It’s best to evaluate which of these
formats might fit into your game. For
example, you can use banners inside each
level, offer a reward (like an extra life) for
watching a video if a player is running
out of lives, and show an interstitial ad
between levels. Follow industry best
practices to ensure you won’t disrupt the
player experience.

W H AT S H O U L D YO U R A D F O R M AT M I X LO O K L I K E ?

Average weekly revenue for single vs. multiple ad formats implemented

Single ad format Double ad format

$8,000

$6,000
Weekly revenue (USD)

$4,000

$2,000

$0
Card
Board

Role-playing

Simulation

Word
Action

Adventure

Arcade

Racing
Hypercasual

Sports
Casual
Casino

Strategy
Puzzle

Trivia

Game genre

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IN-APP
P U R C H A S E S ( I A PS)
IAPs allow you to offer your players additional content and
features like extra lives, digital goods, and virtual currency,
directly within your app for a fee.

There are two main types of in-app purchases:

→ Consumable: Consumables are something that

a player “consumes” once and then needs to
repurchase, like an extra life or health.

→ Non-consumable: Non-consumables are things that

aren’t consumed by the player, but give them more
value, like removing ads, unlocking levels, or vanity
items such as skins.

Despite IAP revenue growth, only a small percentage of your

players will make in-app purchases.

According to the Unity Mobile Insights Report*, a maximum of

1.8% of daily active users (DAU) make purchases.
IN 2021,
REVENUE
Ad revenue growth IAP revenue Total revenue growth
FROM ADS
GREW
ALMOST 30%,
WITH IN-APP
YoY growth

PURCHASES
GROWING
+3 1 .9 % YOY
0% 10% 20% 30% 40%
Source: Unity Gaming Report, 2022

*Source: Mobile Insights 2022: Growth and Monetization Report, page 28

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 D E T E R M I N E W H AT
WORKS FOR
YO U R G A M E A N D
P L AY E R S
If your game is more hypercasual (like an arcade game or
word game) then in-app advertising (IAA) is generally the
primary monetization model used.

If your game is more strategy-based (like a roleplaying

game or action) then in-app purchases (IAPs) such as
better weapons or advanced levels make more sense and
can even enhance gameplay. Depending on your genre,
certain ad units are better than others.

Source: Mobile Insights 2022: Growth and Monetization Report, page 27

IAA vs. IAP revenue per genre

IAA revenue percentage IAP revenue percentage

Action 23.41% 76.59%

Adventure 24.30% 75.70%

Arcade 67.10% 32.90%

Board 69.73% 30.27%

Card 46.48% 53.52%

Casino 23.81% 76.19%

Casual 36.71% 63.29%

Game genre

Hypercasual 94.09% 5.91%

Puzzle 25.18% 74.82%

Racing 26.64% 73.36%

Role-playing 19.06% 80.94%

Simulation 34.72% 65.28%

Sports 56.43% 43.57%

Strategy 29.42% 70.58%

Trivia 59.48% 40.52%

Word 80.16% 19.84%

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

Percentage

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 RICS AND KPIS → METRICS AND KPIS → METRICS AND KPIS → METRICS AND KPIS → METRICS AND KPIS → MET
METRICS
AND KPIS TO
E VA L U AT E
The best way to think about your success is to be as data driven as possible. So
how do you know which metrics and KPIs to track?

LONG TERM METRICS

REVENUE MEASUREMENT
How much are people spending in your game, and how can you better optimize
your revenue? There are typically two main ways to look at revenue metrics that
can help you determine long term success.

Average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU):

ARPDAU is a staple metric that helps tell the overall monetization health of your
game for IAA, IAPs, or both by looking at the daily ad revenue per daily active
user. If you look at your ARPDAU over time, you can see the impacts that any
monetization changes might have made and can optimize based on what’s
working.

Lifetime value (LTV):

Shows the total days a player spends in a game, multiplied by ARPDAU. For
example, if a player on average stayed for 10 days and active users spent an
average of 50 cents per day, their LTV was $5. LTV is important because it can
help project how much revenue an average player could generate over their
entire time they play your game.

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 4 T I P S F O R I N C R E A S I N G A R P DAU A N D LT V

T RY D I F F E R E N T A D TEST DIFFERENT
F O R M AT S A N D P R I C E TA RG E T S A N D
PL ACEMENTS G E O LO C AT I O N S
See which ones convert the most for Test various segmentations of
you. If you can increase the amount prices and geolocations to see how
of times people click on the ad or how differentiated players interact with
many times a video is watched, it will your monetization.
increase your overall revenue.

OPTIMIZE DIVERSIFY DEMAND

R E WA R D E D V I D E O SOURCES
Offering a valuable reward to your The more networks you allow to
players that can help them progress bid for your ad space through a
or level-up in your game can be really mediation solution will lead to higher
beneficial for your player. bids or demand from advertisers. It’s
important to use a mediation partner
who consolidates many of these
sources to reduce the time and effort
you spend while maximizing your
exposure to advertisers.

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 A DS I M P ROV E
USER RETENTION RETENTION
The second example is user retention. Are people returning Without ads With ads
to play your game? To really understand what’s working
and what’s not, you can group players by cohorts based on
time frames such as day 1 retention, day 3, day 7, day 30, D1
and so on – to be able to spot patterns within those time
frames.

Some of the retention metrics to measure are: 26.3%

22.98%
→ Daily active users (DAUs): Number of users active
on your app within a day (new plus returning users)

→ Weekly active users (WAUs): Number of users using

your app within a week
D7
→ Monthly active users (MAUs): Number of users on
your app within a month

8.27%
6.64%

D30

3.42%
2.88%

SHORT TERM
METRICS
TAC T I C A L A D K P I S
You’ll also want to monitor the performance of your ads on a
more daily basis to help drive efficiency.

Some metrics to measure are:

→ Fill rates: Ad fill rate is a metric that helps measure ad

network performance. This represents all the times your
ad was served out of all ad requests to an ad server.

→ Impressions: The number of times a player saw your ad.

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 4 T I P S TO E N H A N C E YO U R OV E R A L L
M O N E T I Z AT I O N S T R AT E GY

U N D E R S TA N D YO U R BALANCE IAA AND

P L AY E R S IAPS
The more details you have about As we mentioned earlier, since a
who your player base is, the higher small number of players make in-app
the bids you’ll be able to attract from purchases, running in-app ads in
advertisers. Using Unity Analytics, parallel can help drive revenue. This
you can analyze your players, find will ensure that over the long term,
patterns in behavior, and see where you grow your revenue and player
the opportunities are to monetize base concurrently.
them intelligently.

FOCUS ON LIFETIME TEST AND OPTIMIZE

VA L U E A N D Make sure you are constantly testing
RETENTION to see how players respond. Player
behavior and the ad landscape is
It’s important to keep your players
constantly changing, so make sure
active in your game to ensure they
you’re constantly evolving to best suit
are staying engaged and returning to
your player’s needs.
play. If done correctly, showing ads
helps improve player retention.

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 ANIC TIPS → ORGANIC TIPS → ORGANIC TIPS → ORGANIC TIPS → ORGANIC TIPS → ORGANIC TIPS → ORGANIC
5 ORGANIC
TIPS FOR
INCREASING
P L AY E R
ENGAGEMENT
Now that we know the top monetization strategies and metrics, let’s take a look
at how you can organically keep your players engaged.

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1 . R E WA R D P L AY E R S E A R LY O N
You want your players to feel like they’ve accomplished something, and
celebrating small wins is a powerful way to get players thinking about coming
back. Many games offer daily rewards to incentivize players to come back each
day. Try giving out many small rewards instead of one big reward as this creates
a frequent feedback loop, habituating players to coming back.

2 . A S K YO U R P L AY E R S
The key to increasing retention is to know your players, understand their
preferences, and their playing habits. While analytics will help, you can also
simply ask your players what they like or don’t like. You can create an exclusive
group, like an “advisory council” or “beta program” for players of yours to opt in
to giving you feedback. You would be surprised at how willing people are to tell
you what they think if you just ask them.

3. PERSONALIZE THE EXPERIENCE

Use data to personalize the game experience as much as you can. This is
especially important during those moments of the game crucial for retention,
like the onboarding experience. Try understanding what your players are
working towards in your game to help incentivize them to advance their
progression.

4 . G E T T O T H E G A M E P L AY F A S T
You have only one chance to make a first impression. Make sure your game
loads quickly and the sign-up process is quick and easy. Ask yourself: Do
players really need this information? Do they need it at this stage? Can players
play my game offline? How quickly can I get people to the first level? You can
A/B test several elements to find what gets people playing as quickly and
effortlessly as possible.

5 . G I V E P L AY E R S A S E N S E O F P R O G R E S S
Give players a sense of progress, and they’ll be more likely to want to finish.
Using visual cues like progress bars, milestones, and other indicators can
encourage players to stay.

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K E AWAY S → K E Y TA K E AWAY S → K E Y TA K E AWAY S → K E Y TA K E AWAY S → K E Y TA K E AWAY S → K E Y TA K E AWAY S

K E Y T A K E A W AY S
Creating, operating, and monetizing a game isn’t easy, but with these ideas for
providing valuable player experiences while monetizing your base, you’re well on
your way to building a successful mobile game business. Remember these five
guiding principles.

H AV E A N BE AUTHENTIC AND
E X P E R I M E N TA L T R A N S PA R E N T
MINDSET
The entire process of growing your When thinking about monetization
game successfully revolves around activities, it can be easy to try and
having an experimental mindset. game the system in your favor. Take
Come up with a hypothesis and the time to put in the work, and
validate it through tests. Eventually, whenever you’re communicating
through tweaking, you’ll find what with your players, make sure to be
works for you and your players. authentic and transparent.

U S E DATA TO T R E AT Y O U R P L AY E R S
CO N S TA N T LY WELL
OPTIMIZE
Data is your friend. It will help you Personalize the experience for
validate your assumptions, find them, be mindful of their time, and
patterns, and spot what needs to be do everything for them to have as
tweaked. Developing a mobile game good of an experience with your
isn’t something you set and forget. game as possible.
It’s something that you continuously
improve over time through tests.

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 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

GROW AND
MONETIZE
YO U R G A M E
Unity Ads gives you the tools to help drive your revenue
and retention growth goals. Whether you’re a game creator,
advertiser, or both, you can get the expertise needed to
support your monetization strategy.

Learn more

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 ABOUT UNITY
Unity (NYSE: U) is the world’s leading platform for creating and
operating real-time 3D (RT3D) content. Creators, ranging from
game developers to artists, architects, automotive designers,
filmmakers, and others, use Unity to make their imaginations
come to life. Unity’s platform provides a comprehensive set
of software solutions to create, run and monetize interactive,
real-time 2D and 3D content for mobile phones, tablets, PCs,
consoles, and augmented and virtual reality devices.

For more information, please visit unity.com

A B O U T T H E DATA
The data in this guide is drawn from the Unity Gaming
Services portfolio of products, and specifically games that use
monetization and user acquisition services. It leverages original
data from 28B+ ads served each month, 168M average users
reached each day, and 235M+ average monthly installs. It
also looks at 46M+ average monthly in-app purchases (IAPs)
enabled by Unity.

We take data privacy seriously and have omitted and

anonymized information from this report that would individually
identify any single game, developer, or game creator. Games
are broken out into publicly available categories as defined
on the iOS and Google Play stores where available. The data
shown in the charts and graphics are original to Unity.

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unity.com