Why the Best UA Teams Spend More Time Saying “No” Than Scaling Campaigns
For years, User Acquisition revolved around one question: How fast can we scale? Bigger budgets. More geographies. More creatives. More installs. Growth meant doing more. But in 2026, the best UA teams are asking a different question: What deserves to be scaled at all? The highest-performing teams aren’t growing faster because they’re more aggressive. They’re […]
The FIFA Effect: How We Helped an iGaming Client Turn Peak Demand Into Growth
Every major tournament creates the same paradox for iGaming marketers. Demand goes up. Intent goes up. New audiences show up ready to bet for the first time in their lives. And yet, for most brands, efficiency goes down. CPMs spike. Auctions get crowded. Every competitor is bidding for the same eyeballs during the same 90 […]
First-Party Data in UA — What It Actually Means Beyond the Buzzword
First-party data has become one of the biggest buzzwords in UA. Every conference panel mentions it. Every vendor deck has a slide on it. Every platform claims to help you “unlock” it. And most teams are still responding the same way: “Yeah, we collect it.” “Yeah, we use it for retargeting.” “Yeah, we’re compliant.” That’s […]
The New Era of Measurement: MMM, MTA & Incrementality Together
The Problem Isn’t Data. It’s What You’re Measuring It With. Most UA teams don’t have a data problem. They have a measurement problem. Their dashboards are full of data — CPIs, ROAS, channel-level ARPU, MMP attribution reports, retention metrics, and cohort analyses. The problem is they’re trying to measure a multi-touchpoint, cross-device, privacy-constrained reality through […]
The Incrementality Gap: When Performance Campaigns Replace Organic Growth
Blended ROAS looks strong. Paid installs are scaling. But is total growth actually increasing? In 2026, the question isn’t efficiency — it’s incrementality. In 2026, performance marketing isn’t just about scale. It’s about net growth. Across the industry, the same pattern keeps repeating: Paid installs increase Total installs remain flat Organic contribution quietly declines Blended […]
Incrementality vs Cannibalisation: Are Your UA Campaigns Really Driving Growth?
Because not every install is actually a win. User Acquisition (UA) today is faster, smarter, and more automated than ever. Dashboards show installs, ROAS, CPA, and conversions in real time. But one question often goes unasked: Is your growth truly new, or are you simply moving the same users from one channel to another? This […]
The Measurement Problem Nobody in UA Wants to Talk About
There’s a number on your dashboard right now that your team trusts. Maybe it’s ROAS. Maybe D7 retention by channel. Maybe CAC. Maybe your blended payback period. Budgets move because of that number. Campaigns get scaled because of it. Teams defend strategy with it. But here’s the uncomfortable question: How much of that number do […]
From media buying to growth engineering: the evolution of user acquisition
The playbook that built the mobile app industry no longer works. And most teams haven’t noticed yet. There was a time when user acquisition was simple. You found your audience on Facebook, set a target CPI, watched the installs roll in, and called it a day. Media buying was an art—part intuition, part spreadsheet—and the […]
Gaming UA in 2026: IAP vs. IAA—And Why the Line Between Them Is Disappearing
If you’re running UA for a mobile game in 2026 and you’re still thinking in clean buckets — “we’re an IAP game” or “we’re an IAA game” — you’re already operating on last year’s playbook. The market has moved. The data is clear. And the strategies that worked in 2023 are actively working against you […]
The AppLovin Problem: What Happens When One Platform Dominates Your Entire UA Stack
There’s a version of this that sounds like a win. CPIs down. ROAS up. The algorithm is doing its thing. Your team has breathing room. You found a platform that works, scaled hard, and now it’s running the show. Then one quarter, something shifts. CPIs spike. Performance softens. The algo stops behaving the way it […]
