Case Studies & Stories
How We Achieved 3.8x ROAS for a Gaming App Through In-App Advertising
A mobile gaming client came to us spending $40K a month with diminishing returns. Here is how in-app campaigns turned it around.
One of our early clients was a mid-sized mobile gaming studio spending around $40,000 per month on user acquisition. They had been running campaigns through two other platforms and hitting a wall. CPI was climbing, retention was flat, and ROAS had dropped below 2x. They were ready to cut budget.
We asked them to give us 30 days.
The Setup
The client's game was a casual puzzle title with strong in-app purchase monetisation. Their previous campaigns were mostly display and social, driving installs but not the right kind of users. Lots of downloads, not many players who stuck around past day three.
We shifted the strategy entirely to in-app advertising. Instead of chasing cheap installs across the open web, we focused on reaching users inside other gaming apps where engagement signals were strongest.
What We Did
Our approach had three parts:
Audience modelling. We built lookalike segments based on the client's highest-LTV users, players who had made at least two purchases within 14 days. Our models scored in-app bid opportunities against this profile in real time.
Creative rotation. We ran six creative variants, three playable ads and three video interstitials, and let the platform auto-allocate budget toward the best performers. Within the first week, two creatives were driving 70% of conversions.
Aggressive frequency management. In-app environments can be noisy. We capped frequency at three exposures per user per day across all apps and throttled spend on users who had already installed. Simple stuff, but the previous platforms were not doing it.
The Results
After 30 days:
ROAS improved from 1.8x to 3.8x
Day-7 retention increased by 26%
CPI dropped 31% compared to their previous display-heavy campaigns
The client increased monthly spend to $65,000 the following month
The lesson was clear: where you reach users matters as much as how you target them. In-app inventory, when bought intelligently, delivers users with genuine intent. It is a channel we continue to double down on at Adxe.
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