The digital marketing landscape is evolving faster than ever and facing new challenges (full report here). Within the broader landscape, the mobile gaming industry is undergoing a significant transformation, with User Acquisition (UA) managers facing an increasingly complex and competitive landscape.

Across our customers, partners and the broader industry, we interviewed 15 UA leaders to understand what will define success in 2025. These are the 5 key challenges:

1. Breaking through the noise

It's on everyone's mind as the biggest challenge - how to perform in such a crowded market space. The post-pandemic mobile gaming ecosystem has fundamentally changed, characterized by:

• Unprecedented ease of game release

• Continuous influx of new titles

• Escalating customer acquisition costs (CPIs)

• Aggressive UA spending by some platforms (e.g., Temu)

  
  

While it has never been easier to release a game, it's never been harder to market it and monetize it. This crowded market is a big challenge for most studios and publishers.

How to navigate crowded markets

• Target specific audience segments

• Focus on unique game mechanics

• Develop cost-effective marketing strategies

• Explore alternative user acquisition channels

2. Creative iteration and testing

Creatives are a critical performance lever. With all the recent signal loss and privacy constraints, creative remains for many UA leaders the most impactful leverage. This landscape brings multiple challenges:

• Difficult competitor analysis

• Challenges in creative ideation

• Resource-intensive creative development

• Emerging trends like extended "playable" ads

• Difficult reporting and analytics

Testing creative ideas quickly and analyzing what's working is the only way to stay ahead. In fact, many teams are now using AI to scale production.

Creative analytics is key to understanding what's working and prevent fatigue. Streamlining naming conventions remains an important enabler.

Creative innovation trends:

• Increased use of playable ads

• Experiments with "endless" ad experiences

• Greater emphasis on CGI and dramatic advertisement formats

• Collaborative approaches with content creators and influencers

3. Focus on retention

Retention has emerged as a critical pivot point, with a significant share of UA leaders viewing sustainable growth through user retention as their primary challenge. This trend has consolidated in the broader UA strategy.

Growth isn't only about acquiring new players, but also focusing on existing ones to maximize value.

Retention-driving strategies:

• Leverage AI for personalized user experiences

• Dynamically adjust gameplay based on user preferences

• Implement sophisticated monetization models

• Create genuine user connections beyond transactional interactions

• Collaborate closely with product teams to position the game for the right audience

• Implement retention-driving creative strategies and testing

4. Implementing AI

There has been a lot of hype around AI. Now it's time to turn the hype into real business value. It's no longer about whether to use it, but rather how to do it effectively and reap the benefits. Nailing specific use cases and maximizing AI's potential is top of mind for every UA leader.

AI implementation strategies:

• Prioritize efficiency over mere adoption

• Focus on specific, narrow use cases

• Develop targeted AI-driven marketing approaches

• Continuously evaluate and improve AI tools

• Integrate AI across marketing workflows

5. Bridging gaps between data and marketing teams

With SKAN 4.0 and Google Privacy Sandbox, the marketing measurement approaches are changing very quickly. Navigating this landscape requires close collaboration between marketing and data teams.

However, these teams often clash and struggle to collaborate effectively. Data teams are often overwhelmed with ad-hoc reporting requests (e.g., new dashboards, metrics, dimensions, etc), while UA teams are frustrated by long waiting times and inflexible dashboards. Read more on how to keep the peace between marketing and data teams.

Other challenges on the horizon

In addition to these 5 core challenges, UA leaders also highlighted other emerging concerns and focus areas:

• Rising acquisition budgets

• Leveraging organic and growth hacks

• Demographic data collection challenges

Navigating the UA landscape

The 2025 UA ecosystem demands unprecedented adaptability, creativity, and strategic thinking. Success will belong to UA teams who are able to:

• Understand nuanced market dynamics

• Nail creative testing and analytics

• Leverage data-driven insights

• Prioritize user experience and retention

• Remain agile in strategy and execution

As the mobile gaming market continues to evolve, UA managers must be part strategist, part technologist, and part creative director.