Playio Blog

A 2026 game genres list for mobile marketers: how stores and data firms classify genres, plus each genre's monetization mix, retention, CPI and revenue share.

App Store pre-order vs Google Play pre-registration for games: 2026 setup rules, launch-day behavior, rewards, conversion tracking, and a 12-week plan.

What IPM means, the formula, 2026 mobile game IPM benchmarks by genre, OS, format and channel, and how many impressions a creative test needs.

Steam capsule art in 2026: official sizes, Valve's rules, small-size legibility, artist costs, testing without an A/B tool, and wishlist conversion data.

MAU meaning in mobile games: 28-day vs calendar-month windows, the DAU/MAU stickiness formula with an example, genre benchmarks, and when the ratio misleads.

A game studio's guide to buying ASO services: what agencies do, agency vs tool vs in-house, 2026 prices, measuring impact, red flags, and a 90-day pilot.

Holiday advertising for mobile games as of October 2026: how CPM and CPI move from Black Friday to January, plus a week-by-week Q4 UA calendar.

How game studios choose an influencer marketing platform or gaming agency: types, pricing models, creator vetting, contract terms, RFP questions and a pilot.

2026 mobile game ad CTR benchmarks by channel, format and OS, how CTR feeds IPM and CPI, and when a high CTR signals accidental clicks rather than real interest.

Cross-promotion for mobile game portfolios: formats, real cost vs paid UA, cannibalization data, holdout measurement, and options for single-title studios.

App promotion services for mobile games compared by type: what each one buys, pricing, when it fits, how to measure it, red flags, and a pilot budget split.

How game UA teams buy offerwall advertising: CPI/CPA/CPE and multi-event payouts, pricing each event from LTV, fraud controls, RFP questions and a pilot plan.

2026 mobile game eCPM benchmarks by ad format, region and OS, why sources disagree by up to 4x, what moves eCPM, and how the Q4 price window really behaves.

Self-publish or sign with a game publisher? What publishers actually provide, typical revenue shares and recoupment terms, and why UA capability now decides the deal.

How to choose a mobile advertising platform for your game in 2026: platform types, evaluation criteria, an RFP question list, and a 2-4 week pilot design.

How game studios use Discord from pre-launch to LiveOps: server structure, onboarding, moderation cost, how to measure impact, and where it stops working.

A buyer's guide to CPA (cost per action) advertising for mobile games: which in-game action to pay for, how to set the bid from LTV, fraud controls, and what to ask vendors.

A practical guide to incrementality testing for mobile game UA: holdout, ghost ads, PSA and geo-lift designs, sample size and duration, and reading lift against attribution and MMM.

Lifecycle marketing for mobile games in 2026: why 74% of studios call it their top retention lever while 80% say tactics have gone stale, and how to design stages that work.

Agency, in-house team, or direct with ad platforms? A 2026 framework for game studios comparing UA cost structures, data ownership, and fit by stage.

What an MMP actually sees in 2026, how Android attribution works after Privacy Sandbox, and the four misreads that make three dashboards disagree on installs.

Southeast Asia holds roughly 350 million gamers on an Android-first, low-ARPU base. How the six major markets differ, and what that means for UA planning.

With usable identity coverage down to 30-60%, attribution alone cannot steer budgets. How media mix modeling works for mobile games, and when to adopt it.

600 million gamers, 8 billion installs a year, revenue up 35%. How to read India's mobile game market beyond the install numbers, and what actually converts.

Since July 22, 2026, rival app stores live inside Google Play in the US, and your game is listed by default. What the Epic ruling changes for Android distribution.

First-party data drives 2.9x revenue lift, yet most studios never operationalize it. A practical guide to building and activating player data for game marketing.

Web shops now capture 17 billion dollars, 15 percent of mobile IAP. What the data says about revenue lift, who wins, and how to actually drive players there.

How to run a soft launch that answers your real questions: market selection, alpha and beta phases, duration math, and the KPI bar that gates a global launch.

Google shut down Privacy Sandbox in October 2025. Here is what actually changes for Android game marketers, and how to build UA that does not depend on ad IDs.

Calculating LTV accurately is the foundation of every UA budget decision. Here's how to move from the basic formula to cohort analysis and predictive modeling — and what to do with the number.

Automated UA platforms have become the foundation of mobile game marketing. But understanding when automation works and when it doesn't is what separates teams that scale efficiently from those that waste budget.

Bidding strategy is not a technical setting. It is a strategic choice that determines which users the algorithm finds. Here's how to choose, set, and optimize bidding strategies for mobile game ads.

SLG and 4X games account for 4% of mobile game downloads but 21% of revenue. Scaling UA in this genre requires a fundamentally different approach from every other category.

Privacy regulation didn't stop at ATT. From cookie deprecation to GDPR and Privacy Sandbox — here's how to redesign UA strategy for a privacy-first world.

A low CPI is not proof of good UA. Here's how to read the trade-off between CPI and retention — and what you should actually be optimizing for.

Mobile game growth is not about optimizing UA, retention, and monetization separately. When the three work as one connected system, sustainable growth becomes possible.

Launch day performance is decided before launch. Here's why pre-registration campaigns matter, how to design them, and how to connect them to Day-One momentum.

Hyper-casual and mid-core are both mobile games — but their UA strategies differ on almost every dimension. Here's a data-backed comparison of CPI, creative, measurement, and scaling approach by genre.

Seasonal events are the most powerful revenue lever in mobile game marketing. Here's how to plan, execute, and connect seasonal marketing to UA and retention strategy.

Re-engaging lapsed players costs five times less than acquiring new ones. Here's how to build a re-engagement framework that actually brings players back — and keeps them.

In 2026, targeting and bidding in mobile game UA are already handled by algorithms. Here's what UA teams actually control — and how to work with algorithms rather than against them.

The boundary between mobile and PC gaming is dissolving. Here's why cross-platform marketing matters now — and how to design strategy differently for each platform.

Scaling mobile games globally without a massive budget is possible. Here's how to maximize efficiency through market selection, channel allocation, and creative strategy.