There is no single best user acquisition platform for mobile games. Which one works depends on your game, your genre, the countries you target and how you earn from players. What you can do is pick a sensible order to test them in, judge each on the right measure and keep the ones that pay back.

This guide covers the four platforms we use most often, Applovin, Google Ads, Mintegral and Unity. It explains what each is generally good at, how to compare them fairly and how we would order the tests. It reflects our own hands-on use, not a ranking you can apply without testing your own game.

What a UA platform does

A UA platform, also called an ad network or channel, shows your ads to people who might install your game and charges you for the results. It gives you a dashboard to set budgets, countries, bids and creatives, and a system that decides who sees the ad.

Platforms differ in four ways that matter:

  • Where the ads appear. In other games and apps, in search results, on the store or on video.
  • How they optimise. What event the system tries to find more of, such as installs, purchases or a return on ad spend target.
  • What creatives they favour. Video, playable and static formats each fit some platforms better.
  • How they report. The quality of the data you get back decides how well you can judge them.

How to judge a platform: quality, not just price

The usual mistake is to compare platforms on cost per install. A cheap install from a platform that sends players who leave after one session is worse than an expensive install from players who stay and spend.

So when you ask which platforms are the most cost-effective, compare them on what the players do after they install:

  1. Retention at day one, seven and thirty.
  2. Return on ad spend for each cohort at day seven and later.
  3. Payback period, meaning how long the cohort takes to earn back its cost.

A platform is cost-effective if its players pay back faster and at a larger margin than the others, even when the install price looks high. Judge on cohorts, not on a day’s results. We explain how to set targets in what is a good ROAS for mobile games.

Applovin

Applovin is the lead network in our mix and is commonly the first one casual and hybrid-casual studios try. Its strength is scale: it can reach a large number of players inside other games, and it handles formats such as rewarded video, interstitials and playable ads.

Things to know:

  • Its system needs time and volume to learn. Expect to spend a couple of months building meaningful data rather than judging it after a week.
  • It rewards a steady supply of fresh creatives.
  • Results get harder to hold as spend grows, so it needs close watching when you scale. We describe what changes in how to scale Applovin campaigns.

Google Ads runs app campaigns that place your game across Google’s own surfaces, including Search and Google Play. You give it creatives, a budget and a goal, and its system chooses where to show them.

It tends to suit games that want broad reach and players with clear intent, because many people arrive while looking for something to play. It works best when you give it a clear optimisation event and enough volume, and when you move from install goals to return-on-ad-spend goals only after the data supports it.

The trade-off is control. Google Ads decides the placements for you, so you have less insight into where installs come from than on some other networks.

Unity

Unity’s advertising reaches players across games, and it sits naturally with studios that build in the Unity engine, since the tools connect with the game. Playable ads and rewarded formats are strengths, and many studios find it a useful source of additional volume next to a lead network.

If your game is not built in Unity, the integration advantages are smaller, and you should test it on results alone.

Mintegral

Mintegral is known for strong video and playable formats and for reach in markets across Asia, which makes it a common choice for games that target those regions or that rely on playable creatives.

As with any network, its quality varies by game and country. It is usually worth testing next to a lead network rather than instead of one.

Which is the most cost-effective?

It depends on the game. For some, Applovin gives the cheapest paying players. For others, Google Ads delivers a better return because of player intent, or Mintegral performs best in a particular region. The only way to know is to test with the same creatives and the same targets and compare cohorts.

Be cautious of any list that ranks platforms in order for all games. A ranking tells you how a platform performed for someone else’s game. Your own data is the only ranking that matters.

Which platforms deliver retention, not just installs?

You get retention from a platform by asking for it. Three habits help:

  • Optimise toward a deeper event than the install, such as a level reached or a purchase, once the platform has enough data to learn from.
  • Compare retention by source in your attribution reports, so a weak network cannot hide in an average.
  • Separate countries and creatives when you compare, since a mix of both can make a good platform look bad.

If a platform gives cheap installs and poor retention after a fair test, move the budget. Do not keep it because the install price looks good.

A sensible test order

This is the order we usually suggest for a studio starting out:

  1. Start with one lead network. For many casual and hybrid-casual games that is Applovin. Learn what your game’s numbers look like.
  2. Add Google Ads to see how intent-driven players compare, once your store page and creatives are solid.
  3. Test Unity and Mintegral as second and third sources of volume, especially if you have playable creatives or target regions where they are strong.
  4. Keep a small standing test budget so you can try new platforms and creatives without risking your main spend. Our guide to planning a UA budget covers how to split it.

Run each test long enough to see cohort data, and do not change several things at once.

Tools that help beyond the networks

Networks are only part of the setup. Three kinds of tools make the comparison fair:

  • An attribution tool that shows which network each install and each purchase came from.
  • Creative reporting that shows which ads work, so you can feed the next round.
  • A simple spreadsheet with cohort ROAS and payback by network and country. Nothing replaces looking at the same numbers every week.

The short version

Applovin, Google Ads, Unity and Mintegral each have a place, and none is the best for every game. Judge them on retention, ROAS and payback instead of install price, test them in a sensible order against a small standing budget, and let your own cohorts decide where the money goes.

If you want a wider view of how platform choice fits into a plan, read our UA best practices and our guide on whether to hire a UA consultant or build in-house.