A UA retainer for mobile games is a fixed monthly arrangement in which a team runs your user acquisition for you. Studios usually sign one after a few weeks of calls, and then discover that nobody explained what the first three months would actually look like. The proposal listed services. It did not describe the sequence.

This post covers both. First, what a UA retainer normally includes, so you can read a scope document properly. Then what to expect in the first 90 days, week by week, including the parts that feel slow. If you are still comparing models and fees, read our guide to how UA agencies price their work first. If you are still choosing between providers, our post on how to choose a UA agency for mobile games is the better starting point.

What a UA retainer includes

A retainer buys a defined scope of work for a fixed monthly fee. The ad spend itself is separate. It goes from your accounts to the networks, and it should always be visible to you.

Most retainers cover five areas.

Campaign management. Building campaigns, setting bids and budgets, choosing geos and optimising every day. This is the core of the service. Ask which networks are covered. For most games the practical list is Applovin, Google Ads, Mintegral and Unity, and the scope should say which of them are in or out.

Measurement. Checking that attribution and event tracking work, defining which events the networks optimise towards, and reporting on payback and ROAS. Good measurement work happens early, because every later decision depends on it.

Creative direction. Deciding which concepts to test, reading the results, and retiring what has tired out. Production of the assets may or may not be inside the fee. This is the item most often left vague, so get it in writing.

Strategy and planning. Which markets to enter, when to scale, how to split budget between networks, and when to pause. This is where experience shows.

Reporting and reviews. A regular, readable report, plus a call where someone explains what happened and what changes next. Numbers without interpretation are not reporting.

What a retainer usually does not include: game design changes, store page production, monetisation redesign, and the cost of third-party tools. Some teams will advise on these. Few will do them inside the base fee. Our post on planning a UA budget shows where those costs sit in the wider picture.

What to expect in the first 90 days

Every game is different, so treat this as a typical shape, not a promise. The pattern below follows the same logic as our three-phase scaling roadmap: get the foundations right, learn cheaply, then scale what works.

Weeks 1 to 2: access, audit and setup

The first fortnight is mostly invisible work. You will be asked for access to ad accounts, the attribution tool, analytics and your store listings. You will be asked for your numbers: retention, monetisation by source, and any past campaign history.

Expect a review of what is already in place. Are the right events firing? Do revenue events match what your analytics show? Are there old campaigns still running that nobody owns? Problems found here are cheap to fix. Problems found in month three cost real money.

You should also agree on goals in this window. What counts as success for the first 90 days, which metric decides it, and over what payback window? If that conversation is skipped, every later review becomes an argument.

Weeks 3 to 4: first campaigns and the learning phase

Campaigns go live, usually small and on a limited set of networks and geos. The point is not to hit targets yet. It is to give each network enough clean data to learn from.

This is the stage that surprises studios. Early numbers can look worse than what you were told to hope for. Cost per install is unstable, creatives are untested, and the networks are still working out who to show your game to. A good team will tell you this up front, and will not change the plan every two days in response to noise.

Weeks 5 to 8: testing and first reads

Now the testing programme runs. New creative concepts go in on a steady cadence. Bids and budgets are adjusted in measured steps. Early cohorts mature, so the team can compare actual return to the forecast made in week one.

By the end of this window you should be able to see which networks are worth more budget, which creative angles work, and which geos are better than they looked. You should also see the first honest forecast: where the payback curve is heading, and how confident the team is. Our explainer on what a good ROAS looks like is useful for judging whether those forecasts are reasonable for your genre.

Weeks 9 to 12: scale decisions and the 90-day review

With a few cohorts matured, the conversation changes from “is this working?” to “how fast can we grow it safely?” Budgets on winning campaigns go up in steps. Weak ones are cut. New creative keeps flowing, because performance drifts as audiences tire.

At the end of the period you should get a proper review: what was planned, what happened, what the payback picture looks like, and a plan for the next quarter. If the answer is that the game does not pay back yet, a good team says so and explains whether the fix lies in UA, in the product, or in the monetisation. That is a useful outcome, not a failure.

What you need to provide

A retainer works best when both sides contribute. The things that most often slow a start are:

  • Delayed account access or missing admin rights
  • Attribution set up but not tested
  • No creative capacity on the studio side, with no plan for who makes assets
  • Slow answers about builds, updates and events
  • Changes to the game that nobody mentions to the UA team

Each of these costs weeks. A single named contact on your side, who can approve things quickly, helps more than almost anything else.

What good looks like by day 90

By the end of the first quarter, you should have:

  • Clean, tested tracking that you trust
  • A written record of which tests were run and what was learned
  • A shortlist of networks and creative angles that work for your game
  • A realistic payback forecast, with its assumptions stated
  • Clear next steps, and a clear view of what the scope costs against what it returned

You should not expect a guaranteed result by day 90. Games with strong retention and monetisation often show a clear path within this window. Others take longer, and some reveal that the product needs work before spend makes sense. Treat anyone who promises otherwise with caution.

Questions to ask before you sign

These are worth putting to any team before the start date.

  1. What is in the monthly fee, and what costs extra?
  2. Who does the day-to-day work, and who reviews it?
  3. What will you need from us in the first two weeks?
  4. How is success defined for the first 90 days?
  5. How often do we get reports and review calls?
  6. Who owns the ad accounts, creatives and data if we part ways?
  7. What would make you recommend we pause spend?

Summary

A UA retainer covers campaign management, measurement, creative direction, strategy and reporting for a fixed monthly fee, with media spend paid separately. The first 90 days follow a rhythm: setup and audit, a cautious launch, structured testing, then scale decisions and a review. Expect the early weeks to be quiet and a little untidy, and judge the team by how clearly it explains what it is learning. Agree the goals, the scope and the exit terms on paper before you start, and the quarter will be far easier to read.