User acquisition, usually shortened to UA, is the work of finding new players for a game or app and bringing them to install it. If you have ever wondered what “UA” on a job ad or in a studio update actually means, that is it: everything you do to turn people who have never heard of your game into people who are playing it.

This guide explains what user acquisition means, what paid user acquisition is, how it differs from store optimisation and organic growth, and how the whole loop works for a free-to-play game. It is written for founders and small teams who are new to the subject.

What is user acquisition?

User acquisition is the process of attracting new users to your game and guiding them from the first install to the first session, the first week and, if the game earns, the first purchase or the first ad they watch.

The important part of that definition is the second half. An install on its own is not the goal. A player who opens the game once and never returns costs money and earns nothing. Good UA is measured on what players do after they install: whether they come back, how long they stay and what they are worth.

UA is only one part of growth. Product, retention and monetisation decide whether the players you acquire are worth having. UA decides how many of them you can afford to reach.

What does UA mean in marketing?

In mobile marketing, “UA” and “user acquisition” are used interchangeably. You will also hear “UA marketing”, “player acquisition” and “growth marketing”. They all describe the same job from slightly different angles.

What sets UA apart from general marketing is how measurable it is. Every install can be tied to a source, a campaign and a cost, and every player can be followed to see how much they return. That makes UA closer to a numbers discipline than a branding one. The questions are practical: what did each install cost, how many stayed, and did they pay back what we spent?

Paid user acquisition means paying for installs through advertising. You run ads in other apps, in search results, in video feeds or on the store, and you pay either per install, per thousand views or per tap, depending on the platform. Each ad sends the player to your store page, where they can install.

In plain terms, paid UA is buying reach. You are exchanging money for speed and volume. Where organic growth is slow and hard to control, paid UA can be started, stopped and scaled within days.

That speed comes with a condition: it only works if the numbers hold. Paid UA is sustainable when the money a player brings in over time is larger than what you paid to acquire them. If it is not, every new install loses you money, and scaling simply loses more of it faster. We cover how to judge this in what is a good ROAS for mobile games.

Organic vs paid: where ASO fits

Players reach a game in two broad ways.

  • Organic installs. Players find the game on their own, mostly by searching the store, browsing charts and categories, following a recommendation or hearing about it from someone else. You do not pay per install.
  • Paid installs. Players arrive because an ad you paid for sent them to the store page.

App store optimisation, or ASO, is the main tool for organic growth. It covers your game’s name, keywords, icon, screenshots, preview video, description and ratings. A strong store page helps in two ways: it makes the game easier to find, and it persuades more of the people who land on it to install.

So the real comparison of ASO vs paid user acquisition is not a choice between them. They do different jobs:

  • ASO makes every visitor more likely to install, whether they came from an ad or from search.
  • Paid UA brings visitors you would not otherwise get.

They also feed each other. Paid campaigns that bring in a burst of installs can lift your store ranking, which brings more organic installs. And a better store page lowers your paid cost, because more of the people you pay to send convert. Most studios that grow steadily work on both.

How the UA loop works for a free-to-play game

Most mobile games are free to download and earn from ads, in-app purchases or both. That makes UA a loop:

  1. Acquire. You run campaigns and pay a cost per install, often called CPI.
  2. Play. Each player generates some revenue over time, from ads watched and purchases made. The total over their lifetime is called LTV, or lifetime value.
  3. Measure. You compare what players earned with what they cost. This is usually reported as return on ad spend, or ROAS.
  4. Reinvest. If players pay back, you put the money into more acquisition. If they do not, you change the game, the creatives, the countries or the targeting.

The loop is the whole point of paid UA for free-to-play. Money goes in as ad spend and comes back as player revenue, and the question is how long it takes and how much extra is left over. The shorter the wait for payback, the faster you can reinvest and grow.

Because revenue arrives slowly, UA teams look at early signals as stand-ins: how many players return on day one, day seven and day thirty, and how much each cohort has earned so far compared with its cost. A group of players who have not paid back yet can still be on track, which is why cohorts matter more than a single day’s numbers.

The numbers that matter

A beginner does not need many metrics. These five carry most of the weight:

  • CPI: what you pay for each install. Useful for comparison, misleading on its own.
  • Retention: the share of players who return after one, seven or thirty days.
  • LTV: what a player is worth over time.
  • ROAS: revenue divided by ad spend for a group of players.
  • Payback period: how long a cohort takes to earn back what it cost.

A low CPI means little if those players never come back. A higher CPI can be a bargain if the players stay and pay. The metric to watch is the one that connects cost to value, which is why payback and ROAS matter more than the price of an install.

Where to start

If you are new to UA, these steps in order will save you money:

  1. Check the product first. Make sure players come back and the game earns something. Paid traffic cannot fix a game that loses players in the first minute. A soft launch is the safe place to find out, as we explain in soft launching mobile games.
  2. Tidy your store page. Strong screenshots, a clear icon and accurate keywords improve every install source.
  3. Start with one or two networks and small tests. Learn how your game performs before you spend more. Our guide to planning a UA budget shows how to split test and scale spend.
  4. Test creatives steadily. What the ad shows often decides performance more than any setting. See our guide to playable ads for one format that works well for games.
  5. Judge by payback. Scale only what clears your target, and cut what does not.

The short version

User acquisition is how a game finds its players. Paid UA is buying that reach with ads, organic growth comes from store discovery and word of mouth, and ASO makes both work better. The loop is simple to describe: spend to acquire, measure what players earn, and reinvest what pays back. Everything else is learning to run that loop with care.

For a wider view of how the pieces fit together, read our UA strategy process.