UA can feel like magic when it clicks. Installs rise, the team feels momentum, and for a moment it looks like growth is solved. But a few days later the story often changes: players don’t return, retention softens, and revenue doesn’t arrive the way that install spike seemed to promise.
This is where the strongest studios think differently, because they treat creative testing and UA as one connected system.
In this article, we’ll look at how different types of creative testing can support UA and help teams acquire players who don’t just install, but stay for the long run
When “growth” means more than installs
In mobile games, installs don’t always mean high-value growth. Real growth shows up later, in the players who return, engage with the core loop, and create long-term value.
Senni Nurmi, Head of Marketing at Geeklab, defines high-value growth in simple terms:
“High-value growth is about attracting players who actually stick around and do what the game is designed for. Whether that’s playing regularly, engaging with features, or eventually spending. Installs are just the entry point but what really matters is retention, engagement, and long-term value.”
That definition changes what “good UA” looks like. It shifts the goal from “more installs” to “more players worth keeping,” and it changes what teams choose to test.
The biggest gap: testing arrives too late
Most teams don’t fail because they lack ideas, but because they start concept testing too late, and by the time results arrive, changing direction is expensive and slow.
As Senni explains:
“When it comes to concept testing, starting too late or not testing at all. Testing early means you have data from your audience to guide decisions in development. But for example testing which art style is the most appealing when the game is already later in production is understandably too late and changing course at that point doesn’t make much sense.”
Early testing isn’t just a “nice to have.” It’s what protects studios from spending months building something that players never wanted. It also changes the role UA plays later. When a studio has proof early, UA becomes a way to scale a promise that already resonates, instead of trying to “discover” the right message through spending after the product is already locked.
Proof in action: the crossword game that surprised
It’s easy to trust a concept when the logic feels solid. But players don’t choose games with logic, they choose them with instinct, and testing is how you catch that difference before it becomes expensive.
Senni shares a crossword example where the “obvious” theme lost:
“Despite market research and a hunch that the dog-themed version would be a winner, based on the test, the winner by far was in fact the newspaper styled theme.”
The real value wasn’t just the result. It was the clarity it gave the team early enough to build around what players actually preferred. As Senni explains:
“That insight shaped everything for them from the game to store visuals, ad creatives, and even how UA campaigns were structured. Later when they scaled UA, they weren’t guessing anymore. They were building on something already proven to resonate.”
Store testing is where UA becomes scalable
Players don’t experience UA and ASO as separate functions. They experience one promise, and the store page is where they decide whether that promise feels real.
That’s why store testing matters so much. It’s the bridge between attention and trust, and it often determines whether paid traffic becomes committed players or quick churn.
As Senni puts it:
“ASO and UA should go hand in hand. ASO in itself optimizes the possibilities of organic visibility but to take it to the next level paid UA is the way to go. When these two elements are synchronized they both compliment each other.”
When UA and store presentation tell the same story, scaling becomes calmer, conversion stabilizes, CPI becomes less volatile, and more of the traffic you pay for turns into players who actually stick around.
Markets don’t just translate, they think differently
What resonates in one market can fall flat in another, even in the same genre. That’s why localization isn’t only about language but also about learning what different audiences respond to emotionally.
Senni highlights how often regional differences reshape performance:
“What works in the US will fall flat in Japan for example. The importance of localization and culturalization is undeniable, but even then ASO and A/B testing to find the best performing app store assets will give you data to back it up. Same applies to UA creatives.”
Testing makes these differences visible before you scale blindly. It helps teams localize intelligently, instead of translating assets and hoping player preferences will follow.
UA data is not a verdict, it’s a roadmap
UA performance is often treated like a judgment: this creative is “good,” that one is “bad.” But the most useful UA data doesn’t end the conversation. It tells you what question to ask next.
Senni describes it this way:
“UA data is basically a list of questions waiting to be answered. If a creative drives installs but retention drops, that’s a messaging problem worth testing. If one angle scales better but monetizes worse, that’s another hypothesis.”
Very often, she sees the same pattern when teams assume a creative is “bringing low-quality users.” In reality, testing sometimes shows the creative isn’t the problem at all. The store page, onboarding, or the early game experience simply doesn’t match the promise being made.
That’s why testing is so valuable in the live phase. It helps teams separate signals from noise, so instead of killing an idea too early, they can adjust the messaging or visuals and unlock performance that would’ve otherwise been missed.
Post-iOS privacy changes: redesign learning around creatives
Since post-iOS privacy changes, many teams feel “blind” because user-level visibility is limited and feedback loops are slower. In practice, that means studios need a different way to learn, and the clearest signals left are often the creatives themselves.
“Our solution was to build Audiencelab to fix it. Instead of tracking performance of campaigns on a user-level, like with IDFA, we are now able to do so on an individual ad creative level.”
That shift treats creatives as signals of intent. It helps teams understand which promises bring players who stick, not just installs.
As Senni said:
“On iOS, instead of relying on perfect user-level data, we utilize creatives themselves as very clear signals. This way, we bring back some of the visibility, just from a different angle.”
As Senni explains:
Testing as culture: alignment without politics
Testing doesn’t just improve performance. It reduces internal friction by giving teams shared proof, so decisions don’t depend on opinions or hierarchy.
Senni explains how testing creates that alignment:
“Testing creates a neutral ground. Instead of relying on opinions only, everyone will have data to base decisions on. UA learns what messages bring the right players, product understands what expectations are being set, and creative teams see what actually resonates.”
That shared clarity is what turns testing from a tactic into a culture. It helps studios build a repeatable rhythm where learnings travel across UA, creative, and product instead of getting stuck inside one team.
That’s how studios move faster without burning out. When teams share proof, they stop arguing about taste and start building truth.
Where Rewarded UA Fits In
Even when the promise is proven, early sessions are fragile. Rewarded UA can support high-value growth by guiding players toward meaningful early actions, helping them reach the first “value moment” before attention fades.
Günay Azer, founder of Gamelight, frames the idea like this:
“While acquiring new users the strongest growth comes from alignment: the promise in the creative, the proof on the store page, and the first meaningful win inside the game. When those moments connect, players don’t just install. They continue.”
Rewarded journeys are most powerful when they amplify what testing has already proven. They help the right players experience progress early, which is often the difference between “trying a game” and adopting it.
The takeaway
Testing and UA work best when they’re treated as one connected system. Test early to prove what resonates, use UA to scale what’s proven, then let live performance data decide what you test next. Rewarded UA can support that system by creating structured early momentum, and Gamelight helps teams do this by guiding players toward meaningful first actions.
When the story stays coherent from creative to store to gameplay, high-value growth stops feeling like luck and starts feeling repeatable.
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