Incremental Traffic: What to Do When Traditional UA Channels Stall

Acquiring a new unique user feels like hunting for a four-leaf clover. Recent privacy changes and data scarcity on iOS aren’t making the task any easier either.

Traditional UA channels such as Google and Meta are now so heavily saturated with advertisers that the cost of user acquisition has soared while its effectiveness has diminished. These channels often end up cannibalizing one another’s traffic by tapping into already explored supply sources without contributing to actual growth. 

That’s why understanding how to get more app users – especially, the ones that are genuinely new – is critical. To tackle this issue and break free from the cycle of competing for the same user base, UA teams must explore sources with incremental traffic.

The Rise of Engagement-Based UA Channels

There’s a demand for more cost-effective UA strategies, given that UA budgets have been steadily decreasing by 20 percent year-over-year since 2022. The industry is shifting from focusing solely on growth to prioritizing profitability and user retention. 

This evolution is prompting game companies to diversify their media mix with new UA channels and move beyond Meta and Google in search of incremental traffic. They want fresh users who are new to gaming and don’t come from inventories they already buy from.

This is the new normal, as we see more game marketers in the race to test and adopt new audiences with high lifetime value. 

UA marketers in 2024 claimed that rewarded networks now account for 15 to 20 percent of their UA budgets. It’s these new UA channels that drive incremental traffic and help them diversify their user base.

The adoption of alternative and new UA channels, including rewarded traffic, often gives UA teams greater control over the user journey. This is because they can influence deeper-funnel engagement through rewarded events. 

Why Incremental Traffic Is More Important than Ever

Incrementality measures the true impact of an advertising campaign by isolating its effect on business outcomes. In the context of mobile UA, incrementality measures the benefits, like increased installs or revenue, that result from marketing spend. 

Analyzing incrementality allows marketers to determine if a specific campaign has had a positive impact on outcomes such as sales. In other words, UA teams can identify whether the campaign was essential or if they could have achieved similar results without it.

Incrementality has become important due to the disruption in attribution for iOS users who don’t share their IDFA. Since user-level attribution with detailed insights into user behavior and spend is no longer possible, and SKAN has become the primary attribution solution for iOS, marketers now receive only campaign-level attribution with limited insights into long-term performance. 

On top of that, this data scarcity made it difficult to distinguish paid users from organic ones.

The industry’s solution to measure the true performance of marketing investments with these limitations is traffic incrementality. Advertisers achieve growth in today’s landscape by using sources with unique non-cannibalizing traffic – and by measuring that to assess the effectiveness of campaigns.

A stagnant user base and ineffective UA budgets are the most common result of advertisers overlooking the incrementality of their traffic sources. That’s why it’s vital for advertisers to onboard new and unique supply sources (with nonrecycled mobile gamers) through alternative rewarded channels such as adjoe.

A Source of Incremental Traffic with Unique Ad Inventory

Users are already familiar with rewarded ads – as evidenced by the popularity of rewarded videos. And that’s a trend expected to continue. 

As economic pressures rise, users will have less disposable income to spend. Rewards will become even more prevalent in UA as consumers look for deals and ways to earn extra value. 

Rewarded ads are becoming the future of gaming user acquisition.

Playtime takes rewarded gaming experiences to a new level. The unique time- and event-based ad solution has its own unique ad inventory of publishers so it doesn’t compete with other UA channels – it’s an add-on. This delivers new incremental audiences with higher LTV. 

The popular ad solution works by introducing a rewarded gaming component into nongaming apps – in retail, fintech, loyalty, food delivery, and other verticals. It provides premium advertising space for game studios looking for fresh users. 

Playtime gives mobile advertisers access to a unique base of engaged users, many of which are introduced to gaming through non-gaming apps because of Playtime. These users are untapped and haven’t been exposed to other channels yet. 

adjoe’s solution enriches the ad experience from the initial install to deeper engagement with the game because it’s:

• user-initiated 

Players actively choose to engage with the games, which is inherently a more voluntary and positive interaction leading to longer engagement. 

• personalized

The selection of games advertised through Playtime is unique from user to user and based on adjoe’s advanced algorithms. Players’ preferences are used to match them with specific games that they are bound to engage with.

• continuous

A mobile game’s appeal is amplified by the additional immediate value players receive through rewards they can spend in their favorite apps. This leads to longer sessions and higher LTV as users are more motivated to play, interact with ads, and make purchases as they continuously get something in return.

Traffic from Playtime is not only incremental due to coming from a unique pool of popular nongaming apps. It’s all high-LTV traffic because the experience offers personal value.

Why New UA Channels Are Important

Knowing how to generate greater incremental traffic is more important than ever. Achieving it requires working with new UA channels and correctly measuring performance. Examining the specifics of each UA channel’s inventory (main sources, integration type, exclusivity, reach, ad format type), will help teams gain a clear understanding of its potential.

adjoe’s inventory is designed to scale mobile games without overlapping with existing traffic sources. The inventory provides a continuous stream of high-quality users ready to fall in love with new games. To fully leverage this new UA partner, dedicated growth managers at adjoe will help UA teams tap into premium and unique ad inventory.