Rewarded UA channels now take up 30-40% of total UA budgets at leading mobile studios.
But the shift goes deeper than that, because these studios are also hiring dedicated rewarded UA managers, full-time roles focused exclusively on rewarded user acquisition.
The old strategy was clear: invest in the traditional channels first, then maybe test rewarded.
Today, studios are launching rewarded UA together with traditional channels, or in some cases, jumping straight into rewarded from day one.
To understand what’s driving this transformation, our CBO and founder, Massimo Caroli, joined the two & a half gamers podcast for a conversation on rewarded advertising, covering why it’s booming, what actually works, and where the channel is headed.
In this blog post, we recap the highlights of that conversation.
Why Rewarded UA Is Booming Right Now
The budget shift didn’t happen by accident. Three main factors are driving the rise of rewarded UA.
- Privacy changes: ATT and other privacy changes made targeting way harder than it was. “You basically lost most of the targeting,” Max explained. Studios suddenly found their dominant channels operating with limited visibility, and performance became less predictable.
- Channel concentration became too risky. Algorithms and policies change fast and nobody wants their user acquisition to depend on these shifts. Differentiation is key.
- Breakeven happens 2-3x faster. Rewarded UA channels have shorter ROI windows compared to traditional channels. In a market where efficiency matters, this creates a growth advantage.
Moreover, studios have also noticed that rewarded channels attract higher-quality users. This means users who play for longer and spend more in the game.
Offerwalls: A Change of Reputation
Up to a few years ago, offerwalls didn’t have a great reputation.
They were mainly used for easy campaigns, where the goal was to get installs without a proper return on investment.
The paradigm changed when we shifted from single rewards to rewarding playtime, so the time a user actually spends in a game.
This new type of rewarded UA reinforces a positive behavior: users aren’t expected to play as many hours as they can, but to keep a consistent habit for longer.
And though this may sound counterintuitive – how can fewer hours of gameplay benefit you? – this approach actually has a positive impact on retention.
Players keep playing the game even after getting their reward.
iOS Breakthrough
Thanks to MAF, playtime rewards are now available also on iOS.
Because of privacy restrictions, it’s not possible to access playtime directly by API.
So MAF thought of a different solution: analyzing the data directly from the MMP and estimating playtime.
This approach is safe for users’ privacy, but allows UA managers to run playtime campaigns also for iOS users, who are generally considered of higher quality.
What Games Should Implement an Offerwall?
While rewarded UA seems so promising, we must say that not every game is built for it. The strongest performers share one trait: depth.
Games where an offerwall performs well typically have:
- 30-60+ days of meaningful progression
- A strong internal economy and currency
- Systems that reward long-term engagement
Top-performing genres include:
- Merge games
- Social casino
- Hardcore strategy
- Midcore titles with long-term progression
These games naturally align with the psychology of Play2Earn. Users are already investing time, so external rewards simply reinforce existing behavior.
On the other end, hyper-casual games usually struggle.
Sessions are short, progression is shallow, and the same users can often be acquired more cheaply through traditional channels. Even with high retention, the daily revenue ceiling is often too low to sustain rewarded spend.
Casual games sit somewhere in the middle. They can work, but usually at a lower scale and with careful reward tuning.
When to Implement Rewarded UA
One of the biggest mistakes studios make with rewarded UA is timing.
Don’t Start Too Early
Rewarded UA is not a discovery tool, but it’s more of an amplification channel.
Launching rewarded UA too early, especially during the early soft launch, is risky. At that stage, most games will still have incomplete monetization systems and unstable ARPDAU.
Rewarded users are encouraged to play consistently. If the game can’t generate enough revenue per active user every day, the economics won’t hold.
A good rule of thumb: if your monetization is still “basic”, rewarded UA is premature.
The Right Moment: Late Soft Launch or Just Before Global
The best time to introduce rewarded UA is when:
- Core monetization is stable
- Events and LiveOps are running regularly
- Progression depth is proven beyond day 30
For many teams, this happens late in soft launch or right before global launch.
Waiting too long is just as dangerous as starting too early. Rewarded UA performs best when it grows with the game, not after the peak.
Benchmarks: What Success Looks Like
Benchmarks can help teams decide whether the effort is worthy.
- Minimum success threshold: ~5% incremental revenue uplift
- Healthy average performance: ~15% uplift
- Top-tier cases: 25%+ uplift
Anything below 5% usually isn’t worth it.
Offerwalls are not “set and forget” placements, but they require coordination across UA, monetization, and LiveOps.
If the benefits aren’t significant, the cost of execution outweighs them.
The best way to achieve these results is to treat rewarded UA like a feature of your ecosystem, rather than another traffic source.
The Future of Rewarded UA
Rewarded UA is entering its next phase.
We are moving towards campaigns that reward loyal engagement instead of simple one-off tasks. And offerwalls aren’t just for mobile games anymore, but they are being integrated into many different industries.
This approach opens the door to entirely new audiences.
By embedding games inside airline, retail, or supermarket apps, rewarded UA can reach users who aren’t actively playing games and who are difficult to target through traditional channels.
Platforms like MAF are already building toward this future, where rewarded UA becomes a bridge between games, brands and loyalty programs.
Interested in watching the full episode of the podcast? Watch it here.
