About this course

Monetization and  User Acquisition foundations

In this project, you will learn about the scope of the course and the fundamentals of monetization and user acquisition.

Welcome to the course

Deeper Dive into Monetization

Free-to-play revenue tactics

Monetization solution providers

Deeper Dive into User Acquisition

Organic Marketing Channels

Paid Marketing Channels

Implementing performance-driven paid user acquisition

 Creating your strategy

Refining and consolidating your strategy

Next steps

Test your user acquisition knowledge! 

Test your monetization knowledge!

In this project, you will explore the how to identify the impact of monetization on player experience and various types of monetization you can consider for your game. You will also compare different types of revenue options, examine various monetization solution providers and consider how to select them.

Monetizing your game

Monetization Glossary.pdf

In this project, you will explore user acquisition pricing models, organic and paid marketing channels, and how to create and implement a performance-driven paid UA.

Acquiring your users

In this project, you will explore different ways to test, implement and iterate your strategy, how to track your success, and how to maximize your monetization and user acquisition opportunities. You will also have the opportunity to take a quiz to test and apply your Monetization knowledge.

Strategizing for success

Monetization and UA Strategy Checklist.pdf

Monetization Course Glossary.pdf

Qualitative Monetization Research - Sample Interview Questionnaire.pdf

This course is an engine-agnostic introduction to monetizing your free-to-play mobile game. You don't need any previous experience of monetization or user acquisition to complete this course.

Explore the fundamentals of monetization and user acquisition

Identify the key components of an effective monetization and user acquisition strategy

Review real-world case studies and reflect on your own circumstances and experience

Identify next steps in your monetization journey

You'll also have the opportunity to learn from the insights of Unity monetization experts throughout the course.

Growing your mobile game

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Introduction to Monetization & User Acquisition (UA)

What is Monetization?

What is User Acquisition?

Reflect!

The advertising ecosystem - how it all works  

Traditional advertising and advertising networks

The roles you could play

The ethics of Monetization

Ask the experts!

Summary 

Core monetization concepts.mp4

Explore the core concepts for monetization

Identify the relationship between monetization and user acquisition

Identify your role in the advertising ecosystem 

Confirm whether this monetization course is right for you

When you’ve finished, you’ll be ready to take a Deeper dive into Monetization 

In this tutorial, you will explore the core concepts for monetization. When you understand these core concepts, you will be able to deep dive into monetization more practically.

In order to successfully operate your free-to-play mobile game, you may decide you will need a way to generate revenue and keep your players engaged to continue playing your game. 

There are four main core concepts that you will explore in this tutorial:


Monetization refers to a set of strategies and tactics which developers and publishers can use to generate revenue from their apps. 

Historically, the game genre selected by the game developer used to dictate the type of monetization strategy. For example, the higher the level of skill or engagement required in the game, the more interactive the monetization approach. 

Recently though, a trend on diversifying monetization strategies has been on the rise. Just like in business, it’s not good practice to risk placing all your resources in one single deal. Usually, the more diverse your source of income, the less risky your venture. 

If you’re an indie developer just starting out, all these monetization possibilities may feel a bit overwhelming. It’s important to explore various approaches, to reflect and understand what is right for your game as soon as possible.

In this course, you will study strategies, tactics and approaches to help you monetize your game successfully if you decide this is the best approach for you. 

Another key component of the health of your game business is to grow your player base or to learn how to acquire the right users and keep them engaged.

User acquisition (often shortened to UA) refers to gaining new users for an app, platform, or other service. On mobile, this is generally designed around generating installs, which is typically achieved through advertising or promotions. 

It’s important to acquire users who are valuable and are going to stay engaged in your game. Then, in turn, there will be more opportunities to monetize those users with either ads or in-app purchases (IAP).  

Now that you have been introduced to Monetization and User acquisition concepts, let’s reflect on two important questions:

Can you monetize your game without thinking about UA?

Is it possible to monetize your game without engaging your users?

If you answered NO to both questions, you will have realised that acquiring those valuable users is as important as engaging them so they may wish to continue playing your game for a lifetime!

And while you focus on increasing the lifetime value (LTV) of current users and ensuring you have the best monetization strategy, you may also want to continue adding more potential high value users through both paid and organic tactics. But how does it all work? 

The ad ecosystem is filled with many partners, acronyms, and methods of buying advertising and selling advertising (ad) space. In simple terms, this can be broken down into supply and demand.

Supply is the opportunity to sell the ads. In game advertising, these are either publishers or developers - the actual game where the ad unit or a single advert will show up.

Demand is the opportunity to buy that ad space and show your adverts, or advertisers.

For example, if you want to sell ads within your game, you would be the publisher/developer. If you want to buy ad space in order to show you game ads and hopefully get people to install your game, you would be the advertiser. 

With traditional advertising, whether that was a newspaper, magazine or even website there might have been a one to one relationship with that specific newspaper (e.g. The New York Times) selling their ad space to potential advertisers. However, that can be hard to scale, especially without lots of individual people filling the role of sales people.

Ad networks enable supply sources to set up their inventory (available ad space) for many advertisers to be able to buy that space.

In this case, publishers can set up rules and guidelines of what kind of ads they are willing to accept, for instance, if you are a game that is mostly targeting children, you will want to block ads with certain content or from certain categories.

The ad technology (ad network, mediation providers, ad exchanges, etc.) will help determine what ad to serve so you won’t typically be deciding on an ad by ad basis which ad your player will see.

Now you know how the basics of the ad ecosystem works, can you identify the different roles you could play?

You can be a publisher/developer and/or the advertiser. The choice is yours and depends on your goals!

Later in the course, you will investigate the ad technology utilized in more detail, and explore what you need to know to both serve ads in your game and buy ads to get users into your game.

However, before you get started there’s a more fundamental question to consider: is monetization right for you? 

Monetization and advertising have long been scrutinized for intrusiveness to the core content being displayed. It has also been criticized  for the collection and profiting of user-level data. However, monetization is also what funds “free content”.

With the vast majority of games being free to play, monetization strategies allow for this to continue. It is ultimately up to the developer to ensure that monetization activities or touchpoints are native to the user’s experience, keeping them engaged with relevant content both within ads and gameplay.

If you are not entirely sure about the ethics of monetization, reflect on some important questions:

Why is advertising necessary and ethical?

Advertising allows consumers to view and engage with content for free, giving all consumers equal access to this content. This also enables developers and content creators to build a sustainable business that scales as they provide greater value to their users.

While advertising in its broadest sense is necessary, it can be used unethically in a variety of ways. This may include:

Middlemen attempting to circumvent user privacy laws by reselling user data without permission

Advertisers misrepresenting their product or service in an ad

Content owners implementing ads in a way that generates many accidental clicks or taps in order to artificially inflate revenue.

None of these practices should be condoned or followed. Regulators and technology platforms are continually improving and enforcing purity in ad ecosystems in order to reward the good players and eradicate the bad players.

Need more help to confirm if monetization is right for your game? Ask the experts how you can know if monetization is right for your game next!

Would you like to hear more from an expert?

In the video below, watch Cathal and Illya, both Unity monetization experts, discuss:

What are the core concepts of monetization?

How do you know if it is actually right for your game?

Described what the core concepts for Monetization are

Identified the relationship between Monetization and User Acquisition

Confirmed if Monetization is right for you

Is monetization right for you and your game? If you answered yes, let’s deepdive into monetization and player experience in the Monetizing your game project. 

Monetization and User Acquisition foundations

1. Introduction to Monetization & User Acquisition (UA)

2. What is Monetization?

3. What is User Acquisition?

4. Reflect!

5. The advertising ecosystem - how it all works

6. Traditional advertising and advertising networks

7. The roles you could play

8. The ethics of Monetization

9. Ask the experts!

10. Summary

Complete this tutorial