[Playio]📊 The Secret to a 3x ROAS Difference 🤫 (feat. New Content)

Hello, this is the March edition of the Playio Letter🌸

With the spring season just around the corner,
we’ve gathered only the most essential news for our partners this month!

From vivid global UA trends we experienced firsthand in Japan, to our new content [Playio Data Unboxing] where we verify Playio users' behavioral patterns with data, and finally, a campaign case study that achieved a ROAS 3x higher than other media averages.

Don't miss out on today's Playio Letter!

Summary📌

✈️Playio × Japan — Biz Trip 2026

The Japanese mobile game market is one of the largest globally.
It's famous for high user loyalty and spending rates in RPG, puzzle, and casual genres, making it a market with distinct user characteristics and high barriers to entry.

Playio recently traveled to Japan and met with many of our partners.
It was a great opportunity to connect with partners who are preparing to expand globally or are already operating there, sharing insights on global UA market trends and effective strategies.

Playio will continue to move diligently wherever we are needed, ensuring our partners' games reach Real Gamers. If you are pondering your global expansion strategy or want to discuss UA in the APAC region, please feel free to reach out anytime!

🆕 [New Content] Playio Data Unboxing Vol. 1

To provide even richer insights for our partners this March, we've prepared new content:
Playio Data Unboxing! 🎉

Did you know that Playio has been analyzing user behavioral data in detail behind the scenes to ensure successful campaigns? Now, to help our partners understand Playio users on a deeper level, we are going to 'unbox' our actual user behavior data one by one.

💡 Vol.1 — Do rewarded users leave the rewarded channel?

The first topic of Playio Data Unboxing starts with the most common question that comes to mind when considering rewarded channels:
"Will users leave the channel once they get their reward?"

We verified this inevitable, realistic concern using actual user behavior data!  

📊 Data Analysis Criteria

🎁 What were the results?

Did all Playio users leave after achieving their goal?
The data says otherwise.

Even on the day after the reward exchange, 9 out of 10 users (94.5%) returned to the app, and on D+7, 85.1% of users were still using Playio.
For the 2,892 users who completed the exchange on February 1st,
the re-access rate recorded an impressive 91.3% even 30 days after the exchange.  

📣 The reason they return is NOT the [REWARD].

They might have started with the reward as an excuse, but in the process, they fully invested 30 minutes into the game. 30 minutes might seem short, but it's enough time to learn the game system, grow a character, and unlock content—in short, to experience the core loop of the game.

Add to this the effect of Playio's user experience system.
Playio is not just an app that hands out rewards; it is a gamer community space where users can talk and communicate about games. The combination of the 30-minute play experience and Playio's user experience system creates a structure where 'Reward Hunters' are incubated into 'Real Gamers.'

👉 Curious about Playio's unique strategy for nurturing real gamers?

🏆 [Case Study] Unveiling Playio's Strategy for 3x Higher ROAS!

Click the image to move to the case study page.

Achieving ROAS goals is the homework of every UA marketer.
Particularly for IP-based casual games, initial acquisition costs are not low, and if users drop off before fully immersing themselves in the game, the revenue structure can easily become unstable.

This time, we introduce the campaign results for
ACT Games' <Hello Kitty My Dream Store>.
This game is a merge puzzle genre featuring Hello Kitty and Sanrio characters, structured around combining items, decorating the store, and leveling up.
Due to the nature of this game, users need to reach a certain level to fully experience its fun. If they drop off early, it might just be remembered as a "boring game."

Therefore, this campaign focused on designing a natural flow that goes beyond just inducing installs, guiding users until they experience the game's core fun.
Here are the three strategies utilized across the KR, JP, and TW campaigns:

⏳ Forming Play Routines with Time Quests

By operating a '30-minute play' Time Quest, we encouraged users to sufficiently experience the game system and growth structure. Since merge puzzles require a certain amount of playtime to unlock the flow of content, this single quest directly contributed to preventing churn and stabilizing early retention.

🌱 Designing Hidden Quests Based on Growth Stages

We densely placed achievement quests for levels 5→8→10→15→20→30→40→45→55, and designed ad-viewing and IAP quests in a repeating structure.
While providing a sense of accomplishment at each stage, we simultaneously improved both the IAA and IAP revenue lines.

🎯 Targeting Female Users Fitting the IP Characteristics

Analyzing the fandom characteristics of the Hello Kitty IP and the preference for decorating/puzzle genres, we focused our targeting on female user segments. Reaching highly relevant audiences resulted in stable initial retention,
ad engagement rates, and purchase conversion rates 👀

As a result, all three countries where the campaign ran not only achieved their ROAS KPIs but also recorded significantly higher performance compared to other media averages 🎉

This campaign yielded great results because we understood the characteristics of the game genre and the flow of user behavior, designing a quest structure to match perfectly.

Are you operating a similar genre or an IP-based game?
If you want to contemplate quest designs and targeting strategies tailored to your genre's structure, just like this campaign case, feel free to contact us anytime!

Let's build a campaign structure that leads to real results with Playio.

Contact: biz-team@gna.company

Every Answer Begins with Understanding the User

The story we ultimately wanted to share through this March Playio Letter was
about understanding the user.

If you design the journey well so that users can fully experience the game's core content, you can achieve results beyond expectations, even in rewarded channels.

Playio designs user experiences so they can genuinely immerse themselves in the game. Meet the 'real gamers' who enjoy playing and communicating every day on Playio!

We will return with an even more informative Playio Letter next time 💪

Grow with Real Gamer!

Rewarding Time. Driving Growth. Powered by Playio.