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Unity Ads User Acquisition

Frequently asked questions

Learn the answers to frequently asked questions.
Read time 8 minutesLast updated 4 hours ago

How do I create a user acquisition campaign?

The first thing you need to do is add an app to the Unity Ads User Acquisition dashboard. You will need your app's store ID (also known as a bundle ID). Once you've added your app, you can set up campaigns with different targeting and configuration options as needed. For a comprehensive guide, refer to the getting started documentation.

How do I add funds for my campaign budgets?

When you run an ad campaign with Unity, you fund the campaign with your Organization budget. You can add funds to this budget with any of the following methods: The minimum deposit amount for credit cards and third-party payment platforms is $1000. To deposit more than $10,000, contact your account manager. If you want to receive payment invoices, you can request them by contacting Unity Ads Support at ads-invoicing@unity3d.com. Please include the details of your User Acquisition Organization and campaign to help the Finance team locate your invoices. Refer to the Introduction to payment options for more information about adding funds. To learn more about Campaign budgets and how they use your organization funds, review the Introduction to User Acquisition budgets.

Can I withdraw or reallocate prepaid funds?

No, all prepaid funds are non-refundable. For more information on Payment with Unity, please refer to the Unity Gaming Services Terms of Service.

Can my campaign target or block specific apps?

You can analyze your campaign's performance by source app ID using the Report Builder or Advertising Statistics API. This should give you an indication of which source app IDs are performing well, and which are not. You may want to use this information to target or block them. Unfortunately, Unity cannot provide source app IDs for specific apps.

How does Unity moderate creatives?

Newly uploaded creatives enter a moderation queue. Unity must review new creatives before they can run in a live campaign. The moderation team reviews every creative submission, which typically takes less than 48 hours. For more information, refer to the documentation on content moderation.

How does install attribution work?

When your campaign shows an ad, Unity can detect when users click through and go to your app's store page. However, the optimization algorithms need to know if users go on to install and use your app in order to best allocate traffic. Therefore, Unity requires advertisers to integrate a third-party attribution service, or mobile measurement partner (MMP). These external attribution providers notify the Unity network when your ad resulted in an install.
  1. When the Unity Ads network serves an ad from your campaign to the user, it sends an impression event to your MMP.
  2. If the user clicks on the ad to go to the app store, Unity sends a click event to your MMP.
  3. If the user installs and opens the app, your MMP sends an install event to Unity.
Without this install data, Unity wouldn't be able to detect when a user installs your app as a result of your campaign. Your traffic would gradually reduce, and eventually stop completely. As such, Unity requires all advertisers to provide an attribution provider link. For a list of attribution partners that integrate with Unity, refer to the documentation on mobile measurement partners. Unfortunately, Unity does not support custom attribution providers.

What are SKAdNetwork installs?

Apple's StoreKit Ad Network, or SKAdNetwork, is a privacy API that helps ad networks and advertisers measure their ad activity on an aggregated level. Apple introduced this framework along with App Tracking Transparency (ATT) enforcement in early 2021. Unity supports SKAdNetwork attribution install postbacks by receiving data from Apple and sharing it with participating mobile measurement partners (MMPs). For more information, refer to the documentation on SKAdNetwork postback integration. Install postbacks must adhere to the following criteria to count as SKAdNetwork installs:
  • Source games and target games must both support the SKAdNetwork API.
  • Source games must use the Unity Ads SDK version 3.5.1 or higher.
  • Source games that target users running iOS 14 or higher must also implement Unity Ads' network ID in the information property list file.
You can toggle your iOS campaign data to show SKAdNetwork installs instead of MMP installs. Note that some discrepancy between reported SKAdNetwork installs and MMP data is expected for several reasons: SKAdNetwork data can be impacted by source apps not properly integrating our SKAdNetwork IDs, and may also be affected by Apple's privacy thresholds. There may also be a delay for us to receive the data from Apple. We expect SKAdNetwork data to become more accurate over time as source apps adapt to the new system. As iOS14.5 and beyond (and therefore Apple's privacy changes) becomes more common, data from attribution providers will become less accurate as their ability to attribute at an individual level is diminished.

Does Unity support Appflyer's Aggregated Advanced Privacy (AAP) mode?

No. Support for Appsflyer's Aggregated Advanced Privacy mode is deprecated.

Do I need to install an SDK for user acquisition?

Due to Apple and Google's privacy implementations, Unity recommends using the most recent version of the Unity Ads SDK (3.7 or higher) to help optimize your campaign's performance and insights. Audience Pinpointer campaigns require a Unity SDK to record post-install events. If you are using a Unity adapter in mediation, you can still pass post-install event data. For more information, refer to the documentation on passing post-install events with a Unity SDK.

What reporting options does Unity offer?

You can use the Report Builder dashboard tool, or the Advertising Statistics REST API to create robust campaign performance reports.

Why does my attribution provider have different data than Unity?

There may occasionally be discrepancies between data in the User Acquisition dashboard or API and what your attribution provider reports. Depending on the specific data, there can be several reasons for this:
  • If there is a lower number of installs on the Unity Dashboard, this can indicate an issue with the install postback configuration. Check with your attribution provider to make sure they are sending install postbacks correctly.
  • For any discrepancies relating to impressions or spend, you can consider Unity as the source of truth. There can be many reasons why discrepancies might occur here, but the Unity numbers should always be accurate.

Why isn't install data appearing for my campaign?

If installs appear on your attribution partner's (MMP) dashboard, but not on Unity's Cloud dashboard, Unity may not be receiving the correct install postbacks for your campaign. There can be several reasons for this:
  • You may have entered the wrong Game ID into your MMP's dashboard.
  • The MMP is not sending the postback to Unity, or it contains an error. Make sure they are following Unity's install postbacks guide.
If your campaign is receiving traffic but no installs appear on your MMP's dashboard, check the following:
  • Your app correctly integrated your MMP's SDK.
  • Nothing is blocking your MMP's SDK from sending the correct events (your MMP should be able to help troubleshoot this).
  • Your tracking URLs are providing the information that your MMP requires (refer to the documentation on configuring tracking URLs for more information).
If you manage to fix your MMP integration issue, but stop getting traffic, Unity's data models might have an inaccurate estimate of your campaign's conversion rate. This is because the campaign has been running with a broken attribution integration, so Unity was not notified about installs that were happening. The easiest way to compensate for this is to temporarily boost your campaign's bid amount by 2 to 3x (or potentially more), to force Unity's algorithm to deliver traffic again. Once Unity starts receiving install data, you can lower the bid amount back down to a level you are happy with.

Why do I receive an 
install: false
error in my postback response?

If your install postback receives 
install: false
in the response, this may indicate an error in your postback parameters. However, valid postbacks can also return this. Unity returns an install status of 
false
if the user has already been attributed (to avoid repeat charges for a single user), or if Unity could not attribute the user to a campaign view. If you would like Unity to investigate this, contact support to query the exact resolution of that postback. Please provide the exact postback URL used, along with the timestamp of when it was sent.

How can I improve my campaign's performance?

Unity's machine learning algorithms will always work to find the best users for you. However, there are two main factors that contribute to a successful ad campaign:
  • Use engaging creatives that drive conversion rate.
  • Make competitive bids.
In addition, the following tips can help you improve performance:
  • Run more creatives at once to show a bigger variety to your potential users.
  • Make sure your attribution tracking is working.
  • If your campaign is below 5,000 impressions, try:
    • Increasing your bids.
    • Increasing your daily cap if it's below $500 per country.
    • Reducing the number of countries and creatives to focus your traffic on a few creatives, as opposed to low traffic distributed amongst many creatives.
  • If you are above 5,000 impressions, use Report Builder to analyze campaign performance, Consider increasing bids on high-performing sources, and blocking bad ones.
  • If you aren't already, contact Unity about becoming a managed account. If you have a Unity account manager, consult with them for additional insight.
During the course of a campaign, some install volume fluctuations are natural. Though the figure may vary from campaign to campaign, a 10-15% variation from week to week is normal. However, a greater spike than this might indicate a deeper issue. Some factors contributing to a decrease in volume include:
  • Underperforming creatives: A gradual decrease in volume over time can suggest ad fatigue. A new creative that resonates less with your audience can also cause decreased conversion rates, and thus a decrease in volume.
  • A change in the competitive advertiser-side landscape: Unity's inventory is constantly changing and growing. Occasionally new campaigns vastly outperform the rest of the platform, thus receiving preferential publisher inventory. If this happens, you can raise your bids to compete for this inventory.
  • A change in publishers: Rarely, a publisher will remove their traffic from the inventory altogether.
  • A tracking issue: This could be due to an outage in your third-party tracking service, or an uncommunicated change to the postback or tracking URLs.
The inverse reasons can also cause increases in volume:
  • The addition of a well-matched publisher: Unity constantly adds new publishers. If a new publisher joins the network with users that particularly engage with your ads, a sudden increase in volume may occur.
  • High-performing new creatives: Advertisers often experience noticeable volume increases after conducting a trailer refresh. Rotating in new trailers approximately once per quarter is a best practice if resources permit.
For more tips, refer to documentation on optimizing ad campaigns.

Can I get a Unity account manager?

Unity offers a managed account service for larger advertisers. You can reach our sales team by emailing us according to your company headquarters location: When contacting the sales team, please include the following information to help them put you in touch with the right regional team as quickly as possible:
  • Your Unity Organization ID
  • Your company's location
  • Your company's website
  • Your available budget
  • Your app's store page