Recap: How to win at ROAS webinar

A ROAS (return on ad spend) campaign on Unity Ads buys revenue instead of installs. Unity Vector, the AI foundation of Unity Ads, predicts how much each player will monetize through in-app purchases (IAP) or ads, then the campaign bids on every impression against the return target you set.

This post recaps our How to Win at ROAS webinar, where Celina Schwarz, Senior Business Strategist at Unity, covered how to choose, set up, and run those campaigns. The short version: you don’t need a CPI campaign to start, most games should run D7 and D28 windows together, and a good first target is 85–90% of your historical ROAS.

Check out the key takeaways below or watch the recording:

Five takeaways from the webinar

1. You don't need a CPI (cost per install) campaign to start a ROAS campaign.
2. Match your campaign mix to how your game makes money, and start with a short window.
3. Not capping? Lower your ROAS target. Capping, and quality holds? Raise your daily cap.
4. Set the campaign budget to unlimited and control spend with the daily cap.
5. Unity Vector needs clean data signals to learn through the full 28-day window, so complete your data setup.

Here’s the basics of what you need to know to win with your Unity Ads ROAS campaigns. For the full breakdown, check out the recording above.

Do you need a CPI campaign before you run a Unity Ads ROAS campaign?

No. You can create a Unity Ads ROAS campaign from day one. It goes through a learning phase, and once it's live, it optimizes toward your target. The install campaign that used to unlock ROAS is no longer required.

Which ROAS windows and optimization types should you run on Unity Ads?

Unity’s best practice is to run more than one window. Revenue is counted from the day a player installs your game. D0 finds players who monetize through ad views in the first 24 hours. D7 measures revenue over the first 8 days and finds early payers and ad watchers. D28 measures the first 29 days and finds players whose value builds after week one. D7 alone can leave revenue on the table, and D28 needs a longer learning phase, so most games run both, adding incremental scale to their existing performance.

Match the optimization type to how your game makes money:

Launch your shortest window first and add the next one once learning clears. Learning is tracked per Game ID and optimization type, not per country. If you’ve already cleared learning for an optimization type, such as IAP, a D28 campaign you add later builds on that learning instead of starting from scratch.

Read our blog on why you should run both D7 and D28 campaigns.

After learning: capping or not capping

Once a campaign is live, the first thing to check is whether it reaches its daily cap.

Not capping: lower your target

If your campaign isn't reaching its cap, lower your ROAS target. A lower target means a higher bid, which gets you more volume and reach, and lets the model learn across a broader audience. Drop it by up to 10%, once per cohort, until the campaign caps.

Capping and quality holds: raise your daily cap

If your campaign is capping and your ROAS is holding up, that's a good sign. It's working, and you're probably leaving volume on the table. Raise your daily cap, but do it in steps of 10–15%. Sudden jumps can cause performance to fluctuate.

How should you set up a Unity Ads ROAS campaign?

Start with data, then the target, then the budget.

Configure your MMP and extend its postbacks, then update the Unity Ads SDK. Make sure to add your Android license key, link Google Analytics, enable Diagnostics, and finally integrate the Unity IAP SDK. If your game is built with Unity, enable data sharing through the Developer Data Framework.

For the campaign target, start at 85–90% of your historical ROAS, using the same countries and cohorts as your last two or three closed cohorts. For example, a D7 ROAS around 60% means a starting target near 51–54%. With no history, start with the ROAS your KPI requires, and drop the target 10% every three to five days if the campaign isn't reaching its cap. Change one target at a time, by no more than 10%.

Set the campaign budget to unlimited and control spend with the daily cap, which paces spend over a 7-day rolling window. Start from the minimum your dashboard recommends. To exit learning faster, size the cap for about 10 purchasers a day on IAP and Hybrid campaigns, or about 200 installs a day on Ad revenue and Hybrid campaigns.

Give the US its own campaign and daily cap. Group other Tier 1 countries that share a creative language into one campaign, but set a daily cap for each country. Group Tier 2 and 3 countries into one campaign with a shared budget. At launch, start with the US and the countries you already know perform, then add the rest once the campaigns are stable.

Get personalized ROAS recommendations

Don’t miss out on tailored guidance built around your own campaigns. Opt in to Unity’s growth insights to receive recommendations such as budget cap alerts and creative best practices based on how your games perform. Sign up here.

If you’re looking for more insights now on how to set up and run a Unity Ads campaign, check out our best practices guide on how to grow with Unity Ads.

Disclaimer: The recommendations in this post are guidelines from Unity's How to Win at ROAS webinar, not guarantees of performance. Let your own campaign data guide your final structure. This content is for informational purposes only, and Unity doesn't commit to delivering any specific functionality, features or code. The development, timing and release of all products and features are at Unity's sole discretion and subject to change.

Feature image: “Two revenue curves, a fast D7 line and a slower D28 line, each rising to cross a dashed ROAS target line”. Image generated by Anthropic, Claude (Sonnet 5.5). Date: November 5, 2026