UNITY CREATIVE PLAYBOOK 2026
From mechanics to deposit: what creatives work in Unity in 2026

Дата обновления: 12/10/2019

Publication date: 09/09/2026

Author: Profit Rental

Reading time: 10 min

Content

Introduction

A lot of teams want to enter Unity right now. But getting an account and learning how to work with it consistently are two different tasks.

You can immediately get a high CPI. You can find a creative with good installs and then fail on deposits. Or you can spend a long time reworking a video, while the real problem is not the creative at all, but the app.

After Moloco left, interest in Unity increased, and so did competition and the cost of mistakes. Today, it is not enough to simply find a working creative: you need to understand why it works, what audience it brings, and what to do when the numbers start dropping.

We were among the first to start working with Unity not just as a source of accounts, but as a full traffic direction. We collect fresh benchmarks by GEO, analyze launches, and help teams after the start — from creatives and apps to offers and scaling.
That is why, instead of another article like “top creatives for Unity,” we decided to look at the topic from the inside.

We spoke with Sasha, a Profit Rental support specialist with 8 years of experience in affiliate marketing, including 6 years in iGaming. Before Profit Rental, she worked with PPC, In-App, and Facebook, was a PPC Team Lead twice, later worked as a Senior Buyer in In-App/FB teams, and had her own team for Moloco.

In this interview, we discuss which mechanics actually work in Unity right now, where UGC can bring better results, how to understand that it is time to change a creative, why a good CPI does not always mean quality traffic, and what happens to creatives at scale.

But we did not stop at creatives only: we also discussed apps and competition inside them, choosing the right slot for a GEO, localization, reskins, playable ads, and other details that ultimately determine how well the whole funnel performs in Unity.

What Unity creatives work best right now? If you had to highlight several mechanics, what is used most often?

In short, I would highlight two main directions: slot mechanics and UGC.

But personally, I am more in favor of slot mechanics. I have seen many different approaches, checked what teams do in spy tools, and simple gameplay mechanics still work very well.

What do I mean by that? In the creative, we simply show the gameplay itself. For example, a cursor or a hand taps Spin, the spin starts, and then the result appears. After that, you can shift attention to the balance and show how the amount has changed.
So the user does not need to figure out what exactly is being advertised. In just a few seconds, they understand the mechanic: tapped → spin → saw the result → saw the money.

It is good when the creative includes clear money-related elements: currency, balance, payout, win. Then it is immediately clear that this is not just another mobile game, but a product with real money mechanics.
You can also use SMS or push notifications from a bank. They support the main scenario well and make it easier to understand.
Voiceover and subtitles also work well now. Users are already used to Reels, Shorts, and TikTok, where video, voice, and text appear at the same time.

But for me, the main rule is still the same: the easier it is for a person to understand the creative, the better.

Why do slot mechanics work so well for In-App?

Because it is important to remember what the user was doing before seeing your ad.

They were not sitting there thinking: “I would love to play and spend money right now.” Most likely, they were playing, using some app, or just doing something routine — and then your ad appears.

So I would not recommend overloading them with emotions or a complicated storyline right away. If the user is already in a gaming environment, it is more logical to show them a slot through the same clear mechanic.
Tapped, saw the result, understood what to do next.

Let’s talk about the opposite: what creatives may perform worse now?

There are still many creatives like this: a person wins, starts screaming, everything is flashing, there are tons of emotions. I recommend being careful with that.

Imagine the user: they are calmly sitting in an app, doing something — and suddenly a wave of emotions falls on them. It may not hook them, but instead push them away.

You do not have to increase the emotional intensity every time. Sometimes it is better to calmly show the mechanic itself: the slot, the spin, the result.

The person quickly understands what is happening, and then decides whether they are interested or not. I am not saying that emotional creatives do not work at all. But for In-App, the rule “the louder, the better” is definitely not universal.

What about UGC? Does it work in In-App, or is it not worth testing?

It depends a lot on the tier. On Tier-1 markets, UGC can definitely work.

For example, Australia and Germany. I would not write off this approach there.
Social-style creatives can also work well. I have seen good results in Germany, Spain, and Belgium.

It does not have to be a video where a person just sits in front of the camera and talks about slots. You can show, for example, a scene in a café or supermarket: the person does not have enough money at checkout, a second character appears, and through that situation the creative leads them to the product.

This format feels more natural because it looks more like regular social content, not a direct slot ad.
But when we talk about cheaper markets, I would recommend going back to simplicity.

The clearer the creative is and the faster the user understands what they are seeing, the better.

If we compare UGC and mechanics directly, which is stronger?

There is an important point here.

Slot mechanics can attract the user very well because everything is extremely simple and clear: tapped, saw the result, saw the win.

But if you oversimplify the creative too much or promise something the user will not actually get, they will come to the product with the wrong expectation. For example, they saw in the video that they tapped a button and immediately got a big win, while in reality it does not work like that at all.

The user gets disappointed, stops playing, and the quality of traffic starts to drop.

UGC works a bit differently. It may bring more expensive metrics at the start, but there is a chance it will attract a higher-quality player because the user receives more context before installing and better understands where they are going.
So I would not look only at where CPI is cheaper. It is important to look at what the user does after the install.

What has changed in Unity creatives overall? Has competition increased after Moloco left?

I would not reduce everything only to creatives here. Right now, the app itself has a very strong impact.

The app market is not unlimited: teams often work with the same suppliers, enter the same GEOs, and use similar apps.
When several teams launch through the same app at the same time, they essentially start competing for a similar audience pool. Especially if they are also working with the same GEOs and using similar proven slot mechanics.

That is why sometimes you can spend a long time reworking the creative and looking for the problem there, while the real reason is high competition inside the app itself.

And it does not always make sense to try to win that competition. Sometimes it is easier to leave that app and test another one.
I would recommend going through different options: the more apps you test, the higher your chance of finding a funnel that actually works.

And if your budget, time, and resources allow it, you can also test new creative ideas in parallel. But they need to be truly new — not just slightly changing an existing video, but trying something really different that the audience has not seen yet.

What does a completely new creative approach give you?

Unity has an exploration stage: when a new creative appears, the system needs to understand which audience it should show it to.

That is why a fundamentally new approach can give you a chance to reach a different audience and find a new working funnel.
If you have already made many variations of the same creative and see that they are giving roughly the same result, sometimes it makes sense not to create another reskin, but to try a completely different idea or mechanic.

That is how you can find something new instead of endlessly spinning around the same approach.

How do you understand that the problem is the creative itself and that it is time to replace it?

For me, the first metric is CPI.
After launch, you should immediately look at the cost per install and compare it with the market and benchmarks* for a specific GEO.

*We regularly publish fresh Unity benchmarks in our Telegram channel, so you can use them as a reference before launch.

If CPI is several times higher than the normal value, that creative should be turned off. You can, of course, give it a day or two and see what happens next, but personally, I do not see much sense in keeping a variant that immediately falls far outside the economics. That is just unnecessary budget spend.

If CPI is within the normal range, it means we generally hit the right audience. Then we look deeper: how much a registration costs, how many users reach deposit, and what the registration-to-deposit conversion looks like.
Because there can be a situation where there are many registrations but almost no deposits. For example, 20 registrations and one deposit on Tier-1 is already bad.

And here it is important not to rush into blaming only the creative. The problem may be on the advertiser’s side, in the offer, product, or further funnel. But the creative itself can also bring the wrong audience, especially if it contains an overly strong promise.

How can a creative bring registrations but hurt further conversion?

Through an overly strong promise inside the creative itself.
Let’s look at a Tier-1 example.

A creative can give a very strong promise, for example: “Get 200 euros right after registration.”
A person sees this and registers. But then they realize that no one is going to give them 200 euros just like that. They expected one thing, got another, became disappointed, and left.

As a result, the creative may seem to work well at the registration level, but the user does not convert into a deposit later.
That is why it is very important to watch what expectation you create for the user at the advertising stage. You can get a nice registration number and still bring an audience that will not play further at all.

Should you look at different metrics at different stages — test and scaling — or is the base always the same?

The basic metrics remain the same: I would still look at CPI first, and then at conversions.

CPM can also be considered, but for me personally, it is not the main metric. In Unity, there can be separate days when CPM suddenly jumps, and that looks more like a platform feature or a system issue. So CPI is still more indicative.
At scale, it becomes especially important to look at dynamics.

For example, you can take a five-day cut and compare how conversions change. If the install-to-registration transition starts getting worse, and then the following metrics also drop, it is already a signal that the creative is gradually burning out.
So the creative still brings traffic, but it is already working worse than before. At this point, it is better not to wait until the creative completely stops producing results, but to start adding new variants in advance.

How long can a good Unity creative live?

One or two strong creatives can work for two or three weeks, sometimes up to four weeks.

But by the third week, I recommend adding new variants and gradually refreshing what already works.
And you do not always need to invent a new creative from scratch. You can take a working mechanic and change separate details: colors, music, voiceover, subtitles, shapes, visual style.

The main thing is to do it in advance, not wait until the only working creative completely burns out and you have nothing to replace it with.

What about localization? Besides translating the text, what actually affects performance?

First, of course, the language. And I would not translate it with a basic translator — it is better to use AI.

Then comes currency. If the creative shows money, the user should immediately understand what amount they are looking at.
Flags can also work well. This is not a new trick, but it can still catch attention if it is integrated into the design properly.

When it comes to UGC, characters are very important. For LATAM, you need the right appearance; for Asia, Asian characters; for African markets, corresponding local types. The person in the frame should feel like an organic part of the user’s environment.
Another good element is local banks. If you show an SMS or push notification about a deposit, you can use the logo of a recognizable bank from that country. This adds trust and makes the creative feel more native.

So I would not reduce localization to translation only. It is important that the user looks at the creative and immediately feels: this was made for their market.

Do iOS and Android require different creative approaches?

No, it is pretty simple here.

The same creative can be transferred from one system to another. Mostly, you only need to adapt the end card and check that all elements match the correct platform.

For example, if you are launching on iOS, there should not be any Android elements left at the end of the video — and vice versa.
So globally, you do not need a separate strategy for each operating system.

How many variations of one concept should you test before deciding that the idea itself does not work?

It is hard for me to name a universal number. You should rather look at the results of the test itself.

If there is one working version and you want to improve it, you should change only one detail at a time. That is the main rule.
For example, if you are testing the CTA, change only the CTA. If you want to test the color scheme, change only the colors. If you are testing the voiceover, work only with that and do not rebuild the entire video at the same time.

Otherwise, it becomes impossible to understand what exactly affected the result.

If you see that a variant has potential, you can give it a couple more days and watch it further. But if CPI quickly shows that it did not work, I would not keep such a creative for long.

What formats or approaches does Unity like, but media buyers still underestimate? Is there something too simple that regularly brings results?

I would go back to slot mechanics again.

Many teams come to In-App from Facebook and try to transfer the same approaches they are used to there. But the audience here is different, and ads are perceived differently.

Right now, I often see a strong focus on UGC, although in many cases teams should test the simple gameplay of the slot itself more actively.

Show the slot, a clear action, and a clear result. Sometimes the working creative is much simpler than it seems.

What mistakes in Unity creatives do you see most often in teams?

One of the most common mistakes is not considering which slots actually work in a specific GEO.

Each market has its own specifics: some mechanics are already familiar to the audience and get a response, while others may not work at all.

So you can make a very good creative in terms of editing and visuals, but choose the wrong slot — and the result will still be poor.

Then the team starts changing colors, music, the first seconds of the video, calls to action, even though the initial problem was not in those details. Sometimes the chosen game mechanic is simply not interesting to that audience.

How should you choose a slot if you are entering a GEO for the first time?

You can ask the advertiser which slots work best for them. But I would not treat that information as the only reference point.
The advertiser has their own ROI data, but that does not necessarily mean it will be cheaper for you to buy traffic for that specific slot.

So you should definitely check spy tools: which slots are actively running in a specific GEO right now, what mechanics are used by teams that have worked with that market for a long time.

If you are entering a market for the first time, start with a proven slot, and then test different angles and creative variants around it.

What other mistakes have you seen?

Another common mistake is taking a ready-made creative from a spy tool and changing almost nothing in it.

At the start, this variant may give results. But it is hard to run it for a long time: after a week or two, the creative will start burning out, and if the team does not have the habit of constantly making new versions and developing the working idea, scaling further will be difficult.

Especially if we are not talking about a small test, but about serious volumes and tens of thousands of dollars in spend.
So spy tools are a great base for finding ideas and working mechanics. But it is better not to copy a ready-made creative one-to-one. Use it as a foundation and then adapt it to your own campaign.

What would you forbid media buyers to do with Unity creatives? What actions almost always hurt scaling?

I would definitely not write off a mechanic just because it has been familiar to everyone for a long time.
You can work with the same type of gameplay for a very long time if you keep refreshing it visually.

Take Plinko, for example. What can you really invent there? The ball still falls down. But around this mechanic, you can change almost everything.

You can use visual codes familiar to the audience — for example, take a palette and certain elements inspired by Mario or Lego. Or you can go in a completely different direction and make a very minimalistic version: a light screen, very few details, only the mechanic itself and the movement of the ball.

So the task is not always to invent a new slot every time. Sometimes it is enough to present a familiar mechanic in a new way so that it feels fresh again to the user.

You mentioned music several times. Is it really that important?

Yes, music should also be tested separately.

You can use something more upbeat and dynamic to create the feeling that something is about to happen, that there is going to be a win, that the user wants to make another spin.

Or you can go the opposite way and keep everything calm. The user was previously sitting in a game or an app, and the ad does not necessarily have to sharply pull them out of that state.

Calm music, clear mechanics, minimal noise — this option can also work well.
So there is no single universal solution here. Everything depends on the audience and the specific GEO, and this is exactly the kind of element that is better checked through tests.

We barely talked about playable ads. Are they worth focusing on?

Most often, we see the classic combination: video + end card.

If you test playable ads, I would again avoid overcomplicating the mechanic. It is better to give the user a few simple actions and quickly show how the slot itself works.

For example: first Spin — win, second — loss, third — big win.

The user interacts with the mechanic a little and sees a more realistic scenario at the same time. I would not make them win after every action — that again creates the wrong expectation of the product.

Moloco left at the end of May. Three months have passed. Looking at Unity now in general, what has changed and what should media buyers focus on?

The metrics we see in Unity now are quite comparable to Moloco.
At the same time, Unity definitely cannot be called an easy source. You cannot simply upload a few creatives and then stop touching anything.

The result is influenced by the creative, the offer, the app, and the campaign work itself. So you need to constantly look at the whole funnel and understand what is limiting performance at a given moment.

If you had to prioritize everything that affects performance, how would you rank it?

I would put it this way:

1. Creative
2. Offer
3. App
4. Campaign management

And inside the last point: blacklists, scaling, and other settings.

But all these points are strongly connected. You can go through many offers before finding the one that really works. You can make a strong creative but fail to hit the right app. Or you can choose a good app but run into the advertiser’s conditions.
So in Unity, it rarely happens that you fix one thing and everything immediately starts working. You need to look at the whole funnel and understand where the weak point is right now.

Conclusion

The conversation with Sasha clearly shows one thing: in Unity, a creative is not just a video that you once found in a spy tool, slightly edited, and sent to launch.

Everything around it matters: how well the mechanic fits the audience and GEO, what expectations the ad creates, what happens after the install, how quickly the funnel starts to drop, and whether the team has new variants ready by the time that happens.
At the same time, you do not always need to overcomplicate things. A simple slot mechanic can easily work better than expensive UGC, an old approach can show results again after a good reskin, and a beautiful CPI can mean nothing if registrations and deposits do not follow.

So working with Unity creatives today is more of a continuous cycle: test, look beyond the first metrics, refresh creatives on time, and do not be afraid to change the approach if the current one stops working.

And the faster the team learns to read these signals, the less time it spends endlessly reworking the same video.

And if after this interview you finally want to enter Unity, you can do it right away together with Sasha’s tech support and the Profit Rental team.

Stop launching blindly: we will help with the first tests, compare your numbers with benchmarks, and show where to look across creatives, apps, and the funnel as a whole.

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