The landscape of game marketing has evolved dramatically over the past decade. In the early days of PC gaming, publishers could afford to buy visibility in a straightforward manner: they purchased ad space, generated impressions, and hoped that the sheer volume of eyeballs would translate into sales.
That approach made sense when most titles were sold as boxed copies and revenue was earned the moment a player bought the disc. Today, however, the dominant model for PC games—especially those that are free‑to‑play and operate as live‑service experiences—requires a far more nuanced acquisition strategy. Amit Nagrani, who heads business development and client success at PWN Games—a performance‑marketing specialist celebrating its tenth year—observes that many PC publishers still cling to legacy tactics. On the PC platform, user acquisition (UA) campaigns are often still built around brand awareness and consideration.
These campaigns typically involve large‑scale pushes on platforms such as Meta, Google, YouTube, and Twitch, as well as collaborations with influencers and content creators. While such awareness‑driven efforts can still be effective for premium, single‑purchase games, they are ill‑suited for modern live‑service titles that rely on a steady stream of new players and ongoing monetisation. "With premium games, the purchase is the whole thing," Nagrani explains. "The spend goes heavily into awareness and consideration through the pre‑launch window, building recognition and wishlists, and then UA kicks in hard at launch as a boost.
That's a sensible way to do it, because once someone buys and installs, the revenue is in." By contrast, free‑to‑play live‑service games operate on a completely different financial model. Their success hinges not on a one‑time purchase but on the ability to attract players continuously, keep them engaged over months or years, and eventually convert a portion of that audience into paying customers.
"Live service is a different proposition, free‑to‑play especially. You don't catch the launch wave and call it done.
You need players arriving steadily, year after year. And getting someone to play is only the start.
You've got to keep them engaged and eventually get them converting, because that's where the revenue actually comes from," Nagrani says. The traditional CPA (cost‑per‑action) model aligns far better with these objectives than the older CPM (cost‑per‑mille) or CPC (cost‑per‑click) models. Under CPM, advertisers pay a fixed fee for every thousand impressions, regardless of whether anyone interacts with the ad.
CPC improves on that by charging only when a user clicks, but it still provides no guarantee that the click will lead to any meaningful engagement. Both models place the financial risk squarely on the publisher: they pay for exposure or curiosity, even if the downstream funnel collapses. CPA, on the other hand, ties payment directly to a predefined user action—be it an email sign‑up, an install, a first in‑game purchase, or any other measurable event.
"You pay when a defined 'action' happens, and you choose which 'action' that is," Nagrani notes. "It moves as the game moves through its lifecycle, and choosing it well is an important conversation I have with a game publisher before we go live." Before a title launches, a CPA campaign might target "opt‑ins"—players who voluntarily submit their contact details to receive updates. There are two common structures: single opt‑in (SOI), where the submission alone counts, and double opt‑in (DOI), which requires the user to confirm via a verification email. DOI typically costs more because it filters out less‑committed prospects, but it often yields higher conversion rates once the game goes live.
The choice between SOI and DOI depends on the publisher's confidence in their funnel and how aggressively they wish to prune the audience early on. At launch, the most straightforward CPA metric is an install.
However, seasoned publishers rarely stop there. They add qualification layers—such as requiring the player to survive to Day 1 (D1) or Day 7 (D7) retention, or to complete the tutorial—so that the payment is tied to a user who demonstrates genuine interest beyond a mere download. "Experienced publishers rarely stop there," Nagrani says.
"They’ll usually add a qualification layer, so the install only counts if the player reaches D1 or D7, or completes the tutorial. That way, you’re paying for a player rather than just a download, which matters a lot for a live‑service title where the install is really just the starting point." As the campaign matures, CPA can be calibrated to reward deeper engagement, such as a first in‑game purchase or the achievement of a specific in‑game milestone. Naturally, the cost per conversion rises as the funnel narrows: the more valuable the action, the higher the price advertisers are willing to pay for it. "The trade‑off is always the same: the further down the funnel you buy, the more certainty you're paying for, and certainty is never free," Nagrani explains.
"The cost per conversion goes up, and in some cases volume gets harder to find." One of the most compelling reasons top free‑to‑play PC publishers gravitate toward CPA is its direct connection to Lifetime Value (LTV). By modelling how much revenue a registered or paying player generates over a 90‑day (or longer) horizon, publishers can calculate the maximum amount they can afford to spend on acquisition while still achieving a positive payback.
With CPA, the payout is set to align with that LTV, ensuring that the return on ad spend (ROAS) is known up front rather than discovered months later. "Everything is built around LTV.
CPM and CPC don't connect to it. You buy impressions, you buy clicks, and then you hope the rest of the funnel behaves. CPA connects to it directly, because you're paying for the outcome you already modelled," Nagrani says. Beyond the financial alignment, CPA also reshapes the risk dynamics between publishers and marketing partners.
Under CPM or CPC, the publisher bears the full risk: if the targeting is off or the creative fails to resonate, the advertiser still pays for the exposure. CPA flips that relationship—payment is only triggered when a qualified conversion occurs—so both parties share the incentive to optimise the campaign. "On CPM or CPC, if the targeting is off or the creative isn't landing, the publisher still pays," Nagrani notes.
"With CPA, we're only paid when a qualified conversion happens, so we've got the same reason to find out what's wrong as they do. Both sides are looking at the same number, and that tends to produce a more collaborative working relationship." Nevertheless, CPA is not a universal cure.
It works best when the underlying game offers sufficient quality to attract and retain players. A poorly designed or unpolished title will struggle to convert even the most optimised CPA campaign, because the model cannot compensate for fundamental product deficiencies. In such cases, the marketing spend may simply be wasted, regardless of how precisely the CPA parameters are set. When applied correctly, CPA distributes risk evenly: the developer or publisher pays only for outcomes that deliver value, while the acquisition partner earns revenue only when those outcomes materialise.
This shared‑risk framework encourages continuous testing and optimisation. If a campaign underperforms, both parties have a vested interest in diagnosing the problem—whether it is an unsuitable traffic source, a mismatched creative, regional performance disparities, or a disconnect between install rates and retention metrics. In practice, this collaborative mindset leads to ongoing iteration: adjusting audience segments, refining ad creatives, tweaking landing pages, and even advising on in‑game onboarding flows to improve early‑stage retention.
Because the acquisition partner's earnings depend on the same conversion metrics, they are motivated to act as an extension of the publisher's own growth team rather than a detached vendor. In summary, CPA has become the preferred UA model for leading free‑to‑play PC publishers because it aligns cost with value, ties spending directly to measurable outcomes, and creates a partnership dynamic where risk and reward are shared.
It allows publishers to plan acquisition budgets around concrete LTV calculations, reduces wasted spend on low‑quality impressions or clicks, and fosters a collaborative environment where both sides work toward the same goal: turning new users into long‑term, paying players. As Nagrani succinctly puts it, "CPA is a win‑win model for game publishers and us. We win only if they win."