Non-gaming apps continue to see rapid global growth, expanding at an average rate of 49% over the past year. This surge has intensified the user acquisition (UA) race, prompting developers to scale up their ad delivery and creative production to capture attention and drive installs.

In this blog, we'll share essential creative strategies for non-gaming success, from building a strong creative foundation for user acquisition to choosing the right ad formats and applying high-performing creative tactics.

Set a Strong Creative Foundation for UA

Analyze Your Audience and Competitors

A strong UA campaign starts with understanding why users download your app. Beyond basic demographics, you need to understand the motivation drivers behind downloads. What specific pain point is the user trying to solve? What emotion or need drives their decision? Aligning your creative's messages with these motivations ensures your creative resonates with actual user intent and is more likely to drive conversion.

Competitor analysis also helps shape creative direction and targeting. Especially if you're unsure of the market trends, research what your competitors and the leading apps in your category are doing with their creatives. However, treat these as references and do not copy everything. Use the insights to form a general benchmark for what resonates, and run creative tests to identify what actually drives your own performance.

Identify Your Core Value Proposition

In most categories, users face dozens of apps with similar functions. To stand out, you need to define what makes your app's solution unique: what makes your app faster, smarter, or more convenient than others?

This will not only help you attract more installs but also enable algorithms to learn faster. When your message and visuals consistently reflect a single, strong selling point, ad platforms can better identify and optimize toward users who are likely to convert, improving CPI and overall campaign efficiency.

Define Your Desired User Action

While the primary objective of UA campaigns is to drive installs, it is also essential to optimize the creatives for high-value downstream events that generate long-term revenue.

You can design the creative to encourage actions such as starting a free trial, making a first purchase, or setting up a recurring budget. A well-defined downstream event helps performance algorithms optimize delivery for quality users, not just clicks.

Match Creative Formats to User Intent

Different creative formats support different stages of the UA process, from awareness to commitment.

Video Ads: Video ads are the most widely used format for non-gaming campaigns due to their flexibility and high-impact visibility, within which short-form video ads have emerged as a powerful medium. You can feature straightforward informational messaging to introduce the app, real-person testimonials to explain the value, or story-driven narratives built around app utility.
Rewarded and interstitial ads: According to Marat Bulatov, Mintegral's Principal BDM for EMEA, gaming developers allocate 80–90% of their UA budgets to rewarded and interstitial ads. Non-gaming apps can leverage these formats as well, especially when targeting users already showing app interest. Rewarding users for watching an ad leads to higher engagement and is an effective way to drive downloads, while interstitials provide high visibility and efficiently drive installs at scale. Both formats are ideal choices for their cost-efficiency and strong performance potential.
Interactive and Playable Ads: Interactive ads, especially playable ads, are one of the fastest-growing ad formats in mobile app campaigns. In fact, 49% of marketers consider playables to be one of the most effective formats for user acquisition, as they allow users to try before they download. You can map out the key user journey of the map and let users go through it in the ad. This short, hands-on preview pre-qualifies users with higher intent, leading to higher conversion and better post-install quality.

Creative Tips That Drive Action

For non-gaming apps, the ad's primary goal is to demonstrate utility and relevance, or in simple terms, to show how your app solves a real user problem.
First and foremost, lead your ad with benefits. The faster users understand your value, the higher the chance of conversion. You can open with a relatable frustration, such as a phone running out of storage space, to hook their interest, and immediately follow with how your app fixes it. This approach keeps the focus on the solution and positions your app as a necessary tool.

When using interactive formats, focus on creating intuitive experiences that highlight your app's core functions through guided, hands-on demonstrations. These formats give users a preview of the app's value while building confidence in its ease of use. Similarly, if you want to leverage the interactive formats, you can focus on creating intuitive experiences that highlight the app's key features through interactive walkthroughs. To illustrate these best practices in action, we've included several playable ad examples for non-gaming app UA campaigns.

Social proof and contextual validation also play a key role in non-gaming UA. Especially for finance, utility, and e-commerce apps, emphasizing authenticity is key. UGC-style creatives featuring real people sharing testimonials or showing the app in use can build credibility and emotional trust, reinforcing the idea that the app is effective and worth downloading. Side-by-side comparisons or "before-and-after" visuals also work well, because they make improvements measurable and create instant, high-impact proof of utility.

Finally, remember that sustained UA success depends on iteration. You need to test your creative regularly, including your hooks, visuals, audios, and CTAs to find out what resonates and optimize what does not work so well. The more your campaigns experiment, the more data your algorithms gather, accelerating learning and helping you pinpoint which creative directions deliver the best CPI and retention performance.

Drive User Acquisition Success with Mobvista

With the rapid expansion of non-gaming apps in 2025, the competition for user acquisition has intensified, and advertisers need strategies tailored to evolving market dynamics. Sustained UA success depends on precision targeting, optimized spend, and creatives that align with user behavior in each vertical.

Mobvista's programmatic advertising platform, Mintegral, empowers developers to capture these opportunities with premium ad resources, advanced in-app bidding technology, and creative expertise. Whether you are looking to expand in emerging verticals, tap into regional hotspots, or optimize spend across iOS and Android, Mintegral provides the tools and insights to support your growth journey.

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