In 2025, the 25–30% YoY increase of AI-enabled creative production across iOS and Android for top gaming advertisers collided with the stark (and continued) industry reality that retention is the real level to beat for UA and monetization teams in gaming. With more than 95% of players churning in the first 30 days, getting them back is where creative innovation and measurement must take place.
But here’s the quick gut check: when a lapsed player finally comes back, is it because they saw your game again, or because they played it again?
We’ll spoil the ending but don’t miss the heuristics behind this; in short, it’s because of play. For digital marketers, the ad format mix in your retargeting stack behooves you to include getting your players to play. Sounds simple? Let’s look at how to do it.
Retargeting Works From a Different Starting Line
Consider this scenario; what’s easier, trying the daily special at a new restaurant or returning to your tried-and-true favorite? Ads function amongst a similar psychological realm. A UA ad has the job of introducing your game to a total stranger. A retargeting ad has the duty of reminding someone of a thing they already loved. That’s a much easier sell, and the numbers back it up. Retargeted users demonstrate a 152% higher engagement rate and generate 37% more revenue events in their first 30 days compared to newly acquired users.
Churned players are sitting on something a brand-new install impression doesn’t have: memory.
Players already know your game’s characters, mechanics, and what it takes to hit a win streak. You don’t need to teach them anything new, you just need to put a familar (beloved) sensation and urgency back into their recall.
That’s exactly what an interactive ad does. Video and banners remind a churned player that your game is out there. A playable ad lets them feel why they liked it in the first place, right there in the ad unit. Run both. Let each one perform its respective job.
A Tap Says What a View Never Will
A view tells you an ad got seen. That’s it. That’s all it tells you.
A tap can tell you much more. It can let your team know whether the player still enjoys playing the game. Did they finish the mini-level? That’s a yes. Did they retreat after one touch? That unfortunately, is also a clear answer, albeit one that can significantly help you rework messaging, hooks, and loops for further testing down the line.
Most retargeting measurement happens after the ad: installs, session length, D7 return. Interactive formats hand you a second, earlier signal, one that comes from inside the ad itself. And that signal isn’t inanimate, it sharpens targeting for the next video, the next banner, the next playable in the mix.
The industry’s interactive-format conversation has mostly lived in UA-land. We’ve been inside those same industry conference halls. Using play as a re-engagement targeting signal offers room to grow, and moments to prove. This is precisely what makes it a good time to test and understand the ecosystem, while others are still catching up. Use that gap to your advantage.
Three Formats, Three Different Jobs
Playables They are a spurt of gameplay inside the ad. For churned users, the strongest playables are able to prove something new; what changed since the player left? It’s always more powerful to show and tell with a “Look what you missed” phrase, over a desire to ask them to come back.
Playable End Cards This is the interactive card that shows up after a video finishes. The video does the storytelling and rebuilds the scene; the end card focuses on recreating the habit, as well as directing users what to do next; think of a finger tapping/swiping action to show how they can to continue play or learn more. This is a potent one-two punch because at one impression, two jobs get done, back-to-back. Extra attention will need to be placed when testing.
Interactive Video Here the viewer makes a choice. While watching a video that pauses mid-play, the viewer has to decide what to do with your proposal. Interactive videos are generally cheaper to produce than a full playable, and retain the variable to produce a real targeting signal. It might be the lighter option between what a full playable will provide you for feedback and R&D, but when applied well, can still record what you need for retargeting efforts.
Interestingly, some of the best-performing playables are totally standalone outside of real gameplay (a quick match, a pull-the-pin puzzle), and they often win on raw engagement alone. But the closer the mechanic sits to your real core loop, the more that tap tells you about intent inside your game. Drift too far from it, and you’re mostly learning whether people liked the mini-game serving as an ad, which ends up being a weaker signal dressed up as a strong tap-through rate.
We understand that production cycles and costs can eat into a studio’s budgets.The important piece is finding the balance between capturing interest and addressing a signal. You could start with more basic mechanic examples and work up to more complex gameplay playables. Rich media interactive ads like swipe-to-reveal and scratch-to-reveal, offer users the split-second quick choice moment that could determine your next move and cost a fraction of a full playable. If you can keep the signal via the gameplay and read on intent, you’re scratching up the right re-engagement tree.
The takeaway across all three ad formats: you don’t need a full build to get the required or most helpful signal. What you do need is quality entertainment. Play for adults has been referred to by researchers as an “activity that is enjoyable, spontaneous, involves a focus on the process of the activity rather than end-goals, requires a suspension of self-consciousness and involves a non-serious approach.” So don’t leave out the fun!
What to Test with Interactive Ad Formats
Interactive formats typically carry a higher CPM than banners or MRECs. Marketers need to look beyond media spend, and judge on cost per re-engaged user (CPRU). For a test that actually means something, 1) Don’t shrink on volume: the model needs enough interaction data to learn from the new signal. A short campaign with a tight budget won’t prove anything either way. 2) Be nimble: know when to shift gears. Your team should be learning as much as the algorithm is. Interaction patterns will tell you which mechanic, which level of difficulty, which hook to build next. Treat this playable test as a baseline, not the only way forward
Banners are still the workhorse for efficient reach and branding at volume, however interactive is where it gets interesting because it becomes the proxy for learning about how your players will play, what they expect, or where choice leads them in another direction. They serve to actually get someone back in. Lean on your DSP partner here; they’ll know what’s working by vertical, and our RevXperts are happy to run through scenarios and case studies that worked.
When you run interactive against your current static and video creative, i.e. always with the same audience and same flight dates, these are the differences to track:
- Engagement and Re-engagement rates — If nobody’s interacting, nothing downstream matters. Ask your ad and measurement partners to report this per creative; not every stack captures true in-ad interaction.
- Quality of Clicks — An interactive click follows a deliberate action, so don’t compare it like-for-like against a tap on a full-screen static. Raw click-through rate (CTR) across formats will mislead you.
- D7 post-re-engagement retention — The comeback is only as good as its staying power. A hot re-engagement number that falls apart by day 7 isn’t a win, it’s a mirage.
The Bottom Line
The reengagement numbers are compelling, but the key to know if interactive formats work or not in retargeting, is to test them yourself. The testing format will help you know if they work on your players, not other titles. Getting sorted for a properly measured month-long test is how you’ll answer that. Gaming has been a tremendous vertical in proving that play is cross-device, from a short session on public transport to the living room sofa, players adapt to various environments and screen scale, so keep this fact pertaining to multi-devices close to your creative strategies as well.
What to remember for comprehensive campaigns? Running video and banners ads in parallel keep your game present in someone’s feed. Interactive creative does something video and banners can’t, it lets a churned player remember something they’ve felt before. When you turn that opportunity into a targeting signal at the same time, you win incremental data with a better experience on the same impression.
Ready to test playables in your retargeting mix? RevX can be your partner across multichannel and cross-device campaigns; contact us.
Lauren Heineck
