Beyond the initial engagement: Almedia's VP of Product on data-driven rewarded UA

It’s no secret that rewarded user acquisition (UA) is a hot topic in the app growth sector. In the Singular ROI Index 2025, we saw a huge number of rewarded networks boasting strong growth, and some even grew so large they were categorised as full-on scaled ad networks alongside the likes of Google and Meta.

We spoke to Almedia's VP of product, Jop Habraken, to dig further into the future of rewarded UA, and how platforms can take advantage of their product to boost long-term ROAS for advertisers.

PocketGamer.biz: The industry is well aware of Rewarded UA, and it’s proven it’s here to stay. What are the limitations of the typical Rewarded UA approach?

Jop Habraken: With growth must come maturity. In the specific case of rewarded UA, I think the sector has room to grow out of short-termism. While initial engagement is the short-term goal, long-term engagement and results are what the games are looking for.

Rewarded UA can face a drop-off after initial reward completion. It doesn’t always, but the more rewarded grows, the more we need to focus on increasing the long-term ROAS of users. After all, there are only so many potential mobile gamers in the world, and I’ve seen far too many rewarded products fail to look beyond the early engagement.

What does this look like in practice?

It falls to rewarded UA platforms like Freecash to shift focus and maximise the retention of users we do have. The quality of the user is more important than ever before, so keeping users coming back falls on the product. While rewarded as a whole offers strong retention as part of its business model, the sector can’t rest easy.

We’re always making adjustments and innovating our product to improve retention rates for our partners. Whether it’s a new on-platform feature designed to encourage deeper-funnel engagement or a tailored reward structure built specifically for a certain game, focusing on long-term success has always been part of our DNA.

Are there any further developments on how Freecash’s reward structures will be improved?

Yeah, definitely! We’ve invested in building a brilliant data team here at Almedia, and my team works alongside them to focus on segmentation throughout the user journey. Not all users are equal. We continuously adjust the user experience based on many data points to achieve maximum ROAS and retention.

Basically, with every passing day, we are further personalising each individual user’s experience on Freecash, and can therefore deliver a fun and rewarding experience that creates a win-win for the user and our clients.

Our endgame is unique reward structures for each user, and with our data-driven engagement engine, we’re getting closer and closer to making this a reality, all the while improving ROAS and retention.

It’s great to have engagement early on. That’s a big aspect to driving rewarded UA’s impressive growth in recent years. It isn’t good enough to just accept this and assume success, though. You need to stand out from the crowd, and we’re doing this by digging deeper into the data behind these early engagements. This makes our average user, and thus our platform, far more valuable in the long term.

Does focusing on longer-term value potentially risk your ability to attract new users?

We’ve actually found the changes we’re making to benefit long-term user retention to either barely impact or even help in the acquisition of new users.

A personalised experience isn’t exclusively useful for the player with thousands of hours in-game and daily Freecash task completions. It’s also great for the new user who might need easing into the rewarded experience, allowing them to become a higher-value user later down the line.

Our product is all about driving better long-term value without sacrificing the all-important new user experience.

By segmenting users utilising every available data point and analysing these data points to a deep level, rewarded UA platforms can stand out from the crowd for both the consumer and advertiser.

What advice would you give to publishers when it comes to this shift in UA strategy?

You might be able to tell, we’re big on data. So, give your rewarded partner as much event data as possible! We tailor our campaigns to each app on our platform, so extra information allows your campaign to be more bespoke and unique!

This works on the consumer side, too - the more opportunities we get to reward the user, the more we can segment our user base and increase the value of our users.

I said earlier that not all users are equal, but with deep data and a better understanding of player behaviour, it’s possible to encourage users to become more valuable.

Oh, and don’t settle for less than an advertising partner dedicated to growth in both the short and long term.