Welcome to Gamelight’s Growth Guides! In this fourth installment, we are exploring the key performance indicators (KPIs) you need to focus on when analyzing what’s working, what’s not, and what can be optimized in your mobile marketing campaigns.
In particular, we will cover the essential KPIs that every UA team should be tracking:
-
CTR (Click-Through Rate)
-
IPM (Installs Per Mille)
-
ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)
-
ARPPU (Average Revenue Per Paying User)
-
Conversion Rate
These metrics help you understand thoroughly your campaign’s performance, going beyond stats like impressions and downloads, and bringing into the equation user behavior or monetization efficiency.
It doesn’t matter if you’re focused on optimizing creatives, testing new traffic sources, or refining targeting; you should always keep these KPIs at the forefront of your campaign.
In this guide, we’ll look at how to connect Paid UA and ASO, use insights from one to improve the other, and build a strategy that drives results beyond short-term spikes.
CTR (CLICK-THROUGH RATE)
What is it?
CTR measures how often users who see your ad actually click on it.
Formula:


Example:
100,000 impressions + 2,000 clicks = 2% CTR.
Why it matters
CTR indicates the strength of your creatives and targeting. A high CTR shows your ads are catching attention; a low CTR, however, can mean weak creatives, poor targeting, or ad fatigue.
Tips to improve CTR:
-
Test strong headlines and value-driven CTAs
-
Use high-contrast visuals or animations
-
Tailor creatives by audience segment
-
Localize ads for top regions
CTR shows what works for your app in terms of store creatives, and what doesn’t. A higher CTR tells you users are interested, intrigued, and eager to download your app. To optimize your app store listing, rely on good old A/B testing. Test your screenshots, even just the first three. If resources are limited, focus on the first one, it makes the biggest impact. A huge percentage of users drop off if the first screenshot isn’t relevant, engaging, or doesn’t showcase value immediately. There are plenty of A/B testing tools out there, but if you want real data-backed results quickly, I recommend working with experts. Agencies like Applica are pros at A/B testing and can help you get meaningful insights quickly.
As Lina Danilchik, Content Lead at Applica, explains:
CTR = (Clicks ÷ Impressions) × 100
IPM (INSTALLS PER MILLE)
What is it?
IPM measures how many installs you get per 1,000 impressions, combining CTR and Conversion Rate.
Formula:


Example: If your ad received 500,000 impressions and 2,500 installs, your IPM would be: (2,500 ÷ 500,000) × 1,000 = 5.0 IPM
Why it matters
A high IPM can lead to better placement in ad networks and lower CPIs. A low IPM often means something’s not working: maybe users are clicking but not installing, or your ad isn’t connecting with the right audience.
Ways to boost IPM:
-
Use engaging, relevant creatives
-
Improve your app store page (icon, screenshots, description)
-
Tailor creatives by geography
IPM = (Installs ÷ Impressions) × 1,000
“IPM (Installs Per Mille) shows how many installs you get per 1,000 impressions. High IPM usually means creatives have high CTR and high Conversion Rate too. That's why misleading ads might have high CTR but low IPM.”
Vladimir Demenko, Head of UA at AdChampagne Games adds:
Tips to increase ARPU:
-
Improve ad placements, but keep UX in mind
-
Test pricing and value bundles for IAPs
-
Encourage users to engage with rewarded ads
-
Increase session length and frequency through better onboarding
ARPU (AVERAGE REVENUE PER USER)
What is it?
ARPU tracks how much revenue you earn on average from each user, no matter if they pay or not.
How to calculate it:


It takes into consideration revenue made from in-app purchases, ads and subscriptions, so ARPU helps you understand the monetization efficiency of your whole user base.
Why it matters
ARPU is essential for calculating ROAS and LTV. By knowing your ARPU and CPI, you can quickly understand if your campaign is profitable.
Vladimir Demenko adds:
"ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) shows how much money you earn per each user (installs). That helps to control your profit by having CPI lower than ARPU."
ARPU = Total Revenue ÷ Total Users
ARPPU (AVERAGE REVENUE PER PAYING USER)
What is it?
ARPPU tells you how much your paying users spend on average. This is different from ARPU, which includes all users.
How to calculate it:


Why it matters
ARPPU helps you evaluate purchase behavior and monetization depth. A high ARPPU may mean users are finding good value in your IAPs, or that a few whales are driving your revenue.
Tracking ARPPU over time can help you segment your spending users and design better monetization flows.
ARPPU = Revenue from Paying Users ÷ Number of Paying Users
How to improve ARPPU:
-
Offer tiered value packs and seasonal promotions
-
Unlock premium features or exclusive content
-
Introduce smart cross-sells or upsell moments
ARPPU (Average Revenue per Paying User) tells you exactly how much revenue you gain from your paying users. Unlike ARPU, which includes non-paying users and can blur insights, ARPPU focuses only on those segments who actually generate revenue.
ARPPU is calculated by dividing total revenue by the number of paying users within a specific period. It’s especially valuable for apps and games that rely on in-app purchases or subscriptions, as it helps you understand your most profitable customers and assess how effective your monetization strategies really are.
By tracking ARPPU, you can uncover what drives your high-value users to spend, which features or content keep them engaged, and how their spending behavior changes over time. These insights are key to optimizing monetization, designing smarter paywalls and offers, and developing features that retain your best spenders.
In short, if you want to understand who’s truly powering your revenue and how to grow that segment, ARPPU is the metric to watch.
Lina Danilchik explains why ARPPU is a crucial metric:
What is it?
Conversion Rate measures the percentage of users who install your app after clicking your ad.
How to calculate it:


This metric helps you spot if your app store page is doing its job. If people are clicking but not installing, the problem isn’t your ad; it’s your landing experience.
Why it matters
A low conversion rate usually points to:
A mismatch between ad promise and app store experience
Weak store assets (icon, screenshots, video)
Low store rating or bad reviews
Improving this metric can boost ROAS without increasing ad spend.
Ways to boost Conversion Rate:
-
Match your ad creative to your store page visuals and messaging
-
A/B test icons, videos, and screenshots
-
Improve your app rating (via review prompts, bug fixes)
-
Localize store content by country
Everyone obsesses over the final click, but the crucial conversion — turning a new install into an engaged user — happens in the first five minutes.
Once inside the app, users don’t care about your clever ad campaign; they care about 'What's in it for me, right now?' So the biggest factor is the immediate payoff of your ad's promise. If your ad showed epic dragon battles, I'd better see a dragon, not a ten-step tutorial.
Onboarding should feel like a dynamic conversation, not a static tour. Even with minimal data (like the campaign source), you can personalize that first session. A/B test your welcome messages and in-app flows with the same rigor you test creatives.
And once the spark is there, keep the dialogue alive. Use a mix of owned channels — push notifications, in-app messages, WhatsApp, and so on. Through meaningful micro-moments, you can deepen that initial engagement and guide them toward a purchase without repelling them.
As Max Konev, CEO of Pushwoosh, stresses:
CONVERSION RATE
Conversion Rate = (Installs ÷ Clicks) × 100
BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
Each of these KPIs serves a specific role, but together, they give you a full picture of performance:
-
CTR shows how well your ads attract attention
-
IPM shows how well your ads turn impressions into installs
-
Conversion Rate shows how well your store page converts traffic
-
ARPU tells you how much value you're getting from users
-
ARPPU helps you understand your paying users' behavior
KPI JOURNEY MAP
CTR
Did the ad grab attention?
Conversion rates
Did the store seal the deal?
ARPPU
How much do payers spend?
IMP
Did attention turn into installs?
ARPU
What’s the average value per user?
To make sense of what the data really means, it’s crucial to look beyond single numbers and understand how each KPI connects to the others.
"One of the most common mistakes I see is treating KPIs in isolation. A strong UA team reads metrics like a story: from impression to long-term retention. At Gamelight, we never optimize for IPM or eCPI alone; we optimize for lifetime impact. Context is everything."
In that sense, Günay Azer, Co-founder of Gamelight, points out:
When CTR is high but IPM is low, we optimize store assets.
When ARPU drops, we rework monetization flows.
When Conversion Rate dips, we align creatives with store content.
This performance loop is what allows us to scale with precision; not just more users, but better ones.